Extend app development requirements and recommendations
Extend is in Open Beta for AGS Premium Clients! This means that the Extend add-on is available for you to try in your development environment. You can submit your feedback via our Extend Open Beta feedback form.
Introduction
AccelByte Gaming Services (AGS) provides you sample Extend apps, which you can use as templates to start your projects. The source code for our sample Extend apps are fully customizable and hosted on GitHub.
We recommend you use our sample Extend apps as your project template as they are pre-configured with basic authentication and authorization settings. The sample apps also come with specific instrumentations that you will need for observability to enable metrics, traces, and logs to be available when you deploy your app.
Each type of Extend app has varied setups and configuration steps, which are separately documented throughout the following guides:
The repository link for each sample Extend app is provided in their respective guides.
Before diving into the above guides, we highly advise giving this article a thorough read. This article aims to list prerequisites for various development environments, provide a general overview of the Extend app development workflow, and offer recommendations for beginners to get started smoothly.
Prerequisites
An Extend app can be developed in Linux, Windows (WSL2), and macOS, each with the following general prerequisites:
- Linux
- Windows (WSL2)
- macOS
Linux Ubuntu 22.04 with the following tools installed:
Bash
bash --version
GNU bash, version 5.1.16(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
...Make
To install from the Ubuntu repository, run
sudo apt update && sudo apt install make
.make --version
GNU Make 4.3
...
Docker (Docker Engine v23.0+)
To install from the Ubuntu repository, run
sudo apt update && sudo apt install docker.io docker-buildx docker-compose-v2
.Add your user to the
docker
group:sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
.Log out and log back in to allow the changes to take effect.
docker version
...
Server: Docker Desktop
Engine:
Version: 24.0.5
...
Windows 11 with the following tools installed:
Docker Desktop v4.30+
- If you have not installed Docker Desktop, follow Docker's documentation on installing the Docker Desktop on Windows.
WSL2 Ubuntu 22.04 with
bash
andmake
installed.Bash
bash --version
GNU bash, version 5.1.16(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
...Make
To install from the Ubuntu repository, run
sudo apt update && sudo apt install make
.make --version
GNU Make 4.3
...
An integrated development environment (IDE) on Windows that can work with projects inside WSL2 file system, e.g., Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDE, etc.
- In this setup, we recommend cloning the sample Extend app project and work on it entirely in a WSL2 file system. This is to avoid limitations of WSL2, such as slow performance when accessing files in Windows file system.
- If you prefer to clone the sample Extend app project and work on it in a Windows file system environment, take note of the following limitations:
- While the Extend app project is supported in Windows file system, the
make
commands required for the development must still be executed using WSL2 terminal. - If you clone the sample Extend app project using Git on Windows, set
git config --global core.autocrlf
tofalse
. Otherwise, you may encounter errors when executingmake
commands due to line-ending problems, e.g.,$'\r': command not found
. If this happens, you can use tools such asdos2unix
to fix those files, e.g., shell scripts (*.sh). - Due to known limitations of WSL2, such as slow performance when accessing files in Windows file system,
make
commands may take significantly longer to run.
- While the Extend app project is supported in Windows file system, the
macOS 14+ with the following tools installed:
Docker Desktop v4.30+
- If you have not installed Docker Desktop, follow Docker's documentation on installing the Docker Desktop on macOS.
Bash
bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (arm64-apple-darwin23)
...Make
make --version
GNU Make 3.81
...
Extend app development workflow
This section covers the general workflow for developing an Extend app in the following scenarios:
Create a new Extend app project
Clone the sample Extend app project to your local development environment using Git.
Open the project using your preferred IDE.
Open the
README.md
file of the Extend app and follow the instructions in each section. TheREADME.md
file in each Extend app contains the following sections:- Prerequisites: make sure that you have prepared and completed the prerequisites for the Extend app.
- Setup: follow the steps in this section to ensure that your environment has the proper setup to build and develop the Extend app.
- Build: build the sample app in your IDE.
- Test: run the Extend app locally to test and debug issues, if any.
- Deploy: create and deploy the Extend app from the AGS Admin Portal.
tipIf you're developing an Extend app for the first time, we recommend running and exploring the sample app as it is (before any customization) to get a feel of how the app works.
Start customizing the Extend app to suit your preferences.
- gRPC *.proto file if required
- Implement gRPC methods
After you customize the app, do the following:
- Run the app locally to test and debug issues, if any.
- Update the details of the Extend app in the AGS Admin Portal to reflect your customizations.
- Push the Extend app container image to AGS.
- Deploy the Extend app from the AGS Admin Portal.
Apply existing project to a newer Extend app version
Clone the new version of the sample Extend app you are using.
Transfer the following from your project into the new version Extend app.
- gRPC *.proto file
- gRPC methods implementation
- Any other changes that you may have beyond the above (if any)
Run the Extend app locally to test and debug any issues.
Recommendation
Test a sample Extend app as is. We recommend you run a sample Extend app as it is, before customizing it. This helps you familiarize yourself with how the apps function, allows you to explore features and functionalities, and therefore, assess how much app customization you will have to do for your project.
Troubleshooting
This section contains troubleshooting information for possible issues you may encounter when developing an Extend app.
Docker login fails
When pushing an Extend app container image to AGS using Extend Helper CLI, extend-helper-cli dockerlogin ...
command returns the following error:
Error saving credentials: error storing credentials - err: exit status 1, out: `error storing credentials - err: exit status 1, out: `The stub received bad data.`
This issue may be due to the token size being larger than most credential managers can handle. For more information, see Docker's open ticket for this issue.
The workaround for this issue depends on your operating system.
- Linux
- Windows (WSL2)
Remove
"credsStore": "desktop.exe"
from$HOME/.docker/config.json
.Try
extend-helper-cli dockerlogin ...
command again.
In Windows file system:
- Remove
"credsStore": "desktop.exe"
from%USERPROFILE%\.docker\config.json
. - Rename the following files in
C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources\bin
.docker-credential-desktop.exe
todocker-credential-desktop.exe.old
docker-credential-wincred.exe
todocker-credential-wincred.exe.old
- Remove
In WSL2 file system:
- Remove
"credsStore": "desktop.exe"
from$HOME/.docker/config.json
.
- Remove
Try
extend-helper-cli dockerlogin ...
command again.
You may have to periodically apply this workaround. As of this article's update date, Docker has a known issue of restoring "credsStore": "desktop"
in the config.json
file when it is restarted. For more information, see Docker's open ticket for this issue.
Next step
Start creating and customizing your Extend app projects. Refer to the following guides: