docassemblecli provides command-line utilities for interacting with
docassemble servers. This package is meant to be installed on your
local machine, not on a docassemble server.
The dainstall, dacreate, and dadownload utility programs require
that you have Python installed on your computer. If you are using
MacOS or Linux, you probably have Python installed already.
If you are using Windows and you have not installed Python before, it
is recommended that you download Python from the python.org download
page rather than using the Microsoft Store. When you run the
installer, there will be two checkbox options ("Use admin privileges
when installing py.exe" and "Add python.exe to PATH"), and you should
check both of them. Later on in the installation, you may be prompted
to extend the maximum length of the PATH variable beyond 250
characters. You should click the button to make this
change. Installing Python this way will make it much easier to run the
utilities because you will not need to manually adjust your PATH.
Note that when you have installed Python on Windows, an application
called "Python" will be available from the start menu. This
application runs the Python Interpreter. The Python Interpreter is a
very useful tool, but it is not the tool for installing
docassemblecli or running the command line utilities dainstall,
dacreate, and dadownload. To run these commands, you need to use
the Windows command line application, called cmd.
In order to install docassemblecli and use the utilities, you will
need to run an application that gives you a command line. On MacOS,
you can use the Terminal application, which comes with the operating
system. On Windows, you can go to the start menu and search for "cmd,"
which is the name of the Windows command line application.
To install docassemblecli from PyPI, run:
pip3 install docassemblecli
If you get an error, you may not have installed Python, or may not
have installed it correctly. If you only have Python 2.7 installed,
install the latest version of Python instead (e.g., Python 3.12 or
greater.) If you know you have installed Python, but pip3 is not a
recognized command, you might need to manually adjust your PATH.
To upgrade docassemblecli after you have already installed it, do:
pip3 install --upgrade docassemblecli
docassemblecli provides a command-line utility called dacreate,
which creates an empty docassemble add-on package.
To create a package called docassemble-foobar, run:
dacreate foobar
You will be asked some questions about the package and the
developer. This information is necessary because it goes into the
setup.py, README.md, and LICENSE files of the package. If you do
not yet know what answers to give, just press enter, and you can edit
these files later.
When the command exits, you will find a directory in the current
directory called docassemble-foobar containing a shell of a
docassemble add-on package.
You can run dacreate --help to get more information about how
dacreate works:
usage: dacreate [-h] [--developer-name DEVELOPER_NAME]
[--developer-email DEVELOPER_EMAIL]
[--description DESCRIPTION] [--url URL] [--license LICENSE]
[--version VERSION] [--output OUTPUT]
[package]
positional arguments:
package name of the package you want to create
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--developer-name DEVELOPER_NAME
name of the developer of the package
--developer-email DEVELOPER_EMAIL
email of the developer of the package
--description DESCRIPTION
description of package
--url URL URL of package
--license LICENSE license of package
--version VERSION version number of package
--output OUTPUT output directory in which to create the package
docassemblecli provides a command-line utility called dainstall,
which installs a Python package on a remote server using files on your
local computer.
For example, suppose that you wrote a docassemble extension package
called docassemble.foobar using the docassemble Playground. In
the Playground, you can download the package as a ZIP file called
docassemble-foobar.zip. You can then unpack this ZIP file and you
will see a folder called docassemble-foobar. Inside of this folder
there is a folder called docassemble and a setup.py file. Your
interview YAML files will be in the folder
docassemble/foobar/data/questions. Your templates will be in the
folder docassemble/foobar/data/templates. Your modules will be in
the folder docassemble/foobar. Now you can use your favorite text
editor to edit your .yml and .py files, and you can use
dainstall to install the package on your server so that you can test
your changes.
From the command line, use cd to navigate to the folder that
contains the docassemble-foobar folder. Then run:
dainstall docassemble-foobar
The first time you run this command, it will ask you for the URL of
your docassemble server and the API key of a user with admin or
developer privileges.
It will look something like this:
$ dainstall docassemble-foobar
Base URL of your docassemble server (e.g., https://da.example.com): https://dev.example.com
API key of admin user on http://localhost: H3PWMKJOIVAXL4PWUJH3HG7EKPFU5GYT
Saved base URL and API key to .docassemblecli
Waiting for package to install.............................
Installed.
The next time you run dainstall, it will not ask you for the URL and
API key.
