Manifest.yml
A Skill's `manifest.yml` file is the default method for defining the dependencies of a Mycroft Skill.
In this file we can include Python packages, Linux applications or other Mycroft skills that are required for our own Skill to function properly.
YAML is a language commonly used for configuration files. It uses indentation rather than brackets or parentheses to define the structure or hierarchy of its contents.
We start the
manifest.yml by defining a top-level key of dependencies and the type of dependency we want to include.dependencies:
python:
Here we can see a simple example that defines the
requests and gensim Python packages as required dependencies.dependencies:
python:
- requests
- gensim
When a Skill with this
manifest.yml file is being installed, Mycroft would check for, and if required install, both packages from PyPI using the PIP installer.There is no limit to the number of packages you can install, however these are reviewed during the Skills Acceptance Process to ensure they are appropriate for the Skill being installed.
Linux packages are defined under the
system key. As Mycroft can be installed on many different Linux distributions, support is provided for a range of package managers.For packages that have consistent naming across package managers, we can use
all.dependencies:
system:
all: pianobar piano-dev
If the package has a different name on specific platforms, we can define that using the name of the package manager as a key. In the following example, we want to use the
libpiano-dev package when using the APT package manager on Debian, Ubuntu and other related distributions.dependencies:
system:
all: pianobar piano-dev
apt-get: pianobar libpiano-dev
Finally we can check that certain executables are available for the install to succeed. This is done by checking the PATH environment variable.
dependencies:
system:
all: pianobar piano-dev
apt-get: pianobar libpiano-dev
exes:
- pianobar
Here we have installed a number of
pianobar packages, and then verify that the pianobar executable is available for our Skill.A Skill may even require that other Mycroft Skills are installed rather than duplicate functionality. Here we can see that the Cocktails Skill and the Mozilla Webthings Gateway are listed as dependencies.
dependencies:
skill:
- cocktails
- webthings-gateway
Anything listed in this section will be passed to the Mycroft Skills Manager for installation. A feature of MSM is that it will search for Skills that most closely match the given string. So even though the
mozilla-webthings-gateway Skill has not been perfectly entered, it will still match with a high enough confidence to install the Skill.Last modified 2yr ago