ioBroker adapter creator

Command line utility to quickly create a new adapter or VIS widget for ioBroker:

Prerequisites

Any computer with Node.js in version 18 or higher and npm 9 or higher. Note that the created adapters or ioBroker itself may have different requirements.

Usage

This tool is not supposed to be installed. Instead, run the most recent version using

npx @iobroker/create-adapter@latest [options]

in the directory where the directory of your project should be created. You don't need to create the adapter/widget directory, because it will be created for you. WARNING: If the path contains a space, this won't work.

After a short while, you will be asked a few questions. Afterwards all the necessary files will be created for you.

Options

The following CLI options are available:

• --target=/path/to/dir - Specify which directory the adapter files should be created in (instead of the current dir). Shortcut: -t
• --skipAdapterExistenceCheck - Don't check if an adapter with the same name already exists on npm. Shortcut: -x
• --replay=/path/to/file - Re-run the adapter creator with the answers of a previous run (the given file needs to be the .create-adapter.json in the root of the previously generated directory). Shortcut: -r
• --migrate=/path/to/dir - Run the adapter creator with the answers pre-filled from an existing adapter directory (the given path needs to point to the adapter base directory where io-package.json is found). Shortcut: -m

All CLI options can also be provided as environment variables by prepending CREATE_ADAPTER_. Example: CREATE_ADAPTER_TARGET=/tmp/iobroker/create-adapter/

Environment variables

Besides all environment variables mentioned above under "Options" the following variables change the behavior of the application:

• GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS - if this is pointing to a valid JSON file, the Google API v3 will be used for translations, make sure that the credentials are allowed to use the Google Translation API. Check the documentation for more details.

Features

• Choose between: ioBroker adapter, VIS widget or both
• Ask for package metadata (with automatic translation):
  • Title (mandatory)
  • Short description (optional)
  • Adapter start mode
  • Adapter/VIS category
  • Keywords (optional)
• IntelliSense (auto completion and tooltips) in supporting editors based on the ioBroker declaration files
• JavaScript with the following optional tools:
  • ESLint for code quality
  • Type checking based on the ioBroker declarations, including strongly-typed adapter.config properties
• Or TypeScript with the following optional tools:
  • ESLint for code quality
  • Automatic formatting with Prettier
  • nyc for code coverage
  • strongly-typed adapter.config properties
• Choose between indentation: tabs or 4 spaces
• Choose your preferred quote style
• Integration in the ioBroker admin UI:
  • Settings page
  • An extra tab (optional)
  • Custom datapoint-specific options (optional)
• React as an alternative to plain HTML+CSS for the admin and extra tab UI, based on @iobroker/adapter-react
• Predefined settings page for the admin UI
• Choice of an OpenSource license and automatic creation of the license file
• Built-in component tests using mocha, chai (with chai-as-promised) and sinon (with sinon-chai) for:
  • Correctly defined package files
  • and your own tests...
• Automated testing using Github Actions, including a script for semantic release of new versions

Developing

First of all: DO NOT push changes to master directly! Just don't. Every change should be done through PRs, which have a template with a checklist to fill out. This makes sure that master always works and every change is documented.

For developers of this package, there are a few things to know:

• npm run build creates a fresh build and deletes old build files. This is necessary when template files are renamed or deleted, as the compiled files will still be there.
• npm run watch keeps compiling incremental changes whenever you save a source file.
• The directory /templates contains a bunch of templates, which are basically TypeScript files exporting a single method:
  • This method accepts an object with the user's answers and returns a string or Promise<string> containing the output file.
  • The last extension (.ts) is removed when creating the output file. Setting the customPath property of the template method allows you to override the output path of the file, either a constant or depending on the user's answers (function).
  • The outputted files are automatically formatted to have the correct indentation and multiple empty lines are removed. If you don't want this, set noReformat to true.
• Test your changes with npm test and/or write relevant tests. For a couple of representative combination of answers, baseline adapter directories are generated. If those baselines are changed as a result of your changes, please review if those changes are desired.

Publishing

Do not publish directly using npm. Instead create a new release with the release script npm run release .... This creates a tag on github, performs a test run on Github Actions and after a successful build automatically publishes to npm.

You can semantically increase the version and publish it by using

npm run release [<releaseType> [<postfix>]] [-- --dry]

(preferably) or set a specific version by using

npm run release <version> [-- --dry]

The option -- --dry (don't forget the first pair of dashes) performs a dry run without updating files. The available release types are:

• major
• premajor
• minor
• preminor
• patch
• prepatch
• prerelease

and the pre-... versions allow you to append a postfix like -beta.