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Configlet

The official tool for managing Exercism language track repositories.

Download

Each track should have a bin/fetch-configlet script, and might have a bin/fetch-configlet.ps1 script too. The first is a bash script, and the second is a PowerShell script.

Running one of these scripts downloads the latest version of configlet to the bin directory. You can then use configlet by running bin/configlet, or bin/configlet.exe on Windows.

Verifying

Exercism signs each configlet release archive with minisign.

For now, if you want to verify the signature of a configlet release, you need to do it manually. The fetch-configlet script may support checking the release signature in the future, but it won't require checking it: Exercism doesn't want to require every fetch-configlet user to install minisign.

To verify a release archive, first download (from the assets section of a release) the archive and its corresponding .minisig file. Write them to the same directory. For example, to verify the configlet 4.0.0-beta.13 Linux x86-64 release, download these files to the same directory:

configlet_4.0.0-beta.13_linux_x86-64.tar.gz
configlet_4.0.0-beta.13_linux_x86-64.tar.gz.minisig

Then run a minisign command in that directory:

minisign -Vm configlet_4.0.0-beta.13_linux_x86-64.tar.gz -P RWQGj6DTXgYLhKvWJMGtbDUrZerawUcyWnti9MGuWMx7VDW9DqZn2tMZ

where the argument to -P is the configlet public key.

The preceding command has verified the release archive if (and only if) the command's output begins with Signature and comment signature verified. For example:

Signature and comment signature verified
Trusted comment: timestamp:2023-08-09T10:27:15Z  file:configlet_4.0.0-beta.13_linux_x86-64.tar.gz  hashed

Then extract the archive to obtain the (now-verified) configlet executable. You may delete the archive and the .minisig file.

Usage

The application is a single binary, and you can use it as follows:

Usage:
  configlet [global-options] <command> [command-options]

Commands:
  completion  Output a completion script for a given shell
  create      Add a new exercise, approach or article
  fmt         Format the exercise 'config.json' files
  generate    Generate Concept Exercise 'introduction.md' files from 'introduction.md.tpl' files
  info        Print some information about the track
  lint        Check the track configuration for correctness
  sync        Check or update Practice Exercise docs, metadata, and tests from 'problem-specifications'.
              Check or populate missing 'files' values for Concept/Practice Exercises from the track 'config.json'.
  uuid        Output new (version 4) UUIDs, suitable for the value of a 'uuid' key

Options for completion:
  -s, --shell <shell>             Choose the shell type (required)
                                  Allowed values: b[ash], f[ish], z[sh]

Options for create:
      --approach <slug>           The slug of the approach
      --article <slug>            The slug of the article
      --practice-exercise <slug>  The slug of the practice exercise
      --concept-exercise <slug>   The slug of the concept exercise
  -e, --exercise <slug>           Only operate on this exercise
  -o, --offline                   Do not update the cached 'problem-specifications' data
  -a, --author                    The author of the exercise, approach or article
  -d, --difficulty                The difficulty of the exercise (default: 1)

Options for fmt:
  -e, --exercise <slug>           Only operate on this exercise
  -u, --update                    Prompt to write formatted files
  -y, --yes                       Auto-confirm the prompt from --update

Options for generate:
  -e, --exercise <slug>           Only operate on this exercise
  -u, --update                    Prompt to write generated files
  -y, --yes                       Auto-confirm the prompt from --update

Options for info:
  -o, --offline                   Do not update the cached 'problem-specifications' data

Options for sync:
  -e, --exercise <slug>           Only operate on this exercise
  -o, --offline                   Do not update the cached 'problem-specifications' data
  -u, --update                    Prompt to update the unsynced track data
  -y, --yes                       Auto-confirm prompts from --update for updating docs, filepaths, and metadata
      --docs                      Sync Practice Exercise '.docs/introduction.md' and '.docs/instructions.md' files
      --filepaths                 Populate empty 'files' values in Concept/Practice exercise '.meta/config.json' files
      --metadata                  Sync Practice Exercise '.meta/config.json' metadata values
      --tests [mode]              Sync Practice Exercise '.meta/tests.toml' files.
                                  The mode value specifies how missing tests are handled when using --update.
                                  Allowed values: c[hoose], i[nclude], e[xclude] (default: choose)

