openassetio-manager-bal 1.0.0a5

A contrived "asset management system" for OpenAssetIO integration test cases.

The Basic Asset Library (BAL) example manager

The BasicAssetLibrary provides a basic "librarian" asset management system.

It serves to provide a minimum level of functionality to allow simple, repeatable demonstrations and end-to-end tests to be realized with as little supporting infrastructure as possible.

It is not intended to be any kind of comprehensive example of the breadth of functionality exposed though the OpenAssetIO API. See the SampleAssetManager for a more concrete example of canonical manager behavior.

Note: This code is a sketch to facilitate testing and sample workflows. It should never be considered in any way a "good example of how to write an asset management system". Consequently, it omits a plethora of "good engineering practice".

Features

• Resolves references with the bal:/// prefix to data from a pre-configured library of assets stored in a .json file.

• Environment variables are expanded in string-type trait property values (using the $var or ${var} syntax, escape $ using $$). A library can also define arbitrary variables of its own under the top-level variables key. In addition, BAL provides the built-in $bal_library_path and $bal_library_dir variables, which can be used to anchor to the current library location.

• The library file to be used is controlled by the library_path setting, and this should point to a library file with valid content.

• If no library_path has been specified, the BAL_LIBRARY_PATH env var will be checked to see if it points to a valid library file.

• Persists newly registered data in-memory (the original library JSON is not updated).

Installation

To use the plugin in an OpenAssetIO host, install via pip, or set (or append) the OPENASSETIO_PLUGIN_PATH env var to include the plugin directory in a checkout of the source repository.

The plugin provides a manager with the identifier org.openassetio.examples.manager.bal.

Library file format

A JSON Schema is provided here that validates a BAL library file.

Testing

The test fixtures take care of providing a suitable host environment and configuring the OpenAssetIO plugin search paths for you. Assuming your working directory is set to a checkout of the source repository:

python -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install .
python -m pip install -r tests/requirements.txt
python -m pytest ./tests