This document contains some suggestions on how to build frontend service files for this repository and how to contribute them. They do not cover what the official documentation does, but are common sense rules for frontend building.
There is not one true way to build frontends as the format is quite flexible and different policies and preferences will result in different practices.
- @execute scripts should be written in execline or sh. The former is preferred but not mandatory. When somebody writes in sh, they must take the differences expressed in the documentation into account.
- @execute should contain the necessary setup and only the minimum command switches for the service to run (e.g. to keep it in the foreground).
- Every other switch should be under [environment] in cmd_args or other proper variables.
- cmd_args replaces $OPTS in scripts based on runit services.
- [stop] section replaces the finish script of runit services. Other than that, [stop] may be used only if it is needed or it would substantially improve the service.
- Obarun frontend files are obviously a fantastic source of information. Please be aware that sometimes the policies and/or assumptions of obarun are very different than those of voidlinux.
- Do not include configuration file paths or change default configuration files with variables in [environment].
- Every new frontend service file is released originally with a @version value of 0.0.1 and is incremented in the following releases only if there a change.
- When using execline syntax in @execute, @build=auto may be ommited.
- Try to keep frontend service files compact, simple and easy to understand. A user can always customise them and put the customised version in /etc/66/service.
- Development happens in the master branch. We create PRs against it, releases are tagged from it.