Options for uuid:
  -n, --num <int>                 Number of UUIDs to output

Global options:
  -h, --help                      Show this help message and exit
      --version                   Show this tool's version information and exit
  -t, --track-dir <dir>           Specify a track directory to use instead of the current directory
  -v, --verbosity <verbosity>     The verbosity of output.
                                  Allowed values: q[uiet], n[ormal], d[etailed] (default: normal)

configlet lint

The primary function of configlet is to do linting: checking if a track's configuration files are correctly structured - both syntactically and semantically. Misconfigured tracks may not sync correctly, may look wrong on the website, or may present a suboptimal user experience. Configlet's checks are therefore important for maintaining the integrity of Exercism.

The configlet lint command is still under development. The list of currently implemented checks is here.

configlet sync

A Practice Exercise on an Exercism track is often implemented from a specification in the exercism/problem-specifications repository.

Exercism intentionally requires that every exercise has its own copy of certain files (such as .docs/instructions.md), even when that exercise exists in problem-specifications. Therefore configlet has a sync command, which can check that such Practice Exercises on a track are in sync with that upstream source, and can update them when updates are available.

There are three kinds of data that configlet can update from problem-specifications: documentation, metadata, and tests. There is also one kind of data that configlet can populate from the track-level config.json file: filepaths in exercise config files.

Later sections describe the checking and updating of these data kinds, but as a quick summary:

• configlet sync only operates on exercises that exist in the track-level config.json file. Therefore if you are implementing a new exercise on a track and want to add the initial files with configlet sync, add the exercise to the track-level config.json file first. If the exercise isn't yet ready to be user-facing, set its status value to wip.
• A plain configlet sync makes no changes to the track, and checks every data kind for every exercise.
• To operate on a subset of data kinds, use some combination of the --docs, --filepaths, --metadata, and --tests options.
• To interactively update data on the track, use the --update option.
• To non-interactively update docs, filepaths, and metadata on the track, use --update --yes.
• To non-interactively include every unseen test for a given exercise, use (for example) --update --tests include --exercise prime-factors.
• To skip downloading the problem-specifications repository, add --offline --prob-specs-dir /path/to/local/problem-specifications
• Note that configlet sync tries to preserve the key order in exercise .meta/config.json files when updating. To write these files in a canonical form without syncing, use the configlet fmt command. However, configlet sync does add (possibly empty) required keys (authors, files, blurb) when they're missing. This is less like syncing, but more ergonomic: when implementing a new exercise, you can use sync to create a starter .meta/config.json file.
• configlet sync removes keys that aren't in the spec. Custom key/value pairs are still supported, but you must write them inside a JSON object named custom.
• Configlet exits with an exit code of 0 when all the seen data are up to date, and 1 otherwise.

Note that in configlet releases 4.0.0-alpha.34 and earlier, the sync command operated only on tests.

Docs

A Practice Exercise that originates from the problem-specifications repository must have a .docs/instructions.md file (and possibly a .docs/introduction.md file too) containing the exercise documentation from problem-specifications.

To check every Practice Exercise on the track for available documentation updates (exiting with a nonzero exit code if at least one update is available):

configlet sync --docs

To interactively update the docs for every Practice Exercise, add the --update option (or -u for short):

configlet sync --docs --update

To non-interactively update the docs for every Practice Exercise, add the --yes option (or -y for short):

configlet sync --docs --update --yes

To operate on a single Practice Exercise, use the --exercise option (or -e for short). For example, to non-interactively update the docs for the prime-factors exercise:

configlet sync --docs -uy -e prime-factors

Metadata

Every exercise on a track must have a .meta/config.json file. For a Practice Exercise that originates from the problem-specifications repository, this file should contain the blurb, source and source_url key/value pairs that exist in the corresponding upstream metadata.toml file.

