construct-hub 0.2.0

A construct library that models Construct Hub instances.

Construct Hub

This project maintains a AWS Cloud Development Kit construct library that can be used to deploy instances of the Construct Hub in any AWS Account.

This software backs the public instance of the ConstructHub, and can be used to deploy a self-hosted instance with personalized configuration.

:question: Getting Started

:warning: Disclaimer

The public instance of ConstructHub is currently in Developer Preview.

Self-hosted ConstructHub instances are however in active development and should be considered experimental. Breaking changes to the public API of this package are expected to be released without prior notice, and the infrastructure and operational posture of ConstructHub instances may also significantly change.

You are welcome to deploy self-hosted instances of ConstructHub for evaluation purposes, and we welcome any feedback (good or bad) from your experience in doing so.

Quick Start

Once you have installed the construct-hub library in your project, the simplest way to get started is to create an instance of the ConstructHub construct:

# Example automatically generated without compilation. See https://github.com/aws/jsii/issues/826
from aws_cdk.core import App, Stack
from construct_hub import ConstructHub

# The usual... you might have used `cdk init app` instead!
app = App()
stack = Stack(app, "StackName")

# Now to business!
ConstructHub(stack, "ConstructHub")

Personalization

Using a custom domain name

In order to use a custom domain for your ConstructHub instance instead of the default CloudFront domain name, specify the domain property with the following elements:

Attribute	Description
zone	A Route53 Hosted Zone, where DNS records will be added.
cert	An Amazon Certificate Manager certificate, which must be in the us-east-1 region.
monitorCertificateExpiration	Set to false if you do not want an alarm to be created when the certificate is close to expiry.

Your self-hosted ConstructHub instance will be served from the root of the provided zone, so the certificate must match this name.

Alternate package sources

By default, ConstructHub has a single package source configured: the public npmjs.com registry. Self-hosted instances typically should list packages from alternate sources, either in addition to packages from npmjs.com, or instead of those.

The packageSources property can be used to replace the default set of package sources configured on the instance. ConstructHub provides IPackageSource implementations for the public npmjs.com registry as well as for private CodeArtifact repositories:

# Example automatically generated without compilation. See https://github.com/aws/jsii/issues/826
import aws_cdk.aws_codeartifact as codeartifact
from aws_cdk.core import App, Stack
from construct_hub import sources, ConstructHub

# The usual... you might have used `cdk init app` instead!
app = App()
stack = Stack(app, "StackName")

# Now to business!
registry = codeartifact.CfnRegistry(stack, "Registry")
ConstructHub(stack, "ConstructHub",
    package_sources=[
        sources.NpmJs(), # Remove if you do NOT want npmjs.com packages
        sources.CodeArtifact(registry=registry)
    ]
)

You may also implement a custom IPackageSource if you want to index packages from alternate locations. In this case, the component you provide will be responsible for sending notifications to an SQS Queue about newly discovered packages. You may refer to the sources.NpmJs and sources.CodeArtifact implementations as a reference for hos this can be done.

Package deny list

Certain packages may be undesirable to show in your self-hosted ConstructHub instance. In order to prevent a package from ever being listed in construct hub, the denyList property can be configured with a set of DenyListRule objects that specify which package or package versions should never be lested:

# Example automatically generated without compilation. See https://github.com/aws/jsii/issues/826
from aws_cdk.core import App, Stack
from construct_hub import ConstructHub

# The usual... you might have used `cdk init app` instead!
app = App()
stack = Stack(app, "StackName")

# Now to business!
ConstructHub(stack, "ConstructHub",
    deny_list=[{"package_name": "sneaky-hackery", "reason": "Mines bitcoins wherever it gets installed"}, {"package_name": "bad-release", "version": "1.2.3", "reason": "CVE-####-#####"}
    ]
)

Decrease deployment footprint

By default, ConstructHub executes the documentation rendering process in the context of isolated subnets. This is a defense-in-depth mechanism to mitigate the risks associated with downloading aribtrary (un-trusted) npm packages and their dependency closures.

This layer of security implies the creation of a number of resources that can increase the operating cost of your self-hosted instance: several VPC endpoints are created, an internal CodeArtifact repository needs to be provisioned, etc...

While we generally recommend leaving these features enabled, if your self-hosted ConstructHub instance only indexes trusted packages (as could be the case for an instance that does not list packages from the public npmjs.com registry), you may set the isolateLambdas setting to false.

:gear: Operating a self-hosted instance

1. Application Overview provides a high-level description of the components that make a ConstructHub instance. This is a great starting point for people who consider operating a self-hosted instance of ConstructHub; and for new operators on-boarding the platform.
2. Operator Runbook is a series of diagnostics and troubleshooting guides indended for operators to have a quick and easy way to navigate a ConstructHub instance when they are reacting to an alarm or bug report.

:nail_care: Customizing the frontend

There are a number of customizations available in order to make your private construct hub better tailored to your organization.

Package Links

Configuring package links allows you to replace the Repository, License, and Registry links on the package details page with whatever you choose.

For example:

# Example automatically generated without compilation. See https://github.com/aws/jsii/issues/826
ConstructHub(self, "ConstructHub",
    (SpreadAssignment ...myProps
      my_props),
    package_links=[{
        "link_label": "Service Level Agreement",
        "config_key": "SLA"
    }, {
        "link_label": "Contact",
        "config_key": "Contact",
        "link_text": "Email Me!",
        "allowed_domains": ["me.com"]
    }]
)

This would allow publishers to add the following to their package.json:

"constructHub": {
  "packageLinks": {
    "SLA": "https://support.mypackage.com",
    "Contact": "me.com/contact"
  }
}

Then the links on the corresponding package page would show these items as configured.

:raised_hand: Contributing

If you are looking to contribute to this project, but don't know where to start, have a look at our contributing guide!

:cop: Security

See CONTRIBUTING for more information.

:balance_scale: License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License.