Xinglu Chen <pub...@yoctocell.xyz> writes: > Hi Guix, > > I am going to write an mcron service for `guix home`[1][2] and before > proceding, I would like to get some suggestions on what the best > practices are for writing services in Guix.
Please note that I am a guix documentation contributor, and I am not quite a guix developer yet. :) Though I do have a patch pending on http://issues.guix.gnu.org/39136 (not certain why the 2/2 patch does not show, 'cause I saw that come through in my inbox). > > Currently there seems to be two main ways to do this, the first one > is the define one or more records for the configuration field of a > service using `define-record-type*`, see the tor service in (gnu > services networking) for example. The other method is to use > `define-configuration` to declare the configuration fields of a service, > see the transmission service in (gnu services file-sharing) for example. I believe that the first method via define-record-type* seems to be the recommended method to do this. I only say that because I feel like more services are defined that way now. :) > The second method removes quite a lot of boilerplate and the developer > will define different serializers that convert scheme syntax like lists, > alist, boolean... to the "real" configuration syntax of the program. It > also does some automatic typechecking to some degree and allows the > developer to write docstrings for each configuration field. There is > then a procedure called `generate-documentation` which can automatically > generate texinfo documenation from the docstrings. I do like that generate-documentation procedure. Perhaps we could add that for the define-record-type* somehow... > > I couldn't find any information in the manual regarding what conventions > should be used when writing services for Guix and would like to hear > from more experienced Guix hackers what the best practices are. You might try asking in irc in #guix too! I've been working on a sway service and an endlessh service in my hacking videos (https://video.hardlimit.com/accounts/joshua_branson/video-channels). I was running into issues, where I could compile the service, but trying to reconfigure my system would result in errors. The errors messages were a little vague. I will also say that the better method I have found in writing a guix service is to 1) write the service as simply as possible first. I personally would copy the simplest service that you can find in gnu/services/ and modify that via a M-x anzu-query-replace-regexp. If re-configuring works, make a commit. 2) If possible, containerize the service. If it works, make a commit. 3) Now start adding in all the features you left out before. -- Joshua Branson (joshuaBPMan in #guix) Sent from Emacs and Gnus https://gnucode.me https://video.hardlimit.com/accounts/joshua_branson/video-channels https://propernaming.org "You can have whatever you want, as long as you help enough other people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar