Camunda external task Robot Framework RCC client
Project description
Camunda external task Robot Framework RCC client
Technology preview.
carrot-rcc
is an opinionated Camunda external task client for executing Robot Framework RPA framework automation tasks. It is based on Robocorp RCC toolchain and Camunda external task client for Node JS.
carrot-rcc
executes automation tasks built and wrapped into robot.zip packages as instructed by Robocorp documentation. Single carrot-rcc
service can subscribe multiple topics and execute tasks from same or different robot-packages concurrently, although only locally on the same computer. carrot-rcc
should work fine on Windows, Linux and on MacOS.
usage: carrot-rcc [<robots>...]
[--base-url] [--authorization]
[--worker-id] [--max-tasks] [--poll-interval] [--log-level]
[--rcc-executable] [--rcc-encoding] [--rcc-telemetry]
[--rcc-controller] [--rcc-fixed-spaces]
[--vault-addr] [--vault-token]
[-h] [--help]
<robots> could also be passed as a comma separated env RCC_ROBOTS
options:
--base-url[=<url>] [env: CAMUNDA_API_BASE_URL] [default: http://localhost:8080/engine-rest]
--authorization[=<header>] [env: CAMUNDA_API_AUTHORIZATION] [example: Basic ZGVtbzpkZW1v]
--worker-id[=<string>] [env: CLIENT_WORKER_ID] [default: carrot-rcc]
--max-tasks[=<cpus>] [env: CLIENT_MAX_TASKS] [default: [cpu count]]
--poll-interval[=<milliseconds>] [env: CLIENT_POLL_INTERVAL] [default: 10000]
--log-level[=<debug|info|warn|error>] [env: CLIENT_LOG_LEVEL] [default: info]
--rcc-executable[=<path>] [env: RCC_EXECUTABLE] [default: rcc]
--rcc-controller[=<controller>] [env: RCC_CONTROLLER] [default: carrot]
--rcc-encoding[=<encoding>] [env: RCC_ENCODING] [default: utf-8]
--rcc-telemetry [env: RCC_TELEMETRY] (default: do not track)
--rcc-fixed-spaces [env: RCC_FIXED_SPACES] (default: circulate spaces)
--vault-addr[=<addr>] [env: VAULT_ADDR] [default: http://127.0.0.1:8200]
--vault-token[=<token>] [env: VAULT_TOKEN] [default: token]
-h, --help
examples:
$ carrot-rcc robot1.zip
$ carrot-rcc robot1.zip robot2.zip --log-level=debug
$ RCC_ROBOTS="robot1.zip,robot2.zip" LOG_LEVEL="debug" carrot-rcc
$ CAMUNDA_API_AUTHORIZATION="Bearer MY_TOKEN" carrot-rcc robot1.zip
Design
When carrot-rcc
is started, it examines every given robot-package and examines available task names from their robot.yaml
. Currently, carrot-rcc
can only find packages preloaded onto local filesystem.
Then carrot-rcc
subscribes every found task name as they were Camunda external task topics, and starts listening for new tasks for its topics to become available at Camunda.
On a new task, carrot-rcc
remembers which topic was mapped to which task on which robot-package, and unpacks the correct robot-package into a new temporary directory. Then it creates another temporary directory with all external task variables and files as a local robot work item.
Similarly to work item, for convenience, all carrot-rcc
process environment variables are made available as env
secret to keep their use out of Robot Framework logs when used with RPA framework's Secrets -library.
Next RCC is called to resolve robot's dependencies and execute the robot. Robot package may declare any available Conda or Pip package as its dependency. For example, this makes it possible to have fully functional browser automation stack as a task dependency independently what the local machine actually has available. RCC caches the dependency environments on the machine to enable their fast re-use.
Finally, carrot-rcc
saves all the changed and added variables from the saved work item back to Camunda. In addition, it also saves full Robot Framework execution logs. All these are saved back into the task execution context, to leave their further use for the BPMN designer. At the end carrot-rcc
either completes of fails the task at Camunda.
Usage
carrot-rcc
requires only NodeJS 12 or later and expects RCC to be on the environment PATH. RCC location may also be configured manually with --rcc-executable
argument.
It is also possible to bootstrap everything with just using RCC:
-
Create a directory for
carrot-rcc
and download RCC into that directory. -
Download an example conda.yaml defining the requirements for
carrot-rcc
. -
Install
carrot-rcc
into RCC managed environment with$ rcc env new conda.yaml
or
$ rcc.exe env new conda.yaml
-
The hard part is to figure out from the logs where RCC did create the environment. When found, copy a few files back and forth to give you access the environment and
carrot-rcc
, and givecarrot-rcc
access to RCC:$ cp /home/user/.robocorp/live/850002f365eee60f/rcc_activate.sh . $ cp rcc /home/user/.robocorp/live/850002f365eee60f/bin
or
$ copy C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\robocorp\live\850002f365eee60f\rcc_activate.cmd . $ copy C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\robocorp\live\850002f365eee60f\Scripts\carrot-rcc.exe . $ copy rcc.exe C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\robocorp\live\850002f365eee60f
-
Finally, activate the environment:
$ source rcc_activate.sh
or
$ rcc_activate.cmd
Done. Now carrot-rcc
should be ready to be run, for example:
$ carrot-rcc robot.zip --base-url=http://localhost:8080/engine-rest --log-level=debug
or
$ carrot-rcc.exe robot.zip --base-url=http://192.168.86.156:8080/engine-rest --log-level=debug
The project's repository includes example Camunda processes with example RCC compatible robots (1, 2) available.
Vault support
carrot-rcc
has some support for HashiCorp Vault KV secrets engine. When working VAULT_ADDR
and VAULT_TOKEN
set, carrot_rcc
will resolve secrets defined in each robots' robot.yaml
each time before a robot execution.
An example robot.yaml
with secrets:
tasks:
Camunda Topic:
robotTaskName:
My Robot Task
vault:
my-secret: /secret-engine-path/data/my-secret-path
condaConfigFile:
conda.yaml
artifactsDir:
output
Note: carrot-rcc
does NOT manage renewal for the given VAULT_TOKEN
.
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