CNC

Introduction

cnc is an open-source framework that sits on top of Infastructure-as-Code tools like terraform or OpenTofu. It transforms high-level service definitions into infrastructure deployments across various environments, including development, staging, production, and ephemeral deployments for preview environments or testing.

Key features of cnc:

1. Built on top of IaC tools - cnc uses Terraform/OpenTofu
2. Simplifies infrastructure management with a high-level cnc.yml configuration that is based on docker-compose
3. Adds environment management capabilities to underlying IaC tools
4. Allows direct editing of infrastructure templates for maximum flexibility and configurability
5. Functions as a "Platform-as-a-Service in your own cloud" powered by a local CLI, increasing your ownership and control compared to hosted services

While similar in concept to AWS Amplify CLI, cnc offers broader applicability and adaptability to diverse deployment needs.

Core Lifecycle Events Managed by cnc:

• Provision: Uses terraform to create, manage, and dismantle cloud resources, ensuring each environment is crafted to fit its specific purpose.
• Build: Assembles the necessary deployment artifacts for each environment, from docker containers to static assets for web applications.
• Deploy: Seamlessly updates infrastructure to deploy new artifacts, such as modifying k8s manifests or updating ECS services.
• Toolbox: A toolbox is a managed shell against a cnc-managed environment, making it easy to get a REPL or run database migrations, for example

Getting Started with cnc:

• Experience cnc in just a few minutes: install and see for yourself the power of cnc in under 5 minutes without needing any cloud permissions or incurring any costs.
• Rapid Deployment: Have your first environment up and running in less than 15 minutes, demonstrating the straightforward power of cnc.

cnc is designed to be a powertool that empowers you to build and manage your infrastructure with the same attention to detail and creativity that you bring to your code. Just like web devs use frameworks to build better products, with cnc, you gain the freedom to implement your vision precisely as intended, making each project not only functional but finely tuned to your standards.

Hello World

Install CNC

Intall cnc from the PyPI Python Package Index. For example, using pip:

pip install cocnc

Save config files

You can make a new directory, nothing but the following 2 files is needed by cnc. Save as cnc.yml:

services:
  app:
    command: "my command"
    x-cnc:
      type: backend
    build:
      context: .
  db:
    x-cnc:
      type: database
      version: 15
    image: postgres

Save as environments.yml:

name: my-first-app
provider: gcp
flavor: run-lite
version: 1

collections:
- name: dev
  region: us-east1
  base_domain: mydevsite.com
  account_id: "foo-bar-123"
  environments:
  - name: dev
    environment_variables:
    - name: FOO
      value: bar

cnc has robust environment configuration options, including support for environment variables from cloud secrets, terraform outputs, or aliasing from other variables. Read more about configuration here.

See CNC in action

All this will do is manipulate text files in your /tmp directory and won't actually touch anything in your code or cloud. It's the best wayt to get to Aha! quickly before diving in deeper.

# print the terraform we would run, as generated from the 2 ymls above
# we do --no-cleanup here so you can inspect the files yourself in /tmp if you want to.
# You can leave this off to cleanup after the command runs automatically
cnc provision debug --no-cleanup

# look at the generated build script
# you can look at the files referenced, for example the build-functions scripts, by going to the /tmp path in your terminal
cnc build perform dev --debug --no-cleanup

# same for deploy
cnc deploy perform dev --debug --no-cleanup

Add a 2nd environment (e.g. dev2) to the environments.yml and run the commands again, see the power of the framework!

Community & Support

• Issues: Report bugs or suggest features via GitHub Issues.
• Support: For direct support, contact our team at cnc@withcoherence.com.

Contributing

Interested in contributing to CNC? Check out our Developers Getting Started guide for guidelines and project setup instructions.

Coherence Hosted CNC

Coherence provides a hosted service that builds on cnc, providing:

• A UI/CLI and user management with RBAC for developers to interact with, instead of managing cnc.yml and environments.yml manually
• GitHub integration for features such as preview environments and check runs
• Managed CI/CD in your own cloud account (AWS/GCP)
• Managed execution of IaC with audit history
• Ability to add cloud secrets and other environment variables with a friendly UI

Try the platform here. cnc provides you with the ability to leave the platform whenever you choose to, without being locked into a black box at Coherence.