The DuckDuckHack Developer Tool
DuckPAN is an application built to aid DuckDuckHack developers. It is mainly used to generate the required files for new Instant Answers (the devloper must implement functionality) and also test both the triggering and visual display of Instant Answers.
Currently DuckPAN only supports Goodie and Spice Instant Answers.
Currently, DuckPAN has been developed on, and works well with Ubuntu. More specifically, we regularly build, test and run DuckPAN on Ubuntu 12.04. We have also successfully installed and run DuckPAN on older and newer Ubuntu releases, e.g. Ubuntu 10.04, 12.10, and 13.04.
Developers have also been successful running DuckPAN on other Linux distros (e.g. Arch, Debian) and on Mac OS X 10.8 and later, but we make no promises that it will work outside of Ubuntu.
As well, there have been reported issues with installing DuckPAN on Windows, so we don't recommend you go down that path.
That being said, we are more than willing to help you debug any installation problems, so please come to us with your problems and we'll try to get your issues sorted out. If you'd like some help from our community, feel free to engage with them on the DuckDuckGo forum.
We run our DuckPAN tests against Perl 5.16 and 5.18 using Travis (https://travis-ci.org/duckduckgo/p5-app-duckpan). We suggest you install Perl 5.16 via Perlbrew for local development. The Codio boxes come with Perlbrew and Perl 5.18 already installed.
- Getting Started
- Using the Codio Project Template
- DuckDuckHack Development Virtual Machine
- Vagrant Virtual Environment
- Installing DuckPAN Locally
- Using DuckPAN
Getting started with DuckPAN is easy! Here's a list of ways you can get DuckPAN up & running:
- Use our Codio Project Template (see below). We highly recommended this choice! It's super quick and easy.
- Use our DuckDuckHack development virtual machine image (see below)
- Use the Vagrant virtual environment (see below)
- Install DuckPAN locally (see below). Keep in mind, this requires Linux or Mac OS X. We suggest you install Ubuntu.
After installing DuckPAN, be sure to checkout the Using DuckPAN section below!
- Create an account on Codio.
- Go to https://codio.com/duckduckgo/duckduckhack and fork the project. Make sure to fork the project and the box.
- Visit one of our Instant Answer repositories (such as https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice), and follow GitHub's instructions to first fork the repository. You can then clone the repo into your Codio machine (You need to open the Terminal for this).
- Go into the directory (by typing in
cd zeroclickinfo-spice) and runduckpan server. Click on "DuckPAN Server" to view the webpage.
- You're all set!
Try typing in queries like "define hello," and see if it works for you. You might be wondering why there are no search results in the page. It's because DuckPAN isn't configured to work with search results—it's only for testing Instant Answers.
The purpose of our DuckDuckHack VM is to provide a sandbox for DuckDuckGo Instant Answer development that is quick to set up and start working with.
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
- Perl 5.16.3 (managed by Perlbrew)
- build-essential (for make, gcc, cc, etc)
- cpanminus (managed by Perlbrew)
- App::DuckPAN
- XFCE Window Manager
- SublimeText, vim, emacs
- Firefox (Configured via fixtracking.com)
- Platform specific virtualization guest tools (optimizes hardware emulation)
ddh-vbox.rar MD5: 1734373cbecc5820bb7d18406eb42854 https://ddg-community.s3.amazonaws.com/ddh-vbox.rar
ddh-vmw.rar: MD5: 95ad9acfacadb4b0cb0cf23ffaa3516e https://ddg-community.s3.amazonaws.com/ddh-vmw.rar
- Docker support
- Public AMI for use on EC2
To use the Virtual Machine, you will need to download and install VirtualBox, VMWare Workstation or VMWare Player, depending on your current OS.
Website: https://www.virtualbox.org/ Supports: Windows, OS X, Linux
- Download the rar and verify the checksum--decompress: This archive contains the VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) and OVF (Open Virtualization Format) files.
