Dependencies management and project inheritance¶

Overview¶

To work with the RMK project’s repository, RMK needs to resolve and install additional dependencies that are described in the project.yaml file. The inheritance configuration of the upstream project’s repository is defined in the project.dependencies section of the project.yaml file. All inherited upstream project repositories will be loaded into the .PROJECT directory in the root directory according to the sections described in the project.yaml file.

To override inherited versions of dependencies and add-ons described in the inventory, you need to specify the entire block with all the required fields.
inventory:
  # ...
  hooks:
    helmfile.hooks.infra:
      version: v1.18.0
      url: git::https://github.com/<owner>/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
  # ...
Dependency resolution occurs when executing almost any RMK command, except for those in the rmk project command category.

Change dependency versions of the inherited project’s repository¶

Find the project section in the project.yaml file and change the version value to the needed stable tag. For example:

project:
  dependencies:
    # ...
    - name: <upstream_repository_prefix>.bootstrap.infra
      version: v2.17.0 # e.g., a different version of the dependency is required by this project
      url: git::https://github.com/<owner>/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...

Then, in the helmfiles section of the helmfile.yaml.gotmpl file the {{ env “HELMFILE_<project_name>_PATHS” }} environment variable will be used, this way RMK will manage the dependencies of the nested Helmfiles.

The variable name is formed according to the following template: HELMFILE_<project_name>_PATHS. This mechanism is necessary for resolving circular dependencies correctly.

Change inherited versions of Helmfile hooks¶

RMK allows to avoid controlling the versioning of the Helmfile hooks through the project.yaml file of the downstream project’s repository, instead of it, RMK allows inheriting these version hooks from the upstream project’s repository. It also supports multi-versioning of the Helmfile hooks as part of the inheritance from several upstream projects by a downstream project.

In order for these features to work, you need to use the {{ env “HELMFILE_<current_project_name>_HOOKS_DIR” }} variable in helmfile.yaml.gotmpl. For example:

commonLabels:
  # ...
  bin: {{ env "HELMFILE_RMK_TEST_HOOKS_DIR" }}/bin
# ...

Let’s look at the following examples of the inheritance:

Hook version inheritance from the upstream project’s repository:

The project.yaml file of the downstream project is the following:

project:
  dependencies:
    - name: rmk-test.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...

In this case, a version of the Helmfile hooks in the inventory.hooks section is not specified, however, it is indicated that the current project of the repository inherits rmk-test.bootstrap.infra with the v0.1.0 version. In turn, rmk-test.bootstrap.infra inherits the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository. The project.yaml file for the rmk-test.bootstrap.infra repository is also missing the version of the hooks:

project:
  dependencies:
    - name: cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...

Also, the project.yaml file of the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository will contain the version of the Helmfile hooks, which will finally be inherited by the downstream project’s repository.

inventory:
  # ...
  hooks:
    helmfile.hooks.infra:
      version: v1.29.1
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
  # ...

There is no project.dependencies section in the project.yaml file of the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository, since there is no inheritance.

This configuration scheme is the most common and has the following inheritance scheme for the Helmfile hooks:

Project repo name:            cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra -> rmk-test.bootstrap.infra -----> <downstream_project>.bootstrap.infra
Project repo version:         v0.1.0                          v0.1.0                          <downstream_project_version>
Hooks repo name with version: helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.1 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.1 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.1

Hook version inheritance from the upstream project’s repository in case the rmk-test project has a fixed version of the Helmfile hooks specified in its project.yaml file:

The project.yaml file of the downstream project is the following:
```
project:
  dependencies:
    - name: rmk-test.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...
```
In this case, the version of the Helmfile hooks in the inventory.hooks section is not specified, however, it is indicated that the current project of the repository inherits rmk-test.bootstrap.infra with the v0.1.0 version. In turn, rmk-test.bootstrap.infra inherits the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository which already has its own fixed version of v1.29.0 of the Helmfile hooks in the inventory.hooks section:
```
project:
  dependencies:
    - name: cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
# ...
inventory:
  # ...
  hooks:
    helmfile.hooks.infra:
      version: v1.29.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
  # ...
```
The project.yaml file of the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository will contain the version of the Helmfile hooks, which will be inherited by the downstream project’s repository:
```
inventory:
  # ...
  hooks:
    helmfile.hooks.infra:
      version: v1.29.1
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
  # ...
```
This configuration scheme will look like this:
```
Project repo name:            cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra -> rmk-test.bootstrap.infra -----> <downstream_project>.bootstrap.infra
Project repo version:         v0.1.0                          v0.1.0                          <downstream_project_version>
Hooks repo name with version: helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.1 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.0 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.29.1
```
The downstream project’s repository will inherit the latest version of Helmfile hooks, specifically from the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository. As a result, in the downstream project’s repository, we will have the two loaded versions of Helmfile hooks:
- One will be relevant for the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository and the downstream project’s repository.
- Another will be relevant for the rmk-test.bootstrap.infra repository.
This mechanism allows for multi-versioning support of the Helmfile hooks at different levels of the inheritance.
Hook version inheritance from the upstream project’s repository in case the downstream project has a fixed version of cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra specified in its project.yaml file:

The project.yaml file of the downstream project is the following:
```
project:
  dependencies:
    - name: cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.2.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}       
    - name: rmk-test.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...
```
The dependencies should be declared in the correct order of inheritance: the first one is cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra, then rmk-test.bootstrap.infra, then other repositories (if needed).

In this case, a version of the Helmfile hooks in the inventory.hooks section is not specified, however, it is indicated that the current project of the repository inherits rmk-test.bootstrap.infra with the v0.1.0 version. In turn, rmk-test.bootstrap.infra inherits the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository. The project.yaml file for the rmk-test.bootstrap.infra repository is also missing the version of the hooks:
```
project:
  dependencies:
    - name: cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra
      version: v0.1.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
    # ...
```
The project.yaml file of the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository of the v0.2.0 version will contain the version of the Helmfile hooks, which will be inherited by the downstream projects:
```
inventory:
  # ...
  hooks:
    helmfile.hooks.infra:
      version: v1.30.0
      url: git::https://github.com/edenlabllc/{{.Name}}.git?ref={{.Version}}
  # ...
```
This configuration scheme will look like this:
```
Project repo name:            cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra -> rmk-test.bootstrap.infra -----> <downstream_project>.bootstrap.infra
Project repo version:         v0.2.0                          v0.1.0                          <downstream_project_version>
Hooks repo name with version: helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.30.0 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.30.0 -> helmfile.hooks.infra-v1.30.0
```
Since the downstream project’s repositories inherit the Helmfile hooks from the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra repository, and we redefined the cluster-deps.bootstrap.infra dependency in the downstream project’s, all repositories will inherit this concrete version, and only it will be downloaded.

Change inherited versions of Helm plugins, tools¶

The same inheritance method as for the Helmfile hooks is supported for the inventory’s helm-plugins and tools sections.

If a specific version is not specified, the latest version from the upstream project’s repository will be used. In this case, multi-versioning is not supported, and only one version will be downloaded.

All add-ons versions in the inventory section must be specified in the SemVer2 format, as the inheritance mechanism relies on this format to distinguish the version order.

Last update: February 17, 2025