composer-python

This repository provides a Python library for Composer. For convenience, the Composer documentation is repeated below using Python bindings instead of JavaScript.

Composer is a new programming model for composing cloud functions built on Apache OpenWhisk. With Composer, developers can build even more serverless applications including using it for IoT, with workflow orchestration, conversation services, and devops automation, to name a few examples.

This repository includes:

• the composer Python library for authoring compositions using Python,
• the pycompose and pydeploy commands for compiling and deploying compositions,
• documentation, examples, and tests.

Installation

You need Python 3 installed on your system.

Install from source

$ git clone https://github.com/ibm-functions/composer-python.git
$ cd composer-python
$ pip3 install -e .
$ pycompose -h
usage: pycompose composition.py command [flags]
$ pydeploy -h
usage: pydeploy composition composition.json [flags]

Install using pip

$ pip3 install git+https://github.com/ibm-functions/composer-python.git

Defining a composition

A composition is typically defined by means of a Python expression as illustrated in samples/demo.py:

import composer

def authenticate(args):
    return {'value': args['password'] == 'abc123'}

def success(args):
    return {'message': 'success'}

def failure(args):
    return {'message': 'failure'}

def main():
    return composer.when(
        composer.action('authenticate',  { 'action': authenticate }),
        composer.action('success', { 'action': success }),
        composer.action('failure', { 'action': failure }))

Compositions compose actions using combinator methods. These methods implement the typical control-flow constructs of a sequential imperative programming language. This example composition composes three actions named authenticate, success, and failure using the composer.when combinator, which implements the usual conditional construct. It takes three actions (or compositions) as parameters. It invokes the first one and, depending on the result of this invocation, invokes either the second or third action.

Deploying a composition

One way to deploy a composition is to use the pycompose and pydeploy commands:

$ pycompose demo.py > demo.json
$ pydeploy demo demo.json -w
ok: created /_/authenticate,/_/success,/_/failure,/_/demo

The pycompose command compiles the composition code to a portable JSON format. The pydeploy command deploys the JSON-encoded composition creating an action with the given name. It also deploys the composed actions if definitions are provided for them. The -w option authorizes the deploy command to overwrite existing definitions.

Running a composition

The demo composition may be invoked like any action, for instance using the IBM Cloud CLI:

$ ibmcloud fn action invoke demo -p password passw0rd
ok: invoked /_/demo with id 09ca3c7f8b68489c8a3c7f8b68b89cdc

The result of this invocation is the result of the last action in the composition, in this case the failure action since the password in incorrect:

$ ibmcloud fn activation result 09ca3c7f8b68489c8a3c7f8b68b89cdc
{
    "message": "failure"
}

Execution traces

This invocation creates a trace, i.e., a series of activation records:

$ ibmcloud fn activation list
Datetime            Activation ID                    Kind     Start Duration   Status  Entity
2019-03-15 16:43:22 e6bea73bf75f4eb7bea73bf75fdeb703 nodejs:6 warm  1ms        success guest/demo:0.0.1
2019-03-15 16:43:21 7efb6b7354c3472cbb6b7354c3272c98 nodejs:6 cold  31ms       success guest/failure:0.0.1
2019-03-15 16:43:21 377cd080f0674e9cbcd080f0679e9c1d nodejs:6 warm  2ms        success guest/demo:0.0.1
2019-03-15 16:43:20 5dceeccbdc7a4caf8eeccbdc7a9caf18 nodejs:6 cold  29ms       success guest/authenticate:0.0.1
2019-03-15 16:43:19 66355a1f012d4ea2b55a1f012dcea264 nodejs:6 cold  104ms      success guest/demo:0.0.1
2019-03-15 16:43:19 09ca3c7f8b68489c8a3c7f8b68b89cdc sequence warm  3.144s     success guest/demo:0.0.1

The entry with the earliest start time (09ca3c7f8b68489c8a3c7f8b68b89cdc) summarizes the invocation of the composition while other entries record later activations caused by the composition invocation. There is one entry for each invocation of a composed action (5dceeccbdc7a4caf8eeccbdc7a9caf18 and 7efb6b7354c3472cbb6b7354c3272c98). The remaining entries record the beginning and end of the composition as well as the transitions between the composed actions.

Compositions are implemented by means of OpenWhisk conductor actions. The documentation of conductor actions explains execution traces in greater details.