dagger/docs/learn/102-dev.md

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slug: /learn/102-dev
---

# Dagger 102: create your first environment

## Overview

In this guide you will create your first Dagger environment from scratch,
and use it to deploy a React application to 2 locations in parallel:
a dedicated [Amazon S3](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_S3) bucket, and a
[Netlify](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netlify) site.

### Anatomy of a Dagger environment

A Dagger environment contains all the code and data necessary to deliver a particular application in a particular way.
For example the same application might be delivered to a production and staging environment, each with their own
configuration.

An environment is made of 3 parts:

- A _plan_, authored by the environment's _developer_, using the [Cue](https://cuelang.org) language.

- _Inputs_, supplied by the environment's _user_ via the `dagger input` command, and written to a special file. Inputs may be configuration values, artifacts, or encrypted secrets.

- _Outputs_, computed by the Dagger engine via the `dagger up` command, and recorded to a special directory.

We will first develop our environment's _plan_, then configure its initial inputs, then finally run it to verify that it works.

### Anatomy of a plan

A _plan_ specifies, in code, how to deliver a particular application in a particular way.
It is your environment's source code.

Unlike regular imperative programs which specify a sequence of instructions to execute,
a Dagger plan is _declarative_: it lays out your application's supply chain as a graph
of interconnected nodes.

Each node in the graph represents a component of the supply chain, for example:

- Development tools: source control, CI, build systems, testing systems
- Hosting infrastructure: compute, storage, networking, databases, CDNs
- Software dependencies: operating systems, languages, libraries, frameworks, etc.

Each link in the graph represents a flow of data between nodes. For example:

- source code flows from a git repository to a build system
- system dependencies are combined in a docker image, then uploaded to a registry
- configuration files are generated then sent to a compute cluster or load balancer

### Introduction to Cue development

Dagger delivery plans are developed in Cue.
Cue is a powerful declarative language by Marcel van Lohuizen. Marcel co-created the Borg Configuration Language (BCL), the [language used to deploy all applications at Google](https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/43438.pdf). It is a superset of JSON, with additional features to make declarative, data-driven programming as pleasant and productive as regular imperative programming.

If you are new to Cue development, don't worry: this tutorial will walk you through the basic
steps to get started, and give you resources to learn more.

In technical terms, our plan is a [Cue Package](https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/packages/#packages). In this tutorial we will develop a new Cue package from scratch for our plan; but you can use any Cue package as a plan.

## Initial setup

### Install Cue

Although not strictly necessary, for an optimal development experience we recommend
[installing a recent version of Cue](https://github.com/cuelang/cue/releases/).

### Prepare Cue learning resources

If you are new to Cue, we recommend keeping the following resources in browser tabs:

- The unofficial but excellent [Cuetorials](https://cuetorials.com/overview/foundations/) in a browser tab, to look up Cue concepts as they appear.

- The official [Cue interactive sandbox](https://cuelang.org/play) for easy experimentation.

### Setup example app

You will need a local copy of the [Dagger examples repository](https://github.com/dagger/examples).
NOTE: you may use the same local copy across all tutorials.

```shell
git clone https://github.com/dagger/examples
```

Make sure that all commands are run from the `todoapp` directory:

```shell
cd examples/todoapp
```

## Develop the plan

### Initialize a Cue module

Developing for Dagger takes place in a [Cue module](https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/packages/#modules).
If you are familiar with Go, Cue modules are directly inspired by Go modules.
Otherwise, don't worry: a Cue module is simply a directory with one or more Cue packages in it. A Cue module has a `cue.mod` directory at its root.

In this guide we will use the same directory as the root of the Dagger workspace and the root of the Cue module; but you can create your Cue module anywhere inside the Dagger workspace.

```shell
cue mod init
```

### Create a Cue package

Now we start developing our Cue package at the root of our Cue module.

