website: Separate docs for the module registry protocol

We previously had the module registry protocol documented only as an
undefined subset of the full API of the official registry implementation.
However, the vast majority of endpoints documented in the official API
docs are not needed for a headless third-party module registry that only
intends to make modules available to Terraform CLI.

To make this clearer to potential third-party implementors, and also for
consistency with how the provider registry protocol is now documented,
here we create a new page to describe the subset required for all
registries, and then explain in the docs for the offical API that
potential third-party implementors should refer to the new page instead.

The longer page describing the full API of the official implementations
remains for those who wish to write clients for that API, because it is
part of the API surface area for Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise.

I also took this opportunity to address the fact that module addresses
don't really contain "provider names" at all, but rather than the fourth
field in the address is _conventionally_ an official provider name but
can really be any string that serves to differentiate multiple
implementations of the same abstraction. The new docs therefore refer to
this field as "system" rather than "provider".
This commit is contained in:
Martin Atkins 2020-06-08 11:54:50 -07:00
parent deb8257fa5
commit 63639defe9
3 changed files with 250 additions and 11 deletions

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@ -0,0 +1,223 @@
---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "Module Registry Protocol"
sidebar_current: "docs-internals-modules-protocol"
description: |-
The module registry protocol is implemented by a host intending to be the
host of one or more Terraform modules, specifying which modules are available
and where to find their distribution packages.
---
# Module Registry Protocol
-> Third-party provider registries are supported only in Terraform CLI 0.11 and later. Prior versions do not support this protocol.
The module registry protocol is what Terraform CLI uses to discover metadata
about modules available for installation and to locate the distribution
package for a selected module.
The primary implementation of this protocol is the public
[Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io/) at `registry.terraform.io`.
By writing and deploying your own implementation of this protocol, you can
create a separate registry to distribute your own modules, as an alternative to
publishing them on the public Terraform Registry.
The public Terraform Registry implements a superset of the API described on
this page, in order to capture additional information used in the registry UI.
For information on those extensions, see
[Terraform Registry HTTP API](/docs/registry/api.html). Third-party registry
implementations may choose to implement those extensions if desired, but
Terraform CLI itself does not use them.
## Module Addresses
Each Terraform module has an associated address. A module address has the
syntax `hostname/namespace/name/system`, where:
* `hostname` is the hostname of the provider registry that serves this module.
* `namespace` is the name of a namespace, unique on a particular hostname, that
can contain one or more modules that are somehow related. On the public
Terraform Registry the "namespace" represents the organization that is
packaging and distributing the module.
* `name` is the module name, which generally names the abstraction that the
module is intending to create.
* `system` is the name of a system that the module is primarily written to
target. For multi-cloud abstractions, there can be multiple modules with
addresses that differ only in "system" to reflect system-specific
implementations of the abstraction, like
`registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/consul/aws` vs.
`registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/consul/azurerm`. The system name commonly
matches the type portion of the address of an official provider, but that
is not required.
The `hostname/` portion of a provider address (including its slash delimiter)
is optional, and if omitted defaults to `registry.terraform.io/`.
For example:
* `hashicorp/consul/aws` is a shorthand for
`registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/consul/aws`, which is a module on the
public registry for deploying Consul clusters in Amazon Web Services.
* `example.com/awesomecorp/consul/happycloud` is a hypothetical module published
on a third-party registry.
If you intend only to share a module you've developed for use by all
Terraform users, please consider publishing it into the public
[Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io/), which will make your
module discoverable. You only need to implement this module registry
protocol if you wish to publish modules whose addresses include a different
hostname that is under your control.
## Module Versions
Each distinct module address has associated with it a set of versions, each
of which has an associated version number. Terraform assumes version numbers
follow the [Semantic Versioning 2.0](https://semver.org/) conventions, with
the user-facing behavior of the module serving as the "public API".
Each `module` block may select a distinct version of a module, even if multiple
blocks have the same source address.
## Service Discovery
The providers protocol begins with Terraform CLI using
[./remote-service-discovery.html](Terraform's remote service discovery protocol),
with the hostname in the module address acting as the "User-facing Hostname".
The service identifier for the module registry protocol is `modules.v1`.
Its associated string value is the base URL for the relative URLs defined in
the sections that follow.
For example, the service discovery document for a host that _only_ implements
the module registry protocol might contain the following:
```json
{
"modules.v1": "/terraform/modules/v1/"
}
```
If the given URL is a relative URL then Terraform will interpret it as relative
to the discovery document itself. The specific module registry protocol
endpoints are defined as URLs relative to the given base URL, and so the
specified base URL should generally end with a slash to ensure that those
relative paths will be resolved as expected.
The following sections describe the various operations that a module
registry must implement to be compatible with Terraform CLI's module
installer. The indicated URLs are all relative to the URL resulting from
service discovery, as described above. We use the current URLs on
Terraform Registry as working examples, assuming that the caller already
performed service discovery on `registry.terraform.io` to learn the base URL.
The URLs are shown with the convention that a path portion with a colon `:`
prefix is a placeholder for a dynamically-selected value, while all other
path portions are literal. For example, in `:namespace/:type/versions`,
the first two path portions are placeholders while the third is literally
the string "versions".
## List Available Versions for a Specific Module
This is the primary endpoint for resolving module sources, returning the
available versions for a given fully-qualified module.
| Method | Path | Produces |
| ------ | ------------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| `GET` | `:namespace/:name/:provider/versions` | `application/json` |
### Parameters
- `namespace` `(string: <required>)` - The user or organization the module is
owned by. This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `name` `(string: <required>)` - The name of the module.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `system` `(string: <required>)` - The name of the target system.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
### Sample Request
```text
$ curl 'https://registry.terraform.io/v1/modules/hashicorp/consul/aws/versions'
```
### Sample Response
The `modules` array in the response always includes the requested module as the
first element.
Other elements of this list are not currently used. Third-party implementations
should always use a single-element list for forward compatiblity with possible
future extensions to the protocol.
Each returned module has an array of available versions, which Terraform
matches against any version constraints given in configuration.
```json
{
"modules": [
{
"versions": [
{"version": "1.0.0"},
{"version": "1.1.0"},
{"version": "2.0.0"}
]
}
]
}
```
Return `404 Not Found` to indicate that no module is available with the
requested namespace, name, and provider
## Download Source Code for a Specific Module Version
This endpoint downloads the specified version of a module for a single provider.
| Method | Path | Produces |
| ------ | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------- |
| `GET` | `:namespace/:name/:provider/:system/:version/download` | `application/json` |
### Parameters
- `namespace` `(string: <required>)` - The user the module is owned by.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `name` `(string: <required>)` - The name of the module.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `provider` `(string: <required>)` - The name of the provider.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `system` `(string: <required>)` - The name of the target system.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
- `version` `(string: <required>)` - The version of the module.
This is required and is specified as part of the URL path.
### Sample Request
```text
$ curl -i 'https://registry.terraform.io/v1/modules/hashicorp/consul/aws/0.0.1/download'
```
### Sample Response
```text
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Content-Length: 0
X-Terraform-Get: https://api.github.com/repos/hashicorp/terraform-aws-consul/tarball/v0.0.1//*?archive=tar.gz
```
A successful response has no body, and includes the location from which the
module version's source can be downloaded in the `X-Terraform-Get` header.
The value of this header accepts the same values as the `source` argument
in a `module` block in Terraform configuration, as described in
[Module Sources](https://www.terraform.io/docs/modules/sources.html),
except that it may not recursively refer to another module registry address.
The value of `X-Terraform-Get` may instead be a relative URL, indicated by
beginning with `/`, `./` or `../`, in which case it is resolved relative to
the full URL of the download endpoint to produce
[an HTTP URL module source](/docs/modules/sources.html#http-urls).

