* Remove git-revision from dependency graph The navigator binary depended on the current git-revision. The issue is that any target/test depending on the git-revision will have to be rebuilt/rerun on every commit. The navigator package itself was careful to avoid unnecessary rebuilds/reruns. However, the SDK release tarball depends on the navigator binary and thereby on the git-revision. The daml-assistant integration tests, which depend on the SDK release tarball, therefore had to be rerun on every commit. This change removes the git-revision from the navigator alltogether. For issue reporting the SDK version is still available. * Remove unused git-revision and workspace_status
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Navigator
The Navigator is a web-app that connects to any Digital Asset ledger and allows the user to inspect contracts, create contracts, and exercise choices.
The Navigator can be used in development mode (see below) or packaged into a "fat" JAR that includes the compiled frontend assets for distribution.
Navigator architecture
To learn more about developing the different parts of the Navigator see:
Building Navigator
To build a "fat" JAR of the Navigator that includes the pre-compiled front-end assets, run:
bazel build //navigator/backend:navigator-binary_deploy.jar
This produces a "fat" JAR bazel-bin/navigator/backend/navigator-binary_deploy.jar
which can be run with:
java -jar bazel-bin/navigator/backend/navigator-binary_deploy.jar
Notable things in the Navigator build:
backend/src/test/resources/schema.graphql
Manually written, must be consistent with backend/src/main/scala/com/digitalasset/navigator/graphql/GraphQLSchema.scala
. Consistency is checked in a test.
frontend/src/**/api/Queries.ts
Generated from backend/src/test/resources/schema.graphql
with an external codegen tool.
Currently, these files are checked in and updated with make update-graphql-types
.
frontend bundled code
Code from frontend/src/**/*.ts*
, compiled using TypeScript, and bundled with Webpack.
Output includes:
bundle-[hash].js
: bundled frontend code, name uses content hasing.browsercheck-[hash].js
: tiny module for checking browser compatibility, name uses content hasing.- Several image and font files, referenced by the above modules. File names use content hashing.
index.html
: Single page application main entry, references the above modules.
Note: Browsers are instructed never to cache index.html
, and indefinitely cache all other files. This is why content hashing is used.
backend binary
Scala binary, compiled as a fat JAR.
Code from backend/src/**/*.scala
, bundled frontend code is copied to backend/src/main/resources/frontend
.
backend version
The version is included as resource files in the Navigator fat jar. This is to reduce rebuild times when the version changes.
frontend development build
For developing frontend code, webpack-dev-server
is used. This serves the current frontend code on a separate port, and does:
- Watch
*.ts
files for changes - Perform incremental builds
- Send a push notification to the browser, automatically reloading the page when the build is finished.
- Forward network requests to a different port, where a Navigator backend is expected to run.
This is orders of magnitude faster than what the current Bazel build offers, so it is desirable to keep the webpack-dev-server
setup working.
Note, the browser is instructed to cache assets based on the SDK version. During development this is too aggressive and you will need to manually refresh to see updates to the front-end.