Kura Addon Archetype: Where can I find it?

[alexcorvis84]

Hi,

Looking at the significant changes that the new 6.0.0 release will bring, I would like to start familiarizing myself with the new possibilities for development and the required/options IDE setup (VS Code user here!)

Reading the documentation, I found that a new Maven archetype will be provided. Is it already available somewhere for direct download (kura-addon-archetype-.jar)? Or for now do I have to try to compile kura-core to generate it (since I see that it is in kura/tools/kura-addon-archetype) ?

Any help is welcome. Thanks in advance.

[mattdibi]

Hi there @alexcorvis84,

thanks for reaching out! The Kura add-ons maven archetype can be found here: https://repo.eclipse.org/content/repositories/kura-snapshots/org/eclipse/kura/kura-addon-archetype/6.0.0-SNAPSHOT/. It is deployed on Eclipse infrastructure as part of our CI process.

For VSCode compatibility be sure to take a look at https://github.com/eclipse-kura/metadata-generator

[alexcorvis84]

Thank you so much @mattdibi !

[alexcorvis84]

Hi @mattdibi

I've followed the steps of building and compiling the Kura Addon Archetype successfuly 🥳

As Docs 📝 says:
"distrib: contains a project that builds a DEB package that installs the JAR produced in bundles in Kura's plugins folder /opt/eclipse/kura/plugins"

I've seen something that intrigues 😅 me in the deb package created... this is the path folder that where the new JAR will be extracted (/opt/eclipse/kura/plugins/6s/)

I was used to the developed new bundles (as .dp format up to Kura 5.6.0) being installed in the path (/opt/eclipse/kura_version/packages)

So I took a look at the .deb file of a new Kura 6.0.0 version i.e: aarch64-nn-6.0.0-20250826.225454-44.deb and its structure, checking that the new path /opt/eclipse/kura/plugins/ contains all these folders...

So, just out of curiosity... 👀🤔 , may I ask if is there behind any specific reason to follow this folders structure?

If so, then, I can take for granted that new bundles developed (starting form Kura 6.0.0) will always being extracted in the path /opt/eclipse/kura/plugins/6s/?

[mattdibi]

I've followed the steps of building and compiling the Kura Addon Archetype successfuly 🥳

Happy to hear that! 😄

So, just out of curiosity... 👀🤔 , may I ask if is there behind any specific reason to follow this folders structure?

If you recall, in versions prior to 6.0.0, we used to have the /opt/eclipse/kura/framework/config.ini file which contained all the OSGi bundles installed on the Kura instance and their start level. Due to the distributed nature of Kura 6 we couldn't keep a single file that needed to be patched by each .deb package that installed new bundles, therefore we got rid of it and use this folder structure instead. The folders correspond to the OSGi start level required by the bundle contained in the folder.

I can take for granted that new bundles developed (starting form Kura 6.0.0) will always being extracted in the path /opt/eclipse/kura/plugins/6s/

In principle no: there might be bundles required by other add-ons that need to have a higher start level (and thus will be installed in folders different from 6s).

[alexcorvis84]

Hi @mattdibi,

I was able to install the bundle example created by the Kura add-ons maven archetype. As new package is a .deb, I installed via apt install. I checked it was extracted to /opt/eclipse/kura/plugins/6s

The thing I noticed is that bundle was not started automatically (like happened prior Kura 5.6.0 with Kura dp addons), so I had to restart Kura in order to activate the addon. May I wonder if this is the new expected behaviour? Will it always be necessary to restart Kura to apply/activate the addons developed? 🤔

Thanks in advance!

[mattdibi]

Hi there @alexcorvis84,

yes this is the expected behaviour for now. We'll introduce support for .deb addons hot-loading in a future release. For now .dp and .deb packages will co-exist until .deb packages will reach feature-parity (i.e. hot-loading).