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multibot

A programmatic multi-repository helper.

Multibot allows you to invoke actions (read, etc.) on 1+ files in 1+ repositories concurrently. It is meant to be a helper tool for multi-project updates, branches, pull requests, etc.

Install

$ npm install multibot

Usage

A friendly multi-repository robot.

Usage: multibot --action=<string> [options]

Options:
  --action          Actions to take
    [string] [choices: "read", "branch", "commit", "pull-request", "branch-to-pr"] [default: "read"]
  --branch-src      Source branch to start from / target for pull request
                                                                        [string] [default: "master"]
  --branch-dest     Destination branch to create / commit / open in a pull request          [string]
  --allow-existing  Allow existing destination branches / PRs for `--action=branch|pull-request`?
                                                                          [boolean] [default: false]
  --files           List of files (space delimited) to read / transform                      [array]
  --org             GitHub organization for repos (can be instead specified on repos)       [string]
  --repos           GitHub repositories (space delimited) of form `repo` or `org/repo`
                                                                                  [array] [required]
  --gh-user         GitHub user name (needs user + pass)                                    [string]
  --gh-pass         GitHub password (needs user + pass)                                     [string]
  --gh-token        GitHub token                                                            [string]
  --auth            Use authentication (limited functionality without)     [boolean] [default: true]
  --gh-host         GitHub host URL (for enterprise)                                        [string]
  --gh-path-prefix  GitHub path prefix (for enterprise). E.g., '/api/v3'                    [string]
  --transform       Path to transform JS file                                               [string]
  --format          Display output format
                                        [string] [choices: "json", "text", "diff"] [default: "diff"]
  --msg             Commit message / pull request description                               [string]
  --title           Title for pull request (fallback to first line of `--msg`)              [string]
  --dry-run         Skip / simulate all mutating actions                  [boolean] [default: false]
  -h, --help        Show help                                                              [boolean]
  -v, --version     Show version number                                                    [boolean]

Examples:
  multibot --action=branch-to-pr --gh-token=TOKEN     Create branch, commits, and PR for new
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 --files    `feature-foo` branch
  README.md --transform=/PATH/TO/transform.js
  --branch-dest=feature-foo --title='PR from Bot'
  --msg='BotBot'

Transforms

The bread and butter of Multibot is actually changing files across many projects in a sensible and predictable way. A "transform" is really just a JS file exporting a method with the following signature:

/**
 * Transform contents of file to new format.
 *
 * @param {Object}    obj           File object.
 * @param {String}    obj.repo      Repository name
 * @param {String}    obj.file      File path
 * @param {String}    obj.contents  UTF8 content of file (or `null` if doesn't exist)
 * @param {Function}  callback      Send transformed contents to `(err, newContents)`
 * @returns {void}
 */
module.exports = function (obj, callback) {
  callback(null, obj.contents.replace("multibot", "MULTIBOT ROCKS!!!"));
};

A transform is hooked into a multibot action with the option: --transform=PATH/TO/file.js (absolute or relative paths work).

The repo and file fields are passed in the case that you wish to have conditional transform logic, while still operating over a lot of files.

The contents field will be null if the source file does not presently exist in the repository.

There are four things a transform can really do:

These are obviously very powerful features, and should be thoroughly tested with --action=read which provides essentially a dry-run of a real commit action.

Note that a file cannot be both created (source is null) and deleted (transform produces null) at the same time.

Also note that all files passed into a string and transformed must be strings. Do not allow a transform to process anything that is not UTF8 string data. (We could refactor multibot in the future to accomodate non-string formats.)

Note - Repeated Transforms

Be very careful to inspect and watch your transforms for repeated runs if a --action=commit fails for some, but not all, repositories and you're retrying. The reason is that for repositories that succeeeded the first time, the transform will get applied again with potentially negative results unless you plan for this.

For example, if you have a situation like:

// --transform=rocks.js
module.exports = function (obj, callback) {
  callback(null, obj.contents.replace("multibot", "multibot ROCKS!!!"));
};

// --files README.md
Woah, multibot

A sucessful transform would produce:

// --files README.md
Woah, multibot ROCKS!!!

However, if that transform was run again (say this repo succeed first time but others failed, so you're running the same commit command again):

// --files README.md
Woah, multibot ROCKS!!! ROCKS!!!

which is probably not what we want. The remedy for this specific situation is to either, adjust the repositories passed to --repos on the command line to remove the success, or to refactor the transform to be able to run repeatedly. Here, that may just be detecting that ROCKS!!! doesn't already occur, or allowing it to, then squashing it.

