Packaging Stacks

Packaging allows a stack developer to build all the components of a stack and enables the stack to be used via Appsody CLI commands. The packaging process typically involves: building the stack container image, creating archive files for the source code and each template, and configuring a local Appsody repository.

The easiest way to package a stack is to use the Appsody CLI, however, you can use CI scripts if you want to package multiple stacks.

Packaging a stack locally using the Appsody CLI

To package your stack locally, run:

appsody stack package

Run this command from the base directory of your stack, or specify the path to your stack: appsody stack package <path/to/stack>.

This builds the stack container image, creates archives for the source code and each template, and adds your stack to the dev.local repository in your Appsody configuration.

Using your packaged stack

To see the repository named dev.local, that points to the generated index, run:

appsody repo list

The output should look something like this:

NAME            URL
*incubator      https://github.com/appsody/stacks/releases/latest/download/incubator-index.yaml                    
dev.local       file:///$HOME/.appsody/stacks/dev.local/dev.local-index.yaml                  
experimental    https://github.com/appsody/stacks/releases/latest/download/experimental-index.yaml

To check the built stack is visible in the dev.local repository, run:

appsody list dev.local

The output should look something like this:

REPO                    ID              VERSION     TEMPLATES           DESCRIPTION                      
dev.local               <stack-id>      <version>   *<template>         <stack-description>

Create a project directory and within it use the Appsody CLI to create new projects using the packaged stack:
```
appsody init dev.local/<stack-id>
```

Next steps

After you create, or update a stack, you should test the stack. For more information, see Testing Stacks.