Bolt Developer Updates September 2020

So why did we make this change to how Bolt manages modules? Because managing a project's modules could be a frustrating process that includes multiple steps:

• Find the module you want to add to your project

• Find all of the dependencies for that module

• Determine which version of each module is compatible with every other module you have installed

• Manually update your Puppetfile to include each module

• Install the Puppetfile

By offloading most of this work to Bolt, you now only need to list the modules you care about in your project configuration. Bolt takes care of resolving a module's dependencies and installing compatible versions. This greatly simplifies the process of managing your project's modules:

• Find the module you want to add to your project

• Tell Bolt to install the module with all of its dependencies

With these changes, we've also updated where Bolt installs modules. You no longer need to worry about accidentally overwriting local modules when you install a Puppetfile, because Bolt installs modules to a special directory that is not part of the configured modulepath.

The new module management feature is available starting with Bolt 2.30.0. To try it out, create a project or migrate an existing project.

Here's a summary of what's changed:

• Managed module installation directory: Bolt now installs modules it manages into the .modules/ directory instead of modules/. Avoid committing .modules/ to source control. Your users can download your Bolt project and use the bolt module install *nix shell command, or Install-BoltModule cmdlet to download the required modules.

• Non-managed module directory: Bolt no longer uses the site-modules/ directory. Store any modules that you don't want Bolt to manage in the modules/ directory.

• Module configuration: Your bolt-project.yaml file contains a modules key that lists the direct module dependencies of your Bolt project. Unless you need to pin a module to a specific version, avoid editing the modules list directly. Instead, use the bolt module add command.

• Puppetfile: The Puppet file is now a lock file. Bolt generates a Puppetfile each time you modify your modules with a Bolt command. Do not edit the Puppetfile directly. Instead, use Bolt commands to manage your modules, and rely on Bolt to manage the Puppetfile. You can compare a Puppetfile to a Gemfile.lock file in Ruby, or a yarn.lock file in Yarn.

• modulepath: The new modulepath is ['modules'] and Bolt always appends .modules to the modulepath.