wave skin tone 2 Free hosting question or lack thereof I am

Question

wave skin tone 2 Free hosting question or lack thereof I am working with < Piotr Krzemiński> on the < C02UUATR7RC|github workflows kt> open source project that wants to free the world to have to write YAML for their GitHub Actions We have a YAML to Kotlin converter that works fine locally But we are stuck because we would like to host it as a JVM server and all free hosting plans are gone thanks to all those crypto scammers For an open source project it s annoying to have to pay every month for one little converter like that Can you think of a work around like having a nice sponsor gaining startup credits somewhere or something like that

jmfayard · Answer

For context No we can t use KotlinJS alas Project YAML to Kotlin converter

dave · Answer

Vampire · Answer

Who said that all free services are gone

Vampire · Answer

Vampire · Answer

And several others too still provide free hosting

Vampire · Answer

For small needs

jmfayard · Answer

< Nikky> told me he was traumatized by Oracle s bad UX

dave · Answer

I mean you can use lambda to get you a reasonable amount of free calls it s not quick for sure but it will work

Vampire · Answer

bad UX = not free anymore smile

Vampire · Answer

But I never used the oracle cloud

dave · Answer

I can confirm that it suuuuuuccccckkkks

dave · Answer

wink

jmfayard · Answer

Fly sounds interesting do you have a good experience with it David

Vampire · Answer

Then <https cloud google com free>

Johann Pardanaud · Answer

Fly is really good I would recommend this hosting provider

dave · Answer

< jmfayard> apart from developing the serverless stuff for http4k no I don t TBH if it s supported by pulumi then it s probably reasonably hands off

jmfayard · Answer

Amazing thanks to all

dave · Answer

Fly is more like a heroku type deal it s more of a PaaS than AWS etc

jmfayard · Answer

That s good I am a lazy developer <https dev to jmfayard laziness impatience and hubris 1ea9>

dave · Answer

< jmfayard> are you just in search of an API on the internet

jmfayard · Answer

We need a webtool like this with YAML from GitHub actions on the right and Kotlin in the left side instead of JSON and the converting being already written in Kotlin Goal is that the user doesn t need to install the converter <https www json2yaml com >

jmfayard · Answer

Might be a good occasion to try out http4k to be honest

dave · Answer

that s always the correct answer wink

CLOVIS · Answer

If you want to go the bootleg route I m sure you can use the Kotlin Playground for that sweat smile Provide a link to the user with the entire code and a replace this string by your yaml file

dave · Answer

TBH if you can afford $7 a month then you can use the basic plan on heroku that s what we use for the http4k toolbox and it works pretty well

James Richardson · Answer

I use hetzner for projects that i need to be very cheap they have a EUR4 month

CLOVIS · Answer

If it s for the github workflows project why do you need an external service though Presumably the user has GitHub Actions enabled why not just use that

jmfayard · Answer

The user should need to to download the project and a run a weird Gradle command to get started imho

jmfayard · Answer

Copy paste your YAML download the KTS script commit

Vampire · Answer

You confused people my mixing up sides above wink You said you want it like json to yaml with Kotlin on the left Not with Yaml on the left and producing the Kotling script slightly smiling face

Vampire · Answer

If you assume that uses have Kotlin ready to use you could though just provide a small bootstrapping ` main kts` instead that you download to your workflows directory and execute That will then convert all Yaml files in there and optionally destroy itself afterwards This way you don t need any online service at all

Vampire · Answer

Or as a function within the project or in a separate artifact so that a new user creates a new `test main kts` script for a `test yaml` copies in a 2 line script which consist of the ` Depend` and one bootstrap line then executes it which will read and convert the Yaml and write the result to itself If that works properly for example on Windows

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

another idea an IDE plugin that would perform the whole conversion using a single action Disadvantage it s IDE dependent and what Björn proposed above would work even with bare Kotlin compiler + well JRE

dave · Answer

IntelliJ plugin development scream joy

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

tried it once <https github com JetBrains intellij platform plugin template> does a pretty good job by bootstrapping stuff slightly smiling face

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

not pushing too much in this direction though Maybe an easy to install CLI would also do the job see <https github com typesafegithub github workflows kt issues 464|Create a Kotlin CLI to improve overall developer workflow> Maany ways to approach this

dave · Answer

The APIs for plugin development last time I tried it weren t exactly a joy to work with Plus writing tests for it is pretty hard

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

< jmfayard> have you considered free tier in e g AWS if we could just disable the service once we exceed 1 million YAML gt Kotlin conversions per month joy it could work

James Richardson · Answer

Its a great discussion about how to host a simple service AWS gets surprisingly complex very quickly IAM + STS 2FA Cloudwatch Pulumi API GW etc etc Don t get me wrong I ve run some big services on AWS but there is a big surface area Heroku was good Fly never tried

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

yeah I have some production grade experience with AWS as well but this simple service would allow us to remove many components you mention form the picture Like auth probably not needed Metrics nice to have not strictly needed API gateway yeah it s a question if the lambda s internal looking URL would be acceptable and if it can change at any time or not

jaguililla · Answer

A while ago I was searching for hostings with free tiers myself and I found these Also DigitalOcean have an Open Source sponsoring plan which gives you 5$ month if your project has 500 stars on GitHub if I recall correctly

dave · Answer

With lambda it s the cold start that s problematic Of course if you go with graalvm then you can elliminate some of that but if you re doing reflectomagic then that s awkward to setup If you used Moshi + reading into maps then that would be easier because there isn t reflection slightly smiling face

