Prerequisites and top-tips for creating a custom extension on Documentation - V2

How to publish documentation for CAST User Community extensions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Info

Summary: Any CAST User Community extension (i.e. a custom extension) requires documentation that is freely available on the internet. CAST highly recommends creating the documentation within the GitHub repository you are using for the source code. This page describes the steps required to publish documentation in GitHub.

In the GitHub repository (see Prerequisites and top-tips for creating a custom extension for more information about this) you are using to store the custom extension’s source code, click the Wiki tab:

Managing ID ranges for custom extensions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Info

Summary: this section provides information about the range of IDs that are reserved for the following items for use with custom extensions;:

Extensions
Objects
Quality Rules

Introduction

When:

creating custom extensions that create objects to be saved in the CAST Analysis Service schema or use custom Quality Rules
or when defining Architecture Checker models

you will need to manage the range of IDs that you assign to these items. For example:

Extension description file

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Info

Summary: this page describes how to create a plugin.nuspec metadata description file for your custom extension.

Introduction

Each extension must contain a description file that contains the information required for each extension to function correctly. The requirements for this file are listed below:

Description file name

The description file must be named plugin.nuspec.

Description file location

Please place the plugin.nuspec file at the root of your extensions folder:

Extension tags

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Summary: This section provides information about the tags that can be defined in the Extension description file.

Introduction

When defining your .nuspec description file for your custom extension, it is possible to define a set of tags to help identify, for example, what your extension does, what release of CAST AIP it is compatible with etc.

Note

You are free to add any tag you wish to help describe your extension, however, CAST requires that you use at least one tag from a set of mandatory categories described below.

Configuring an icon for your extension

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Summary: This section provides information about how to configure an icon for your extension.

Introduction

When you upload an extension, you can optionally configure an icon to represent your extension in the CAST Extend website, or in the CAST Extension Downloader. For example, the icon for the official AngularJS extension:

Requirements

In order to publish your extension documentation, the following is required:

Info

Note that if you have already created documentation for your extension as detailed in How to publish documentation for CAST User Community extensions then you will already have a GitHub account, membership of the CAST-Extend GitHub organization and a repository at your disposal.

Auto-distributing specific CAST AIP configuration files with a custom extension

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Summary: This section provides information about how to auto-distribute specific CAST AIP configuration files your own custom extension. Note this section contains advanced technical information and is only to be used by experienced CAST administrators.

Introduction

When creating a custom extension, whether using the CAST AIP Extension SDK or with the Universal Analyzer framework, it is possible (since CAST AIP 8.3.3) to auto distribute specific CAST AIP configuration files with the extension. These configuration files will be automatically installed when the extension is installed and will be taken into account when required.