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Building a More Advanced Code Vessel

Overview​

In this tutorial, you'll walk through the steps required to set up a more advanced Vessel that prints Hello, World. This contains many of the same steps as our original Hello World tutorial, with added steps to teach more features of the platform. This tutorial is only in Python (for now).

By the end of the tutorial, you'll be able to:

Setup​

caution

For the sake of the this tutorial, we suggest starting off by building a Vessel inside either the Playground Project or a Testing Project. You can follow this tutorial to set that up.

First, download this code, named hello_world_advanced.zip to your computer without making any changes.

Feel free to peruse this script beforehand so you understand everything that it's doing. The script is accomplishing four main things:

  1. Prints Hello and {your_name} by referencing the command argument of --name.
  2. Prints custom text that is stored as an environment variable called CUSTOM_TEXT.
  3. Connects to an external API, using the requests library, to find and print a random Cat Fact.
  4. Prints information about the current run, including a timestamp and a link to the current log by using Platform Environment Variables.

Steps​

  1. Using the sidebar, click on Projects to navigate to the All Projects page.
  2. Click on either the Playground or Testing Project.
  3. Hover over the + New button in the top-right corner of the screen and click New Vessel.

  1. A modal will pop up asking you how you would like to use to build your Vessel. On the left side of the modal, you'll see an option for a With Code. Click this option.

success

You've successfully started the setup flow for building a Vessel with code.

We'll now walk through the process of filling out Vessel Wizard to create our Advanced "Hello World" Vessel.

Step 1 - Select a Language​

Click on the Python option. You'll be immediately redirected to the next step.

Step 2 - Provide your Code​

  1. On the left side of the screen, select the Upload option.
  2. Click the upload section icon and select the hello_world_advanced.zip file from your computer.
  3. On the right-hand side of the screen, there is a field entitled File to Run. Because the .zip contains a single python file named hello_world_advanced.py, you'll need to use that name.
  4. Click the + icon next to Arguments to create a new command argument.
  5. In the flag field on the left-hand side, type --name.
  6. In the value field on the right-hand side of the new argument, type your name.

Once you're done, click the Next Step button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 3 - Requirements​

Environment Variables​

  1. Click the + icon next to Environment Variables to add a new variable.
  2. In the Name field on the left-hand side, type CUSTOM_TEXT.
  3. In the Value field, type The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.. This text will be printed at the end.
note

The value field will always show ••••••• as you type. This is because Environment Variables are commonly used for passwords and secrets. You can always reveal what you've written by clicking the eye icon.

Packages​

  1. Click the + icon next to Packages to add a new package.
  2. In the Package Name field on the left-hand side, type requests.
  3. In the Version field on the right-hand side, type ==2.22.0
caution

The Version must match the formatting for requirements files.

Once you're done, go ahead and click the Next Step button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 4 - Settings​

  1. Under the Information section, give your Vessel the name of Hello World - Advanced.
  2. Under the notifications section, make sure that your email is listed. It should be added by default.
  3. Add an additional notification email of helloworld@shipyardapp.com. You'll notice that you can add any user or alias to the notification list, whether or not they have access to your organization.
  4. Under the Guardrails section, set the Number of Retries to 2x and the Time Between Retries to 5m.
  5. Click the Save & Finish button at the bottom of the screen.

info

We changed the default Guardrails because of the potential for the Cat Facts API to have connection issues.

Step 5 - Running the Vessel On-Demand​

  1. Click Run Now at the top right of the page. This will schedule your Vessel to run immediately and redirect you to the Vessel Log page.

You should see the following page that shows you all of the details about the specific Log.

note

If the Vessel has a Status of Scheduled or Running you may see sections of this page that are incomplete.

Wait a few seconds for your Vessel to run. The page will automatically refresh.

In the output, you'll see a total of 6 things.

  1. Shipyard creates a working directory under /home/shipyard/
  2. Shipyard downloads the file you created under the Code section, decompresses it, and begins to run hello_world_advanced.py
  3. Shipyard prints the text Hello, {your name}!
  4. Shipyard prints out the custom text you wrote, stored under the environment variable CUSTOM_TEXT.
  5. Shipyard prints out a cat fact.
  6. Shipyard prints out your Vessel Name, the time it ran, and a link to that specific run.

Step 6 - Viewing all Logs​

  1. Switch to the Logs tab at the top. This will redirect you back to all of the Logs for the Vessel you just made.
  2. You should see a log that has been triggered On Demand from you clicking the Run Now button.

Success

You've successfully created and verified an Advanced Hello World Vessel.