Configure the project settings using a text editor

The settings file is intended to be edited using the HOP CLI Settings Editor, but you can also edit it with the text editor of your choice.

Obtain the default settings file

The settings file is not intended to be written from scratch, as it is quite big and needs to have a certain structure [1]. The HOP CLI can generate a default settings file that the user can then edit. To obtain that default settings file, you can run the following command.

$ hop bootstrap create-settings-file --settings-file-path hop-tutorial-settings.edn
{:success? true}

The command will create a file called hop-tutorial-settings.edn in the current directory.

Edit the settings file

The file has a tree-like structure in which each node has the following properties:

  • name: The name of the node.

  • tag: Optional string explaining the node’s purpose (using Hiccup syntax).

  • type: The type that the value field is of. The node can be a leaf (string, number, password, …) or a branch (plain-group, single-choice-group and multiple-choice-group).

  • value: The configured value for the node.

  • choices: If the node is of type single-choice-group or multiple-choice-group, this field will contain an array (vector) of branches that the user can select from. The selection is done using the value field, by specifying the name(s) of the selected branch(es).

Here is a small `EDN`_ snippet depicting the settings file structure:

[{:name :root-node
  :tag "Root node"
  :type :plain-group
  :value [{:name :node-1
           :tag "Node 1"
           :type :single-choice
           :value :opt-1
           :choices [{:name :opt-1
                      :tag "Opt 1"
                      :type :string
                      :value "opt 1 value"}
                      {:name :opt-2
                      :tag "Opt 2"
                      :type :string
                      :value "opt 2 value"}]}
           {:name :node-2
            :tag "Node 2"
            :type :multiple-choice
            :value [:opt-3 :opt-4]
            :choices [{:name :opt-3
                      :tag "Opt 3"
                      :type :integer
                      :value 3}
                      {:name :opt-4
                      :tag "Opt 4"
                      :type :integer
                      :value 4}]}]}]

In order to navigate the data structure above we will use the following notation:

  • node-1 → … → node-n.property

For example, if we want to reference the :value property of the :opt-3 node, inside the :node-2 node, we would use the following notation:

  • root-node → node-2 → opt-3.value

Note

While the settings file uses keywords for the node and property names (e.g., :root-node, or :type), the notation to refer to a particular node or property in this tutorial will use the string representation of those keywords (e.g., root-node, or value). This is just for reading convenience.

Having that structure and notation in mind, open the settings file you just created with your favorite text editor, and edit the following settings’ values:

  • project → name.value: We will set the project name to "hop-tutorial".

  • project → profiles.value: HOP offers multiple profiles that enhance the bootstrapped project. But for this tutorial we will select some basic ones. We will set the value to [:core :frontend :aws :ci]

  • deployment-target → aws → account → region.value: The AWS region where you want to create the project resources. Change to your desired region. So far the HOP CLI has been mainly tested on the eu-west-1 region. So we recommend you to use that region in order to ensure that all the services required by HOP application will be available [2].

Note

Make sure that the AWS region you configure is enabled in your AWS account. Not all the regions are enabled by default.

Also, make sure that the AWS region you configure has the AWS Elastic Beanstalk service available. At the time of this writing, some of them (e.g., eu-south-2) do not have it available. You can check the list of available regions at AWS Elastic Beanstalk endpoints and quotas.

Warning

If you already have an AWS account with existing resources, please refer to Settings file configuration for existing AWS account document for further considerations.

Note

If this is the second time you are following this tutorial, some of the AWS resources created the first time you run the tutorial will still exist. The HOP CLI does not delete any AWS resources, to avoid deleting resources that may be in use. The HOP CLI does not overwrite any existing resource either, for the same reason.

This means you will need to delete those AWS resources manually yourself. Refer to How to delete AWS resources created by HOP for additional details.

Continue with the tutorial

Once you have finished editing the settings file you can continue with the tutorial in the Run the bootstrap command section. All the further steps are the same regardless you used the graphical Settings Editor or you edited the file manually.

Footnotes