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Quick start

To use Chainsaw you will need a Kubernetes cluster, Chainsaw won't create one for you.

In this Quick start we will use kind but feel free to use the tool of your choice.

Not a cluster management tool

We consider this is not the responsibility of Chainsaw to manage clusters.

There are plenty of solutions to create and manage local clusters that will do that better than Chainsaw.

Create a kind cluster

Please refer to the kind install docs to install it locally.

Once kind creating a local cluster is as simple as running:

# define kind image
export KIND_IMAGE="kindest/node:v1.28.0"

# create cluster
kind create cluster --image $KIND_IMAGE

Writing tests

A Chainsaw test is made of YAML files in a folder.

YAML files can contain raw manifests with a special file naming convention to identify the step operations. This is useful to create tests quickly but doesn't allow great flexibility.

Another option is to have a chainsaw-test.yaml file containing one (or more) Test resource. While more verbose, this offers full flexibility over the test and test steps configuration.

Quick start

For this quick start, we will create a Test with one step and two operations:

  1. Create a ConfigMap from a manifest
  2. Verify the ConfigMap was created and contains the expected data

Create the test folder

# create test folder
mkdir chainsaw-quick-start

# enter test folder
cd chainsaw-quick-start

Create a ConfigMap

# create a ConfigMap
cat > configmap.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: chainsaw-quick-start
data:
  foo: bar
EOF

Create the test

By default, Chainsaw will look for a file named chainsaw-test.yaml in every folder.

# create test file
cat > chainsaw-test.yaml << EOF
apiVersion: chainsaw.kyverno.io/v1alpha1
kind: Test
metadata:
  name: quick-start
spec:
  steps:
  - try:
    # first operation: create the config map
    - apply:
        # file is relative to the test folder
        file: configmap.yaml
    # second operation: verify the config map exists and contains the expected data
    - assert:
        # file is relative to the test folder
        file: configmap.yaml
EOF

Run Chainsaw

We finished writing our first test, now we can run Chainsaw to verify the test runs as expected:

chainsaw test

Version: (devel)
Loading default configuration...
- Using test file: chainsaw-test.yaml
- TestDirs [.]
- SkipDelete false
- FailFast false
- ReportFormat ''
- ReportName 'chainsaw-report'
- Namespace ''
- FullName false
- IncludeTestRegex ''
- ExcludeTestRegex ''
- ApplyTimeout 5s
- AssertTimeout 30s
- CleanupTimeout 30s
- DeleteTimeout 15s
- ErrorTimeout 30s
- ExecTimeout 5s
Loading tests...
- quick-start (.)
Running tests...
=== RUN   chainsaw
=== PAUSE chainsaw
=== CONT  chainsaw
=== RUN   chainsaw/quick-start
=== PAUSE chainsaw/quick-start
=== CONT  chainsaw/quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @setup   | CREATE    | OK    | v1/Namespace @ chainsaw-immense-jay
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | TRY       | RUN   |
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | APPLY     | RUN   | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | CREATE    | OK    | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | APPLY     | DONE  | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | ASSERT    | RUN   | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | ASSERT    | DONE  | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | step-1   | TRY       | DONE  |
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | RUN   | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | OK    | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | DONE  | v1/ConfigMap @ chainsaw-immense-jay/chainsaw-quick-start
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | RUN   | v1/Namespace @ chainsaw-immense-jay
    | 10:44:26 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | OK    | v1/Namespace @ chainsaw-immense-jay
    | 10:44:31 | quick-start | @cleanup | DELETE    | DONE  | v1/Namespace @ chainsaw-immense-jay
--- PASS: chainsaw (0.00s)
    --- PASS: chainsaw/quick-start (5.25s)
PASS
Tests Summary...
- Passed  tests 1
- Failed  tests 0
- Skipped tests 0
Done.

Chainsaw Charaterstics

Resource diff in assertion failures: Chainsaw offers detailed resource diffs upon assertion failures. It provides a clear view of discrepancies between expected and actual resource.

Resource templating support: Chainsaw simplifies dynamic resource configuration with it's templating support. Instead on relying on envsubst for dynamic substitution of env-variable. This eliminates the need of any preprocessing step.