To check every Practice Exercise for available metadata updates (exiting with a nonzero exit code if at least one update is available):

configlet sync --metadata

To interactively update the metadata for every Practice Exercise, add the --update option (or -u for short):

configlet sync --metadata --update

To non-interactively update the metadata for every Practice Exercise, add the --yes option (or -y for short):

configlet sync --metadata --update --yes

To operate on a single Practice Exercise, use the --exercise option (or -e for short). For example, to non-interactively update the metadata for the prime-factors exercise:

configlet sync --metadata -uy -e prime-factors

Tests

If a track implements an exercise for which test data exists in the problem-specifications repository, the exercise must contain a .meta/tests.toml file. The goal of the tests.toml file is to track which tests the exercise implements. Each test in this file has a UUID to identify it, and may have an include key to specify whether the test is implemented.

A tests.toml file has this format:

# This is an auto-generated file.
#
# Regenerating this file via `configlet sync` will:
# - Recreate every `description` key/value pair
# - Recreate every `reimplements` key/value pair, where they exist in problem-specifications
# - Remove any `include = true` key/value pair (an omitted `include` key implies inclusion)
# - Preserve any other key/value pair
#
# As user-added comments (using the # character) will be removed when this file
# is regenerated, comments can be added via a `comment` key.

[1e22cceb-c5e4-4562-9afe-aef07ad1eaf4]
description = "basic"

[79ae3889-a5c0-4b01-baf0-232d31180c08]
description = "lowercase words"

[ec7000a7-3931-4a17-890e-33ca2073a548]
description = "invalid input"
include = false
comment = "excluded because we don't want to add error handling to the exercise"

In this case, the track has chosen to implement two of the three available tests. If a track uses a test generator to generate an exercise's test suite, it must use the contents of the tests.toml file to determine which tests to include in the generated test suite.

To check every Practice Exercise tests.toml file for available tests updates (exiting with a nonzero exit code if there is at least one test case that appears in the exercise's canonical data, but not in the tests.toml):

configlet sync --tests

To interactively update the tests.toml file for every Practice Exercise, add the --update option:

configlet sync --tests --update

For each missing test, this prompts the user to choose whether to include/exclude/skip it, and updates the corresponding tests.toml file as appropriate. Configlet writes an exercise's tests.toml file when the user has finished making choices for that exercise. This means that you can exit configlet at a prompt (for example, by pressing Ctrl-C in the terminal) and only lose the syncing decisions for at most one exercise.

To non-interactively include every unseen test case, use --tests include. For example, to do so for an exercise named prime-factors:

configlet sync --tests include -u -e prime-factors

Remember to actually implement these tests on the track.

Filepaths

Finally, the sync command also handles "syncing" from a source that isn't problem-specifications - the track-level config.json file. Every Concept Exercise and Practice Exercise must have a .meta/config.json file with a files object that specifies the (relative) locations of the files that the exercise uses. Such filepaths usually follow a simple pattern, and so configlet can populate the exercise-level values from patterns in the files key of the track-level config.json file.

To check that every Concept Exercise and Practice Exercise on the track has a fully populated files key (or at least one that configlet can populate from the track-level files key):

configlet sync --filepaths

(Note that configlet lint also produces an error when an exercise has a missing or empty files key.)

To populate empty or missing values of the exercise-level files key for every Concept Exercise and Practice Exercise from the patterns in the track-level files key:

configlet sync --filepaths --update

To do this non-interactively and for a single exercise named prime-factors:

configlet sync --filepaths -uy -e prime-factors

Using sync when adding a new exercise to a track

The sync command is useful when adding a new exercise to a track. If you are adding a Practice Exercise named foo that exists in problem-specifications, one possible workflow is:

1. Manually add an entry to the track-level config.json file for the exercise foo. This makes the exercise visible to configlet sync.
2. Run configlet sync --docs --filepaths --metadata -uy -e foo to create the exercise's documentation, and a starter .meta/config.json file with populated files, blurb, and perhaps source and source_url values.
3. Edit the exercise .meta/config.json file as needed. For example, add yourself to the authors array.
4. Run configlet sync --tests include -u -e foo to create a .meta/tests.toml file with every test included.
5. View that .meta/tests.toml file, and add include = false to any test case that the exercise won't implement.
6. Implement the tests for the exercise to match those included in .meta/tests.toml.
7. Add the other required files.

configlet fmt

An Exercism track repository has many JSON files, including:

• The track config.json file.

