CHT App Configurer

CHT Conf is a command-line interface tool to manage and configure your apps built using the Core Framework of the Community Health Toolkit.

Requirements

nodejs 8 or later
python 2.7
or Docker

Installation

Operating System Specific

Ubuntu

npm install -g cht-conf
sudo python -m pip install git+https://github.com/medic/pyxform.git@medic-conf-1.17#egg=pyxform-medic

OSX

npm install -g cht-conf
pip install git+https://github.com/medic/pyxform.git@medic-conf-1.17#egg=pyxform-medic

Windows

As Administrator:

npm install -g cht-conf
python -m pip install git+https://github.com/medic/pyxform.git@medic-conf-1.17#egg=pyxform-medic --upgrade

Docker

CHT Conf can also be run from within a Docker container. This is useful if you are already familiar with Docker and do not wish to configure the various dependencies required for developing CHT apps on your local machine. The necessary dependencies are pre-packaged in the Docker image.

Using the image

The Docker image can be used as a VS Code Development Container (easiest) or as a standalone Docker utility.

Install Docker. If you are using Windows, you also need to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) to perform the following steps.

VS Code Development Container

If you want to develop CHT apps with VS Code, you can use the Docker image as a Development Container. This will allow you to use the cht-conf utility and its associated tech stack from within VS Code (without needing to install dependencies like NodeJS on your host system).

See the CHT Documentation for more information on building CHT apps with VS Code Development Containers.

Standalone Docker utility

If you are not using VS Code, you can use the Docker image as a standalone utility from the command line. Instead of using the cht ... command, you can run docker run -it --rm -v "$PWD":/workdir medicmobile/cht-app-ide .... This will create an ephemeral container with access to your current directory that will run the given cht command. (Do not include the cht part of the command, just your desired actions/parameters.)

Run the following command inside the project directory to bootstrap your new CHT project:

docker run -it --rm -v "$PWD":/workdir medicmobile/cht-app-ide initialise-project-layout

Note on connecting to a local CHT instance

When using cht-conf within a Docker container to connect to a CHT instance that is running on your local machine (e.g. a development instance), you cannot use the --local flag or localhost in your --url parameter (since these will be interpreted as "local to the container").

It is recommended to run a local CHT instance using the CHT Docker Helper script. You can connect to the resulting ...my.local-ip.co URL from the Docker container (or the VS Code terminal). (Just make sure the port your CHT instance is hosted on is not blocked by your firewall).

Bash completion

To enable tab completion in bash, add the following to your .bashrc/.bash_profile:

eval "$(cht-conf --shell-completion=bash)"

Upgrading

To upgrade to the latest version

npm install -g cht-conf

Usage

cht will upload the configuration from your current directory.

Specifying the server to configure

If you are using the default actionset, or performing any actions that require a CHT instance to function (e.g. upload-xyz or backup-xyz actions) you must specify the server you'd like to function against.

localhost

For developers, this is the instance defined in your COUCH_URL environment variable.

cht --local

A specific Medic-hosted instance

For configuring Medic-hosted instances.

cht --instance=instance-name.dev

Username admin is used. A prompt is shown for entering password.

If a different username is required, add the --user switch:

--user user-name --instance=instance-name.dev

An arbitrary URL

cht --url=https://username:password@example.com:12345

NB - When specifying the URL with --url, be sure not to specify the CouchDB database name in the URL. The CHT API will find the correct database.

Into an archive to be uploaded later

cht --archive

The resulting archive is consumable by CHT API >v3.7 to create default configurations.

Perform specific action(s)

cht <--archive|--local|--instance=instance-name|--url=url> <...action>

The list of available actions can be seen via cht --help.

Perform actions for specific forms

cht <--local|--instance=instance-name|--url=url> <...action> -- <...form>

Protecting against configuration overwriting

Added in v3.2.0

In order to avoid overwriting someone else's configuration cht-conf records the last uploaded configuration snapshot in the .snapshots directory. The remote.json file should be committed to your repository along with the associated configuration change. When uploading future configuration if cht-conf detects the snapshot doesn't match the configuration on the server you will be prompted to overwrite or cancel.

Currently supported

Settings

compile app settings from:
- tasks
- rules
- schedules
- contact-summary
- purge
app settings can also be defined in a more modular way by having the following files in app_settings folder:
- base_settings.json
- forms.json
- schedules.json
backup app settings from server
upload app settings to server
upload resources to server
upload custom translations to the server
upload privacy policies to server
upload branding to server
upload partners to server

Forms

fetch from Google Drive and save locally as .xlsx
backup from server
delete all forms from server
delete specific form from server
upload all app or contact forms to server
upload specified app or contact forms to server

Managing data and images

convert CSV files with contacts and reports to JSON docs
move contacts by downloading and making the changes locally first
upload JSON files as docs on instance
compress PNGs and SVGs in the current directory and its subdirectories

Editing contacts across the hierarchy.

