Get Started

How to get started with ORCA!

This guide will help you get started with ORCA.
All the important stuff, generating distribution files, structures, manifests and more is documented on this page.
Should you have any questions, always feel free to reach out to us.

ORCA is for

Installation

You can start by downloading the latest version ORCA.

                            
curl -O https://orca-build.io/downloads/orca.zip

unzip -o orca.zip

File Structure

An ORCA project requires only a few files and folders that need to exist.
These are a variants folder and a manifest.json file.
The rest of the structure can vary depending on your needs and preferences.

  • 📄 manifest.json - main ORCA configuration file
  • 📁 template - recommended (optional) folder for global templates
    • 📄 Dockerfile.sh.twig - global Dockerfile template for all tags
  • 📁 variants - folder for your images and variants
    • 📁 image-dev
      • 📁 6.2.0
        • 📄 Dockerfile.sh.twig - 6.2.0 modifications 📄 variables.json - (optional))
      • 📁 6.2.1
        • 📄 Dockerfile.sh.twig - 6.1.0 modifications
      • 📁 ...
    • 📁 image-dev
    • 📁 ...
  • 📁 dist - generated Docker files

Manifest Configuration

The manifest.json file contains the full configuration for all images and tags that will be generated.

Our sample will use all files from our image-dev/6.2.0 folder and use that to generate the Dockerfiles for "dev:6.2.0". It's doing the same for 6.1.0.

...and now imagine that the ORCA source of both versions share the same Dockerfile template with some individual blocks...or that it even shares it across different images like "dev" and "prod" :) 

                            
{

  "images": {

    "dev": [

        "image-dev/6.2.0:6.2.0",

        "image-dev/6.1.0:6.1.0"

    ],

    "prod": [

        ...

    ],

  }

}

Generating Docker files

It's finally time to generate your Docker files.
Everything that is inside a variant folder will be processed and copied to the matching distribution folder of your manifest.json.

Just provide the root directory of your project. 

                            
php orca.phar --directory=.

Where to go next?!

You did now generate 3 different and independent Docker image/tag files....at least in theory ;).

The only thing you need to create powerful ORCA projects is some practice and patterns that fully rely on your preferences.

There are still lots of more configuration options available in ORCA. Just read on....

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