Proto Sample

• Overview
• Architecture
• Quick Start
• Development
• Deployment
• Data Model

Overview

This Proto Sample repository provides a psuedo type-driven, data-model-first example for application design that showcases standardization and automatic generation of dependent data and application components. By starting with a well-defined, core data model using protobuf, application owners are able to create compiled libraries, sample servers or clients, and documentation using specific plugins and extensions based on the core model. This initial, non-exhaustive list includes the primary features:

• Protobuf data model
• gRPC service interface
• language specific libraries
• simple gRPC server
• CLI client examples

These additional features in the Proto Sample are utilized for simplcity:

• relational database storage
• object relational mapping

The Data Model Dependency Graph highlights data model dependencies with the foundational layer at the bottom which is utilized to automate the build-out of the upstream components.

Data Model Dependency Graph

flowchart BT
  subgraph data-model[" "]
    direction LR
    DATA-MODEL([Data Model])
    INTERFACES([RPC Interfaces])
    PROTO([Proto Messages])
    DATA-MODEL -.->|uses|PROTO & INTERFACES
  end

  subgraph libraries[" "]
    direction RL
    LIBRARIES([Compiled Libraries])
    OPENAPI([OpenAPI Spec])
    DOCS([Documentation])
    STUBS([Client & Server Stubs])
    PROXY([Generated Proxy])
    SCHEMA([DB Schemas])
  end

  PROTO --> |protoc-gen|LIBRARIES
  PROTO --> |protoc-gen-sql/avro|SCHEMA
  INTERFACES --> |protoc-gen-grpc-gateway|PROXY
  INTERFACES --> |protoc-gen-openapi|OPENAPI
  INTERFACES --> |protoc-gen-docs|DOCS
  INTERFACES --> |protoc-gen-grpc|STUBS

  subgraph clients[" "]
    direction RL
    %% Golang & Python & JAVA & XYZ["..."]
    R-CLIENT["REST client"]
    G-CLIENT["gRPC client"]
  end

  subgraph docs[" "]
    G-DOCS["gRPC docs"]
    R-DOCS["REST docs"]
  end

  subgraph apis[" "]
    direction RL
    REST[REST Service] & GRPC[gRPC Service]
    REST <-->|transcodes|GRPC
  end

  PROXY -.->|imports|REST

  OPENAPI -.->|generates|R-DOCS
  OPENAPI -.->|utilizes|R-CLIENT

  DOCS -.-> |utilizes|G-DOCS
  LIBRARIES -.->|imports|G-CLIENT
  STUBS -.->|utilizes|G-CLIENT

  R-CLIENT -->|calls|REST
  G-CLIENT -->|calls|GRPC
  STUBS -..->|utilizes|GRPC

%% linkStyle 0,3 color:green;
class libraries,data-model,apis,clients,docs someclass;
classDef someclass fill:#F4FAFC,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff,stroke-dasharray: 5 5

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The gRPC service's interface, method, and REST transcoded resources follow the Google Cloud API and API Improvement Proposals naming standards (here and here)

Architecture

Quick Start

Validation

Follow the instructions in the Testing document to validate (and test) your gRPC server with some examples.

Development

Follow the instructions in the Development document to setup a development environment.

Deployment

Wishlist

These are some additional feature components I would like to include/showcase in this example

• automated build tool (Bazel added)
• deployment configurations
• gRPC to REST transcoding
• custom data model field extensions
• schema and DDL converters
• tests, tests, tests!