To edit existing couchdb documents, create a CSV file that contains the id's of the document you wish to update, and the columns of the document attribute(s) you wish to add/edit. By default, values are parsed as strings. To parse a CSV column as a JSON type, refer to the Property Types section to see how you can parse the values to different types. Also refer to the Excluded Columns section to see how to exclude column(s) from being added to the docs.

Parameter	Description	Required
column(s)	Comma delimited list of columns you wish to add/edit. If this is not specified all columns will be added.	No
docDirectoryPath	This action outputs files to local disk at this destination	No. Default `json-docs`
file(s)	Comma delimited list of files you wish to process using edit-contacts. By default, contact.csv is searched for in the current directory and processed.	No.
updateOfflineDocs	If passed, this updates the docs already in the docDirectoryPath instead of downloading from the server.	No.

Example

Create a contact.csv file with your columns in the csv folder in your current path. The documentID column is a requirement. (The documentID column contains the document IDs to be fetched from couchdb.)

documentID is_in_emnch:bool

documentID1 false

documentID2 false

documentID3 true

documentID	is_in_emnch:bool
documentID1	false
documentID2	false
documentID3	true

Use the following command to download and edit the documents:

cht --instance=*instance* edit-contacts -- --column=*is_in_emnch* --docDirectoryPath=*my_folder*

or this one to update already downloaded docs

cht --instance=*instance* edit-contacts -- --column=*is_in_emnch* --docDirectoryPath=*my_folder* --updateOfflineDocs

Then upload the edited documents using the upload-docs command.

Project layout

This tool expects a project to be structured as follows:

example-project/
	.eslintrc
	app_settings.json
	contact-summary.js
	privacy-policies.json
	privacy-policies/
	    language1.html
	    …
	purge.js
	resources.json
	resources/
		icon-one.png
		…
	targets.js
	tasks.js
	task-schedules.json
	forms/
		app/
			my_project_form.xlsx
			my_project_form.xml
			my_project_form.properties.json
			my_project_form-media/
				[extra files]
				…
		contact/
			person-create.xlsx
			person-create.xml
			person-create-media/
				[extra files]
				…
		…
		…
	translations/
		messages-xx.properties
		…

If you are starting from scratch you can initialise the file layout using the initialise-project-layout action:

cht initialise-project-layout

Derived configs

Configuration can be inherited from another project, and then modified. This allows the app_settings.json and contained files (task-schedules.json, targets.json etc.) to be imported, and then modified.

To achieve this, create a file called settings.inherit.json in your project's root directory with the following format:

{
	"inherit": "../path/to/other/project",
	"replace": {
		"keys.to.replace": "value-to-replace-it-with"
	},
	"merge": {
		"complex.objects": {
			"will_be_merged": true
		}
	},
	"delete": [
		"all.keys.listed.here",
		"will.be.deleted"
	],
	"filter": {
		"object.at.this.key": [
			"will",
			"keep",
			"only",
			"these",
			"properties"
		]
	}
}

Fetching logs

Fetch logs from a CHT v2.x production server.

This is a standalone command installed alongside cht-conf. For usage information, run cht-logs --help.

Usage

cht-logs <instance-name> <log-types...>

Accepted log types:

api
couchdb
gardener
nginx
sentinel

Development

To develop a new action or improve an existing one, check the "Actions" doc.

Testing

Execute npm test to run static analysis checks and the test suite. Requires Docker to run integration tests against a CouchDB instance.

Executing your local branch

Clone the project locally
Make changes to cht-conf or checkout a branch for testing
Test changes
1. To test CLI changes locally you can run node <project_dir>/src/bin/index.js. This will run as if you installed via npm.
2. To test changes that are imported in code run npm install <project_dir> to use the local version of cht-conf.

Releasing

Create a pull request with prep for the new release.
Get the pull request reviewed and approved.
When doing the squash and merge, make sure that your commit message is clear and readable and follows the strict format described in the commit format section below. If the commit message does not comply, automatic release will fail.
In case you are planning to merge the pull request with a merge commit, make sure that every commit in your branch respects the format.

Commit format

The commit format should follow this conventional-changelog angular preset. Examples are provided below.

Type	Example commit message	Release type
Bug fixes	fix(#123): infinite spinner when clicking contacts tab twice	patch
Performance	perf(#789): lazily loaded angular modules	patch
Features	feat(#456): add home tab	minor
Non-code	chore(#123): update README	none
Breaking	perf(#2): remove reporting rates feature BREAKING CHANGE: reporting rates no longer supported	major

Releasing betas

Checkout the default branch, for example main
Run npm version --no-git-tag-version <major>.<minor>.<patch>-beta.1. This will only update the versions in package.json and package-lock.json. It will not create a git tag and not create an associated commit.
Run npm publish --tag beta. This will publish your beta tag to npm's beta channel.

To install from the beta channel, run npm install cht-conf@beta.