- Open VirtualBox, click "File" and then click "Import Appliance"
- Click "Open appliance..." and select the DuckDuckHack virtual appliance -- click "Next"
- Click "Import"
Website: https://www.vmware.com/products/player/ Supports: Windows, Linux
- Download the rar and verify the checksum--decompress: This contains the VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) and OVF (Open Virtualization Format) files.
- Open VMWare Player, and click "Open a Virtual Machine"
- Choose a storage path for the Virtual Machine -- click "Import"
Once you have installed the virtual machine you should be able to start up the VM and login with the following credentials:
- username :
dax - password :
duckduckhack
The DuckPAN client has already been installed for you. You can now clone the Instant Answer repos and start developing/testing.
The Vagrant-based DuckDuckHack virtual environment provides a similar sandbox to the DuckDuckHack VM, but rather than downloading a prebuilt VM, Vagrant creates an environment for you based on the defined configuration. Vagrant is an awesome tool for building development environments. One command - vagrant up - gets you a complete working environment in minutes. Something go wrong with the environment? No messing around with snapshots. Tear the VM down and build a fresh environment. The DuckDuckHack Vagrant environment uses Chef cookbooks and the DuckPAN installer script, so configuration is transparent and easily shared.
Through the Vagrant configuration, you can easily switch back and forth between a headless-mode and the traditional VirtualBox interface. The configuration defaults to headless.
- Install: Vagrant and Bundler
- Clone the duckpan-vagrant repo, which contains the
Vagrantfileand Chef cookbooks you'll need - Run
bundle installto install Berkshelf, a Chef cookbook manager. - Run
vagrant plugin install vagrant-berkshelfto hook Berkshelf into Vagrant. - Review the CUSTOM_CONFIG settings at the top of
Vagrantfile. You will want to customize the value of the synced directory to point to your local directory containing the DuckDuckGo code you wish to test. By default, Vagrant will load a VirtualBox Precise64 machine image. If you change this, Ubuntu is recommended. - Run
vagrant up
The box takes some time to stand up as the duckpan-install script runs. Refer to the duckpan-vagrant readme for more info.
Once the environment has been built, the DuckPAN client is installed and ready to go. You can now clone the Instant Answer repos and start developing/testing.
If you run into any issues, please file an issue in the duckpan-vagrant issue page.
There are a couple of key Vagrant commands that you'll use to manage your environment.
$ vagrant
up - Build environment from Vagrantfile or resume a previously halted environment.
ssh - Connect to your running VM via SSH.
suspend - Pause the VM, storing its current state to disk.
resume - Bring a suspended VM back to life.
reload - The equivalent of running a halt followed by an up. Use this when you make changes to Vagrantfile.
halt - Shut down the VM. Tries to gracefully shutdown first; if that fails, it will forcefully shut the VM down.
destroy - Stop the currently running VM and blow everything away.
Run these commands from the directory containing your Vagrantfile.
For more information, please see the (excellent) Vagrant docs.
Note: You don't need to install DuckPAN locally if you're using our DuckDuckHack virtual machine or the Vagrant virtual environment. It's already installed for you!
To install DuckPAN, open your terminal and run:
curl http://duckpan.org/install.pl | perl
This script will setup local::lib, which is a way to install Perl modules without changing your base Perl installation. If you already use local::lib or perlbrew, don't worry, this script will intelligently use what you already have.
If you didn't have a local::lib before running the install script, you will need to run the script twice. It should tell you when like this:
please now re-login to your user account and run it again!
If everything works, you should see this at the end:
EVERYTHING OK! You can now go hacking! :)
Note that with local::lib now installed, you can easily install Perl modules with cpanm.
cpanm App::DuckPAN
App::DuckPAN is up to date.
Some of our awesome community members have written shell completion scripts for DuckPAN, which should save you tons of time. Feel free to improve these, or contribute new ones!
