refactor: type the example source inline instead of shipping a manifest

A dora-node.yml describes exactly one node and is the unit `dora hub publish`
operates on, which expects it beside pyproject.toml. This repository ships one
node, so it should carry one manifest. examples/dora-node.yml described a test
fixture that nobody installs and that has no package of its own -- a manifest
for something that is not a node.

The source's outputs are now annotated with `output_types:` in the dataflow,
which is the documented way to type an output without a manifest: "only
annotated outputs are type-checked". It runs as `path: python` + `args:`
because `dora validate` matches a manifest to a `path:` node by entrypoint, so
a path node would be tried against the root manifest, fail to match
`dora-image-view`, and warn -- fatal under strict_types. Through the
interpreter there is nothing to match.

The type gate is unchanged in strength: the viewer's contract is still
injected and compared against the source's annotations, and a deliberate
Float32 -> String swap still fails validate.

The cost is that the fixture no longer gets a managed venv of its own and runs
against the project environment. That applies to the fixture only; the shipped
node still uses path: + build:, which is what a consumer exercises.

This supersedes the approach in "fix strict-type validation by giving the
example source a manifest" and the doc commit that cited the
manifest-next-to-a-path-node rule as justification.
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-15 05:21:36 -03:00
parent 1c7a9c816d
commit 92abe8a446
4 changed files with 36 additions and 75 deletions
+6 -3
View File
@@ -32,8 +32,11 @@ CI=true SOURCE_FRAMES=30 dora run dataflow.yml --uv # the same, headless
- **`dora_image_view/bbox.py`** — Parses the `bbox` struct into xyxy corners. `xywh` is centre-based (x, y are the box centre). `_flat()` unwraps the single-element list that `pa.array([{...}])` produces around each field, and reads a field stored flat as-is.
- **`examples/source.py`** — The synthetic source node: an animated frame, a depth map of the same scene (a flat wall with the square in front of it), the box around the square, and a caption. It exists so the example dataflow exercises all three inputs without a camera or a detector, and so CI can run the dataflow rather than only validate it. `SOURCE_FRAMES` bounds the run, which is what lets CI wait for a clean exit instead of killing it on a timeout.
- **`dora-node.yml`** — Node manifest (`apiVersion: 1`). `dora validate` injects these types into any dataflow that reaches the node by `path:`; a `git:`-sourced node does **not** pick it up, which is why the example builds from the checkout. `image` and `text` carry type URNs naming the element type because each payload is a raw buffer described by its metadata, not an Arrow struct. `bbox` is deliberately **untyped**: senders disagree on whether its numeric fields are 32- or 64-bit, and the node reads either.
- **`examples/dora-node.yml`** — Manifest for the source node, and not optional. A manifest describes exactly one node (the schema is `NodeManifest`, singular), so the second node in this repository gets a second manifest; a `dora-node.yml` next to a plain `path:` node is [the documented way](https://dora-rs.ai/dora/hub/node-manifest) to type a node without publishing it. `dora validate` matches a manifest to a `path:` node by entrypoint; with no manifest beside `examples/source.py`, the root `dora-node.yml` is tried against it, does not match its entrypoint, and warns — which `strict_types: true` turns into a failure. Declaring the source's types here rather than as `output_types:` in `dataflow.yml` is also what makes them *checked*: an inline annotation shadows the manifest, so the manifest would be injected but never compared.
- **`dataflow.yml`** — The example and the CI gate, with `strict_types: true`. Both nodes are `path:` nodes with a manifest, so both contracts are injected and compared against each other; `bbox` is annotated on neither side, matching the manifests.
- **`dataflow.yml`** — The example and the CI gate, with `strict_types: true`. The viewer is a `path:` node, so its manifest is injected; the source is typed inline with `output_types:` and the two are compared against each other. `bbox` is annotated on neither side, matching the manifest.
**One manifest, on purpose.** A `dora-node.yml` describes exactly one node (the schema is `NodeManifest`, singular) and is the unit `dora hub publish` operates on — it expects one beside `pyproject.toml`. This repository ships one node, so it has one manifest. The example source is a test fixture and gets none.
That is why the source runs as `path: python` + `args:` rather than `path: examples/source.py`. `dora validate` matches a manifest to a `path:` node **by entrypoint**, so a path node here would be tried against the root manifest, would fail to match its `dora-image-view` entrypoint, and would warn — and `strict_types: true` makes that warning fatal. Going through the interpreter leaves nothing to match. The cost is that the fixture gets no managed venv of its own (`.dora/python-envs/` stays empty for it) and runs against the project environment instead; the shipped node still uses `path:` + `build:`, which is the mechanism a consumer actually uses. Do not "fix" this back into a path node without re-reading this paragraph.
- **`.gitea/workflows/validate.yml`** — CI: lints, runs the unit tests, validates the dataflow and runs it headless. Needs no camera and no display. One job on purpose — the gates themselves take about a second, and are dwarfed by preparing the runner.
## Why CI installs libgl1
@@ -44,7 +47,7 @@ CI=true SOURCE_FRAMES=30 dora run dataflow.yml --uv # the same, headless
## A caveat on typed optional inputs
`dora validate --strict` injects a contract type for *every* typed manifest input and then warns `input_types key "..." not found in inputs list` for any the dataflow does not wire. So a typed optional input forces the example dataflow to wire it. If a typed input is added to the manifest, either wire it in `dataflow.yml` or leave it untyped. This is why `examples/source.py` publishes a depth map and a camera_info at all: both are typed, so the example has to drive them.
`dora validate --strict` injects a contract type for *every* typed manifest input and then warns `input_types key "..." not found in inputs list` for any the dataflow does not wire. So a typed optional input forces the example dataflow to wire it. If a typed input is added to the manifest, either wire it in `dataflow.yml` or leave it untyped. This is why `examples/source.py` publishes a depth map and a camera_info at all: both are typed, so the example has to drive them, and a new output it sends needs a matching entry in the dataflow's `output_types:`.
## Checking what it draws