// --transform=rocks.js
module.exports = function (obj, callback) {
  callback(null, obj.contents
    .replace("multibot", "multibot ROCKS!!!") // Add the rocks
    .replace("ROCKS!!! ROCKS!!!", "ROCKS!!!") // Squash the rocks if 2
  );
};

Actions

Multibot can initiate various read-only and repository-mutating actions. A basic workflow for initiating a change across multiple repositories via a PR would look like:

First, check the transform looks good without changing anything:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --transform=foo.js --files README.md \
  --action=read \
  --format=diff

If that looks good, then create a branch, commit the transform, and open a PR:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-src=master \
  --branch-dest=feature-foo \
  --action=branch \
  --format=text

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --transform=foo.js --files README.md \
  --branch-dest=feature-foo \
  --action=commit \
  --format=diff

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-dest=feature-foo \
  --msg=$'A big change\nfrom a bot.' \ # Note use of bash ANSI C parsing of newline
  --action=pull-request \
  --format=text

or all as a single command:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --transform=foo.js --files README.md \
  --branch-src=master \
  --branch-dest=feature-foo \
  --msg=$'A big change\nfrom a bot.' \
  --action=branch-to-pr

read

Read files from repositories, optionally applying a --transform. Does not mutate the underlying repositories. Great for doing a test run of the future mutating actions with multibot.

Example:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --transform=foo.js --files README.md \
  --action=read \
  --format=diff

Flags:

Note that because we do one shot HTTP requests for existing contents to a repository, multibot can't distinguish a single file not being found (normal, means you'd create one) with a non-existent repo which will error in other commands.

branch

Create a branch in repositories.

Example:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-src=master \
  --branch-dest=branch-o-doom \
  --action=branch \
  --format=text

Flags:

commit

Commit changes from a transform to a non-master branch in a repository. Typically, you will create a new branch first with --action=branch and then fill it with 1+ commits using --action=commit here.

Example:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-dest=branch-o-doom \
  --files README.md LICENSE docs/DANGER.md \
  --action=commit \
  --transform="PATH/TO/transformify.js" \
  --msg="Add some DANGER to the repo files." \
  --format=diff

With a transform file: PATH/TO/transformify.js

module.exports = function (obj, callback) {
  // CREATE a new file if none exists. Here `obj.file === "docs/DANGER.md"`
  if (obj.contents === null) {
    callback(null, "DANGER! DANGER!\n");
    return;
  }

  // DELETE a specific file by file path.
  if (obj.file === "LICENSE") {
    callback(null, null);
    return;
  }

  // UPDATE everything else to emphasize danger.
  callback(null, obj.contents.replace(/danger/g, "DANGER"));
};

Will create a new tree with the updates, deletes, and creates. If the operation on a specific repository is a noop, no actual mutation actions are performed.

Flags:

Note that if a specific repository has no actual changes, no commit will be created. (E.g., multibot won't create an empty commit.)

Commit API Notes

Creating commits with the GitHub API (and well, git) is a tad complex. We actually have two separate scenarios for a commit based on whether or not there is a file deletion (from a null transform contents value).

If there are no deletes, then multibot gets posts new blobs for all the existing / new files, then updates the current branch tree reference off of the base tree.

If there are deletes, then we have to retrieve the entire existing tree first. This runs the risk of truncated results if a tree is too large for the GitHub API is returned. If we have truncated results in any tree in a commit action, then multibot simply fails without having performed any mutations. If we get the entire tree without truncation, then multibot continues.

Once we have the full tree, then we can actually perform deletes by removing existing blob references while splicing in our updates / creates and creating a new tree without a base tree reference, which completely replaces the entire former tree.

pull-request

Create a pull request from a branch in repositories.

Example:

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-src=master \
  --branch-dest=branch-o-doom \
  --action=pull-request \
  --title="The Bots have arrived" \
  --msg="...and are making mischief" \
  --format=text

Flags:

branch-to-pr

Create a branch, add commits, open a PR. An "all-in-one" aggregator for a common use case for multibot.

$ multibot \
  --org FormidableLabs --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --branch-src=master \
  --branch-dest=branch-o-doom \
  --files README.md LICENSE docs/DANGER.md \
  --transform="PATH/TO/transformify.js" \
  --action=branch-to-pr \
  --title="The Bots have arrived" \
  --msg="...and are making mischief" \
  --format=diff

Flags:

Note that we disallow the following flags here:

GitHub API

multibot has the convenient feature that it never touches disk to perform any repository / branch operations. This is done by relying entirely on the GitHub API for operations.

This also means that multibot must stay within the API rate limits. If you go beyond the limit, you will most likely encounter 403 HTTP error codes. If this happens, check your rate limit with:

$ curl -H "Authorization: token OAUTH-TOKEN" https://api.github.com/rate_limit

Look at the remaining field to see how many requests you have left for the hour. GitHub currently allows authenticated users to make up to 5,000 requests per hour.

Enterprise GitHub

multibot supports GitHub enterprise installations that use the v3 API. The relevant options that you may need to use include:

Put together, a full-fledged command for GitHub enterprise might look like:

$ multibot \
  --gh-token=<SNIPPED> \
  --gh-host=my-github.my-company.com \
  --gh-path-prefix="/api/v3" \
  --org EnterpriseGHOrg --repos repo1 repo2 repo3 \
  --transform=foo.js --files README.md \
  --action=read \
  --format=diff

Maintenance Status

Archived: This project is no longer maintained by Formidable. We are no longer responding to issues or pull requests unless they relate to security concerns. We encourage interested developers to fork this project and make it their own!