In this guide we will split our package in multiple files, one per component.
But you can organize your package any way you want: the Cue evaluator simply merges together
all files from the same package, as long as they are in the same directory and start with the same
`package` clause. It is common for a Cue package to have only one file.
See the [Cue documentation](https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/packages/#files-belonging-to-a-package) for more details.

We will call our package `multibucket` because it sounds badass and vaguely explains what it does.
But you can call your packages anything you want.

Let's create a new directory for our Cue package:

```shell
mkdir multibucket
```

### Component 1: app source code

The first component of our plan is the source code of our React application.

In Dagger terms, this component has 2 important properties:

1. It is an _artifact_: something that can be represented as a directory.
2. It is an _input_: something that is provided by the end user.

Let's write the corresponding Cue code to a new file in our package:

```cue title="todoapp/multibucket/source.cue"
package multibucket

import (
    "alpha.dagger.io/dagger"
)

// Source code of the sample application
src: dagger.#Artifact & dagger.#Input
```

This defines a component at the key `src`, and specifies that it is both an artifact and an input.

### Component 2: yarn package

The second component of our plan is the Yarn package built from the app source code:

```cue title="todoapp/multibucket/yarn.cue"
package multibucket

import (
    "alpha.dagger.io/js/yarn"
)

// Build the source code using Yarn
app: yarn.#Package & {
    source: src
}
```

Let's break it down:

- `package multibucket`: this file is part of the multibucket package
- `import ( "alpha.dagger.io/js/yarn" )`: import a package from the [Dagger Universe](../reference/universe/README.md).
- `app: yarn.#Package`: apply the `#Package` definition at the key `app`
- `&`: also merge the following values at the same key...
- `{ source: src }`: set the key `app.source` to the value of `src`. This connects our 2 components, forming the first link in our DAG.

### Component 3: dedicated S3 bucket

_FIXME_: this section is not yet available, because the [Amazon S3 package](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/tree/main/stdlib/aws/s3) does [not yet support bucket creation](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/issues/623). We welcome external contributions :)

### Component 4: deploy to Netlify

The third component of our plan is the Netlify site to which the app will be deployed:

```cue title="todoapp/multibucket/netlify.cue"
package multibucket

import (
    "alpha.dagger.io/netlify"
)

// Netlify site
site: "netlify": netlify.#Site & {
    contents: app.build
}
```

This is very similar to the previous component:

- We use the same package name as the other files
- We import another package from the [Dagger Universe](../reference/universe/README.md).
- `site: "netlify": site.#Netlify`: apply the `#Site` definition at the key `site.netlify`. Note the use of quotes to protect the key from name conflict.
- `&`: also merge the following values at the same key...
- `{ contents: app.build }`: set the key `site.netlify.contents` to the value of `app.build`. This connects our components 2 and 3, forming the second link in our DAG.

### Exploring a package documentation

But wait: how did we know what fields were available in `yarn.#Package` and `netlify.#Site`?
Answer: thanks to the `dagger doc` command, which prints the documentation of any package from [Dagger Universe](../reference/universe/README.md).

```shell
dagger doc alpha.dagger.io/netlify
dagger doc alpha.dagger.io/js/yarn
```

You can also browse the [Dagger Universe](../reference/universe/README.md) reference in the documentation.

## Setup the environment

### Create a new environment

Now that your Cue package is ready, let's create an environment to run it:

```shell
dagger new 'multibucket'
```

### Load the plan into the environment

Now let's configure the new environment to use our package as its plan:

```shell
cp multibucket/*.cue .dagger/env/multibucket/plan/
```

Note: you need to copy the files from your package into the environment, as shown above.
If you make more changes to your package, you will need to copy the new version, or it will not be used.
In the future, we will add the ability to reference your Cue package directory, making this manual copy unnecessary.

### Configure user inputs

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

### Deploy

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

### Using the environment

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

## Share your environment

### Introduction to gitops

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

### Review changes

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

### Commit changes

[This section is not yet written](https://github.com/dagger/dagger/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)