Plugin version management with Git

After developing a Dataiku plugin on your instance, you can manage versions of the plugin on a remote Git repository (e.g., GitHub). This allows you to share the plugin across multiple Dataiku instances and allow users on those other instances to contribute updates to the plugin.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Version your plugins with development branches.

• Track the history of development.

• Connect to a remote Git repository.

Prerequisites

• Bases on Dataiku plugins.

• Familiarity with the basics of Git

• Access to a remote Git repository where you can push changes. Ideally, it should be empty.

• Access to a Dataiku instance set up to work with that remote Git repository.

Connect to a remote Git repository

Open any plugin you want to connect to a remote Git repository to share the development of this plugin with other coders.

1. Click on the change tracking indicator and select Add a remote.

2. Enter the URL of the remote and click OK.

3. If the master branch on the remote Git repo has any commits ahead of the local master branch, Pull those changes. This will be necessary if the repo you’re connecting to is not empty.

4. From the change tracking indicator, select Push.

In your remote Git repo, you can see that the master branch has been successfully pushed.

Note

We recommend using a separate repository for each plugin.

Git versioning

Now, we’d like to work on changes to the plugin using a development branch so that others can continue using the original plugin.

1. From the branch indicator, click Create new branch.

2. Name the new branch release/1.0 and click Create.

   

   Note

   Just like in the usual git workflow, this creates a new development branch of the plugin from the master branch.

3. Click on the History tab to see your changes on this branch. If you switch to the master branch, you’ll see that the history only includes the plugin’s original development and none of the changes we’ve made to the branch.

   

4. Now you can switch back to the release/1.0 branch and Push the changes.

   Note

   The release/1.0 branch has been pushed to your remote Git repo. Merging the changes with the master branch is done outside of Dataiku.

5. To see the merges reflected in Dataiku, first Fetch the changes from the remote Git repo and then Pull the changes to your local Git.

Wrapping up

You have completed this tutorial and connected your plugin to a remote repository. You can now produce robust and efficient plugins like recipes or macros while collaborating through versioning.