Making start-docker Contract-Agnostic

[amessbee]

This is a twin of a PR in dapp-agoric-basics repo.

Goal of this PR is to (maybe partially) close #92. Currently running of agoriclocal chain and deploying and starting contract are intertwined in this dapp. This is somewhat unnatural as chain should not depend on the files of any specific contract - apart from the ones that designated essential for its running.
Further, running a chain independent of a specific contract will allow testing of multiple dapp simultaneously running and interacting with each other which may unlock several scenarios that a developer may want to test for.

As per discussion with @toliaqat, here is a plan:

• docker compose file should not mount the contract directory as a volume. Rather it should mount (ideally) a single script (run-chain.sh) that necessary tasks for running of chain independently.
• run-chain.sh should do just that - run the chain and nothing else!

yarn start:contract should handle most of the heavy work including:

• setup a dedicated workspace for the contract (ws-offer-up here)
• copy tools needed for building, i.e., Makefile
• copy scripts and tools needed for required for making install-bundle, submit-proposal, vote etc. calls.
• create contract bundles on host machine, and then copy them to the workspace in docker container.
• copy all relevant files to workspace directory on the container.
• make build-proposal, install-bundle, submit-proposal, vote etc. calls needed to deploy and run the contract using scripts as before.
• update relevant docs. In particular, add guides to install agoric and agd CLI.
• Update getting-started docs if needed.

Link to IBIS document.

[usmanmani1122]

Suggestion:
Instead of running a container within a container (which further reduces the resources available to the child container), why don't we run two parallel docker containers and use a network bridge to communicate between them?

[toliaqat]

Why is there code related to codespaces here? That should be in a different PR to make sure that we have a shorter PR to review here.

[amessbee]

Asking users to install agoric and agd CLI to interact with getting-started seems like a big ask therefore we are moving towards the easier solution of running these commands inside the docker container ATM. T
here is little to no change needed in the docs.

[toliaqat]

I am removing myself from the review. I think @Jovonni or @mujahidkay are best suited to review and help make progress in this area.

[amessbee]

I feel this is at a reasonable shape now and we can invite reviews. Instead of the complex multi-step approach I started with above, I have now settled for a much simpler idea that disturbs least amount of artifacts to achieve the same IMO. To summarize, we

• Anticipate a list dapps that a user may have (currently dapp-offer-up, dapp-agoric-basics, dapp-ed-cert, dapp-chain-timer, dapp-second-invite).
• For each of the above list, if the corresponding repo exists (at a path set by an ENV variable or at ../), we mount it as a separate workspace directory in the docker container.
• Use a named docker container agdc that can be shared among the repos, instead of a docker service.

@dckc WDYT?

[dckc]

I'm particularly curious how this works with yarn create @agoric/dapp demo.

[dckc]

Removing a container is irreversible, right? So if somebody happened to have a container named agdc running when trying out our stuff, this would remove it, yes? That doesn't seem fail-safe; it seems to violate the principle of least surprise.

[amessbee]

Good catch. Fixed this by double-checking with the dev/user as well as using an env variable for container name.

[dckc]

Why should dapp-offer-up know about these other dapps?

[dckc]

Does this work if somebody clones dapp-offer-up but uses something like demo as the directory name?

Does yarn create @agoric/dapp demo (from getting started) work?

[amessbee]

Well, any script executed by yarn start:docker is not officially dapp-offer-up. That we keep it in the same repo is a privacy-priced convenience. We can ask dev to either only load dapp-offer-up or all the dapps in the parent directory or keep a flag up top with default to only dapp-offer-up. I need a suggestion here.

As long as DAPP_OFFER_UP_PATH is set correctly this should work.

[dckc]

I'm struggling to understand what you're saying about yarn create @agoric/dapp demo.

[dckc]

The docker-compose.yml syntax sure looked more straightforward.

What would you think of refactoring it to something like...

agd_image=...
linux_only=...
ports=...

...
docker run -d --name agdc $linux_only $ports $env $volumes $agd_image $start_agd

[amessbee]

Good idea. Fixed.

[dckc]

Do you plan to squash all the commits into 1?

[amessbee]

Do you plan to squash all the commits into 1?

@dckc yes.