- Submitted by: mattr555
- link: https://github.com/mattr555/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/duckpancomp.sh
- Submitted by: elebow
- link: https://github.com/elebow/duckpan-completion
If during the course of your DuckPAN install you run into errors, don't panic, there are a few things you can try.
First, try running the install command again (curl http://duckpan.org/install.pl | perl), this often solves issues related to any dependencies.
If that doesn't work, you should investigate the build.log and see what's wrong. It might be a dependency issue which you can resolve by manually installing whichever dependency is missing via cpanm.
If it still won't install with cpanm try adding --notest to the cpanm command:
cpanm Test::More --notest
If that still doesn't work, you can also try using --force:
cpanm Test::More --force
If this still doesn't work, please create a GitHub Issue in the DuckPAN Repo here. Be sure to paste the contents of your build.log and also let us know the details of your OS ($ uname -a is great). Once you've made the issue, we'll work with you to try and solve any problems you're having.
duckpan [--verbose|-v]
duckpan help
man duckpan
Shows you the DuckPAN help page which briefly describes DuckPAN and its features.
duckpan new [instant_answer_name]
Generates all necessary files for a new Spice or Goodie Instant Answer (depending on the current repo). DuckPAN will prompt you for a package name and generate the required files. If the name is already in use, DuckPAN will let you know and no files will be created.
Example:
duckpan new
duckpan new MyFirst::Spice
duckpan query [package_name ...]
Test Goodie and Spice triggers interactively on the command line.
Arguments:
[package_name ...]to load only the specified Spice or Goodie Instant Answers.
Example:
duckpan query Npm
duckpan query Twitter IsItUp
duckpan server [--force] [--cachesec <seconds>] [--port <number>] [package_name ...]
Test Goodie and Spice Instant Answers on a local web server, which replicates the DuckDuckGo production environment. This should be used to ensure Spice and Goodies are displayed properly. For Spice Instant Answers, you should use the DuckPAN Server to also test your JavaScript code and Handlebars templates.
Options:
--force,-fto prevent DuckPAN's cache from being used (this forces the requested files to be pushed into the cache).--port,-pto specify which port DuckPAN's server should run on (defaults to 5000).
Arguments:
[package_name ...]to load only the specified Spice or Goodie Instant Answers.
Example:
duckpan server Movie
duckpan server IDN Sort Morse
duckpan installdeps
Install all requirements of the specific DuckDuckHack project (if possible), like zeroclickinfo-spice, zeroclickinfo-goodie, duckduckgo or community-platform.
duckpan check
Check if you fulfill all requirements for the development environment.
duckpan empty
Deletes all files in the DuckPAN cache (located in ~/.duckpan/cache/).
duckpan reinstall
Force installation of the latest released versions of DuckPAN and DDG.
duckpan -I [filepath ...]
Loads the specified external libraries. This should be used to test changes made to App::DuckPAN and DDG.
Example:
duckpan -I../p5-app-duckpan/lib server
duckpan release
Release the distribution of the current directory. Used to issue new releases for the following repos: zeroclickinfo-spice, zeroclickinfo-goodies, p5-app-duckpan, duckduckgo-publisher, duckduckgo.
duckpan setup
Helps configure your environment so you can use Dist::Zilla::Plugin::UploadToDuckPAN, which is used by duckpan release.
duckpan roadrunner
Same as installdeps, but avoids testing anything. Useful for speed, but
not recommended unless you know what you are doing.
duckpan poupload [--domain] filepath
Upload a .po file to the Community Platform.
duckpan env
View env commands and also shows the env variables currently stored in ~/.duckpan/config/env.ini.
duckpan env <name> <value>
Add an environment variable that duckpan will remember. Useful for
spice API keys. Variables are stored in ~/.duckpan/config/env.ini.
duckpan env <name>
Retrieve the matching key for a given env variable.
duckpan env rm <name>
Remove an environment variable from duckpan.