STRUCTURE

This section describes the filesystem layout for NDIplatforms Drush makefiles. To understand how to use them to build platforms, please see the Usage section. To better understand how these makefiles are maintained, please see the Maintenance section.

Filesystem layout

For simplicity, we are limiting our discussion to the DemTools Civi and DKAN platforms. Several more platforms will be included in NDIplatforms, and this system scales very well. However, listing them all here would complicate explanations.

Drush makefiles allow for the inclusion of other makefiles. In order to reduce duplication and encourage these makefiles to be self-documenting, NDIplatforms makes extensive use of makefile includes.

Here is the layout of makefiles/ directory:

$ tree makefiles
makefiles/
├── cores
│   ├── drupal7
│   │   ├── build.yml
│   │   ├── core.make.yml
│   │   └── lock.yml
│   └── drupal8
│       ├── build.yml
│       ├── core.make.yml
│       └── lock.yml
├── demtools
│   ├── civicrm
│   │   ├── build.yml
│   │   ├── contrib.make.yml
│   │   ├── custom.make.yml
│   │   └── lock.yml
│   └── dkan
│       ├── build.yml
│       ├── contrib.make.yml
│       ├── custom.make.yml
│       └── lock.yml
└── stock
    ├── civicrm
    │   ├── build.yml
    │   ├── contrib.make.yml
    │   └── lock.yml
    └── dkan
        ├── build.yml
        ├── lock.yml
        └── profile.make.yml

9 directories, 20 files

There are 3 top-level directories: cores/, stock/ and demtools/. Each of these include a directory for a number of flavours. Wthin each of these, we find the actual makefiles, build files and lockfiles. We examine these in more detail later.

Types of Drush makefiles

*.make.yml

These Drush makefiles define projects and libraries, but normally don't specify any versions. They are not usually used on their own. Instead they get included in build makefiles.

build.yml

Build makefiles, sometimes called stubs, do not contain any actual project definitions. Instead, they only include other makefiles (of the .make.yml variety) that define the core, extentions, and themes used. It may also contain overrides to the projects defined in the includes.

lock.yml

Lockfiles are generated from build makefiles (see the Maintenance section. They have versions specified for all projects. This helps in ensuring that deployments of platforms (code-bases) from them are repeatable. This process takes a stub (build) makefile, compiles all its inclusions, then checks with http://update.drupal.org to determine the latest versions of all the components. This is then written out as a lockfile, similar to what we see with Composer or Gem.

Types of platforms

To encourage re-use and modularity, we split up our makefiles into "layers". Each layer includes the lockfile(s) generate from the the previous one.

Cores

Cores simply contain various versions of Drupal. The lockfiles get included into the stock build.yml files.

Stock

stock/ contains minimalist implementations of underlying applications: CiviCRM and DKAN (so far). These are useful for debugging, and isolating issues between the applications and the DemTools customizations.

The build.yml files each include a core lockfile, along with any makefiles. The generated lockfiles, are then included in the DemTools build.yml files.

DemTools

Finally, demtools/ contains the platforms used by DemTools: stock applications plus addtional contrib and custom components, as well as overrides to the projects included from lower layers.