• For each concept, a .meta/config.json and links.json file.

• For each Concept Exercise or Practice Exercise, a .meta/config.json file.

These files are more readable if they have a consistent formatting Exercism-wide, and so configlet has a fmt command for rewriting a track's JSON files in a canonical form.

The fmt command currently only operates on the exercise .meta/config.json files, but it's likely to operate on all the track JSON files in the future.

A plain configlet fmt makes no changes to the track, and checks the formatting of the .meta/config.json file for every Concept Exercise and Practice Exercise.

To print a list of paths for which there isn't already a formatted exercise .meta/config.json file (exiting with a nonzero exit code if at least one exercise lacks a formatted config file):

configlet fmt

To make configlet prompt to write formatted config files, add the --update option (or -u for short):

configlet fmt --update

To non-interactively write the formatted config files, add the --yes option (or -y for short):

configlet fmt --update --yes

To operate on a single exercise, use the --exercise option (or -e for short). For example, to non-interactively write the formatted config file for the prime-factors exercise:

configlet fmt -uy -e prime-factors

When writing JSON files, configlet fmt will:

• Write the key/value pairs in the canonical order.

• Use two spaces for indentation.

• Use a separate line for each item in a JSON array, and each key in a JSON object.

• Remove key/value pairs for keys that are optional and have empty values. For example, it removes "source": "".

• Remove "test_runner": true from Practice Exercise config files. This is an optional key - the spec says that an omitted test_runner key implies the value true.

• When a JSON object has more than one key/value pair with some key name, keep only the final one.

The canonical key order for an exercise .meta/config.json file is:

- authors
- [contributors]
- files
  - solution
  - test
  - exemplar           (Concept Exercises only)
  - example            (Practice Exercises only)
  - [editor]
  - [invalidator]
- [language_versions]
- [forked_from]        (Concept Exercises only)
- [test_runner]        (Practice Exercises only)
- [representer]
  - version
- [icon]
- blurb
- [source]
- [source_url]
- [custom]

where the square brackets indicate that the enclosed key is optional.

Note that configlet fmt only operates on exercises that exist in the track-level config.json file. Therefore if you are implementing a new exercise on a track and want to format its .meta/config.json file, add the exercise to the track-level config.json file first. If the exercise isn't yet ready to be user-facing, set its status value to wip.

The exit code is 0 when every seen exercise has a formatted .meta/config.json file when configlet exits, and 1 otherwise.

configlet uuid

Each exercise and concept has a UUID, which must only appear once across all of Exercism. It must be a valid version 4 UUID (compliant with RFC 4122) in the canonical textual representation, which means that it must match this regular expression:

^[0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-4[0-9a-f]{3}-[89ab][0-9a-f]{3}-[0-9a-f]{12}$

You can run configlet uuid to output a new, appropriate UUID. There is also the -n, --num option for outputting multiple new UUIDs:

$ configlet uuid --num 5
3823f890-be49-4700-baac-e19de8fda76f
c12309a2-8bd6-4b9c-a511-e1ee4083f492
26167ad5-fe20-43d4-8b1f-3bbb9618c36e
5df11ac0-e612-4223-b0f8-f6cd2cb15cb1
e42b94bb-9c90-47f2-aebb-03cdbc27bf3b

configlet generate

Each concept exercise and concept have an introduction.md file. If you want the exercise's introduction to include the concept's introduction verbatim, you can create a introduction.md.tpl file to achieve this. This file may use a placeholder to refer to the concept's introduction, so that the information isn't duplicated.

Concept placeholders must use the following format:

%{concept:<slug>}

For example, if the track has a concept named floating-point-numbers then an introduction.md.tpl file can contain:

%{concept:floating-point-numbers}

You can run configlet generate to generate the exercise's introduction.md for any exercise that has an introduction.md.tpl file. The generated introduction.md is identical to the introduction.md.tpl, except that configlet replaces concept placeholders with the contents of the concept's introduction.md file (minus its top-level heading). In the future, configlet generate will also increment the level of other headings by 1 (for example from ## My Heading to ### My Heading), but this isn't yet implemented.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/exercism/configlet.