You can run dainstall --help to get more information about how
dainstall works:
usage: dainstall [-h] [--apiurl APIURL] [--apikey APIKEY] [--norestart]
[--watch] [--force-restart] [--server SERVER] [--playground]
[--project PROJECT] [--add] [--noconfig] [--debug]
[directory]
positional arguments:
directory
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--apiurl APIURL base url of your docassemble server, e.g.
https://da.example.com
--apikey APIKEY docassemble API key
--norestart do not restart the docassemble server after installing
package (only applicable in single-server environments)
--watch watch the directory for changes and install changes when
there is a change
--force-restart unconditionally restart the docassemble server after
installing package
--server SERVER use a particular server from the .docassemblecli config
file
--playground install into your Playground instead of into the server
--project PROJECT install into a specific project in the Playground
--add add another server to the .docassemblecli config file
--noconfig do not use the .docassemblecli config file
--debug use verbose logging
For example, you might want to pass the URL and API key in the command itself:
dainstall --apiurl https://dev.example.com --apikey H3PWMKJOIVAXL4PWUJH3HG7EKPFU5GYT docassemble-foobar
If you have more than one server, you can run:
dainstall --add
to add an additional server configuration to store in your
.docassemblecli config file. Then you can select the server using
--server:
dainstall --server dev.example.com docassemble-foobar
If you do not specify a --server, the first server indicated in your
.docassemblecli file will be used.
The --norestart option can be used when your docassemble
installation only uses one server (which is typical) and you are not
modifying .py files. In this case, it is not necessary for the Python
web application to restart after the package has been installed. This
will cause dainstall to return a few seconds faster than otherwise.
The --force-restart option should be used when you want to make sure
that docassemble restarts the Python web application after the
package is installed. By default, dainstall will avoid restarting
the server if the package has no module files and all of its
dependencies (if any) are installed.
By default, dainstall installs a package on the server. If you want
to install a package into your Playground, you can use the
--playground option.
dainstall --playground docassemble.foobar
If you want to install into a particular project in your Playground,
indicate the project with --project.
dainstall --playground --project testing docassemble-foobar
Installing into the Playground with --playground is faster than
installing an actual Python package because it does not need to run
pip.
If you are using a multi-server configuration, it is safe to run
dainstall --playground with --norestart if you are only changing
YAML files, because Playground YAML files are stored in cloud storage
and will thus be available immediately to all servers.
You can run dainstall with the --watch option if you want your
package to be automatically updated on the server every time a file in
your package directory is changed.
For example, suppose you run:
dainstall --watch --playground --project testing docassemble-foobar
This will monitor the docassemble-foobar directory, and if any file
within the directory is modified, or a new file is created, the
package will be reinstalled into the testing project of the
Playground belonging to the owner of the API key.
To exit, type Ctrl-c.
The --watch feature tries to be as efficient as possible. If you
modify a file in the data folder, it will not restart the server
afterward. However, it will restart the server if you modify a .py
file, because otherwise you would not be able to see the effect of the
change. If you are using --playground, the dainstall --watch
feature will only upload the specific file or files that you modified,
rather than uploading the whole package.
Thus, for the fastest development experience, use --watch and
--playground.
If you encounter problems, try running dainstall with the --debug
option.
The dadownload utility downloads a package from a docassemble
server and saves it to the current working directory. It connects to
a docassemble server in the same way that dainstall does.
usage: dadownload [-h] [--overwrite] [--apiurl APIURL] [--apikey APIKEY]
[--server SERVER] [--playground] [--project PROJECT] [--add]
[--noconfig]
[package]
positional arguments:
package
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--overwrite overwrite existing files
--apiurl APIURL base url of your docassemble server, e.g.
https://da.example.com
--apikey APIKEY docassemble API key
--server SERVER use a particular server from the .docassemblecli config
file
--playground download from the Playground
--project PROJECT download from a specific project in the Playground
--add add another server to the .docassemblecli config file
--noconfig do not use the .docassemblecli config file
For example, if you run dadownload docassemble.foo (or dadownload foo, which will do the same thing), a directory docassemble-foo
will be created, containing the docassemble.foo package that is
installed on the docassemble server.
If you use --playground, then the files specified in a package in
the Packages folder of the Playground will be collected and downloaded
to the current working directory.
Without --playground, the package that is installed on the server
will be downloaded to the current working directory. This only works
if the package was installed by uploading a ZIP file. (Note that the
dainstall command installs packages by uploading a ZIP file.) If the
package you want to download is on GitHub, use git clone to obtain
it. If the package is only on PyPI, use pip download to download the
code.
By default, dadownload will not overwrite any existing files. You
can override this by specifying --overwrite.
Text editors that create hidden and temporary files
Text editors often create hidden files and hidden directories in your
project folder for their own purposes, such as backup files and files
that facilitate linting. This can be problematic when you are using
git, because you do not want these temporary files to appear on
GitHub. These files may cause dainstall --watch to think that a
file in your project has been modified, when it actually has not.
The dainstall command tries to avoid this. If you have git
installed, dainstall will call git ls-files to see what your
.gitignore file is screening out, and then tries to avoid these
files. It also uses regular expressions to avoid certain files and
directories.
If your development environment triggers dainstall --watch too much,
submit a GitHub issue in the jhpyle/docassemblecli repository
explaining the situation. It may be possible to tweak the code to
avoid the unnecessary triggering.