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@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ version 1 of the module registry protocol:
At present, the following service identifiers are in use:
* `login.v1`: [login protocol version 1](/docs/commands/login.html#protocol-v1)
* `modules.v1`: [module registry API version 1](/docs/registry/api.html)
* `modules.v1`: [module registry API version 1](module-registry-protocol.html)
* `providers.v1`: [provider registry API version 1](provider-registry-protocol.html)
## Authentication

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@ -9,21 +9,33 @@ description: |-
# HTTP API
When downloading modules from registry sources such as the public
[Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io), Terraform expects
the given hostname to support the following module registry protocol.
[Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io/), Terraform CLI expects
the given hostname to support
[the module registry protocol](/docs/internals/module-registry-protocol.html),
which is the minimal API required for Terraform CLI to successfully retrieve
a module.
A registry module source is of the form `hostname/namespace/name/provider`,
where the initial hostname portion is implied to be `registry.terraform.io/`
if not specified. The public Terraform Registry is therefore the default
module source.
The public Terraform Registry and the private registry included in Terraform
Cloud and Terraform Enterprise implement a superset of that minimal module
registry API to support additional use-cases such as searching for modules
across the whole registry, retrieving documentation and schemas for modules,
and so on.
[Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io) implements a superset
of this API to allow for importing new modules, etc, but any endpoints not
documented on this page are subject to change over time.
This page describes the extended API implemented by the official module
registry implementations, and is aimed at those intending to build clients
to work with registry data. Third-party implementations of the registry
protocol are not required to implement these extensions. If you intend to
implement your own module registry, please refer to
[the module registry protocol](/docs/internals/module-registry-protocol.html)
instead.
Terraform Registry also has some additional internal API endpoints used to
support its UI. Any endpoints or properties not documented on this page are
subject to change over time.
## Service Discovery
The hostname portion of a module source string is first passed to
The hostname portion of a module source address is first passed to
[the service discovery protocol](/docs/internals/remote-service-discovery.html)
to determine if the given host has a module registry and, if so, the base
URL for its module registry endpoints.
@ -36,6 +48,10 @@ For example, if discovery produces the URL `https://modules.example.com/v1/`
then this API would use full endpoint URLs like
`https://modules.example.com/v1/{namespace}/{name}/{provider}/versions`.
A module source address with no hostname is a shorthand for an address
on `registry.terraform.io`. You can perform service discovery on that hostname
to find the public Terraform Registry's module API endpoints.
## Base URL
The example request URLs shown in this document are for the public [Terraform