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

I claim even 30 second cold start for this particular use case is bearable

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

or the library will get insanely popular and the service will be always warm eyes joy then we ll need a sponsor

dave · Answer

We have a total guide to deploy http4k to lambda from scratch with graalvm <https www http4k org guide tutorials going native with graal on aws lambda |here> slightly smiling face

Emil Kantis · Answer

Can t you run the Yaml gt kotlin conversion script as Kotlin JS which you just embed Then it ll run in the JS engine in the browser slightly smiling face

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

it would require rewriting <https github com typesafegithub github workflows kt tree main script generator|typesafegithub github workflows kt script generator> which currently depends on JVM in several ways KotlinPoet and kaml are JVM only plus we use JVM reflection But yeah despite the effort it s still an option

Adam S · Answer

personally I gave up on trying to wrangle with online hosting and I bought a small Intel NUC for hosting my projects at home and I use Docker Compose + Traefik It s really interesting reading about the options though

Adam S · Answer

wacky idea what about writing a GitHub Action that will create a PR with the converted files

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

we thought of that the question is how would look like from user s perspective They would need to add a temporary GH workflow right

Adam S · Answer

yes so it would be more work for users Good point I was thinking about how Renovate works that can make PRs without a workflow But I guess that s running on a server Plus it requires allowing access and configuring permissions which is probably too much hassle

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

yes for Renovate it s one time configuration for long term benefits here we want to have a tool for one time use

jmfayard · Answer

I think nothing beats a web tool for trying out something quickly

Adam S · Answer

agreed

jmfayard · Answer

Keep in mind that not all our potential users are kotlin Java devs Everyone who hates to code in YAML is welcome I would gladly use the project if it used typescript python whatever

dave · Answer

In order to create a PR you need a token with write access to the entire repo that s challenging from a security perspective

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

true we need something less invasive A Web app would be great UX wise

Vampire · Answer

gt In order to create a PR you need a token with write access to the entire repo that s challenging from a security perspective While I also think a workflow is bad for a one time action this point should not be true `GITHUB TOKEN` should be able to create a PR as long as it is not running a pull request build shouldn t it

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

I know about these settings for Actions The checkbox is disabled by default

dave · Answer

dave · Answer

By default it does have read write but in many environments that will be locked down

Vampire · Answer

ah ok

James Richardson · Answer

you can clone it and make an upstream PR not tried it just a guess

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

< jmfayard> how about trying to apply for they mention 100+ stars for tier testing whatever it means

Vampire · Answer

I guess the tier just identifies the amount of credit you get With 60$ per year that is 5$ per month That s enough for one droplet of smallest size 4$ per month running 24 7 which probably is enough for your use case But if you for example would need a database instance too or mutliple load balanced instances or similar the testing tier would not give you enough credit

mbonnin · Answer

I ve been using Google app engine for small apps The UX sucks and you get only 256MB of RAM which the JVM will happilly use to store metaspace and what not But ~it s free~ has a free tier and it works

dave · Answer

256Mb is plenty for an http4k app BTW wink

dave · Answer

Well 256m of heap slightly smiling face

mbonnin · Answer

Nice

mbonnin · Answer

My Spring Boot app regularly reboots because of Oom but I have never really investigated the reasons why

mbonnin · Answer

It just reboots no pb sweat smile

James Richardson · Answer

one of the very nice and somewhat underappreciated things that http4k does is start up really fast 100ms for a production server is just normal even with all the things

James Richardson · Answer

for me this is a huge when you deploy a bunch of things you can get to a fully deployed state so quickly even waiting for the health checks to pass

James Richardson · Answer

also dev iteration time ftw

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

before we start enjoying the fast startup we need a place to deploy the app wink

mbonnin · Answer

If you want an example of deploying to appengine I have one <https github com martinbonnin Confetti backend blob main build gradle kts L41|here> There s ok ish Gradle support so you can deploy quite easily

dave · Answer

< Piotr Krzemiński> you may well be able to take advantage of a low RAM freebie not enough for a cryptominer but enough for you maybe slightly smiling face

dave · Answer

you could even host react stuff and serve it statically from the classpath if you wanted to do an entire JS toolchain

dave · Answer

but handlebars would probably do

Vampire · Answer

An entire JS toolchain that uses JVM only dependencies Impressive how to do that smile

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

< Vampire> ~ ~ sorry it works only with Java

dave · Answer

if you wanted to do log in with github you could also maybe use the API to let the use select projects or do it automatically by looking up using the API

dave · Answer

gt GWT shudders

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

I think we need a summary of options here with pros and cons this thread is was a great brainstorming session < jmfayard> let me know if you want to prepare one otherwise I ll probably do it

jmfayard · Answer

ok will try

dave · Answer

feel free to tag me as ` daviddenton` and james as ` time4tea` in that issue btw slightly smiling face

jmfayard · Answer

also shared in < C0BJ0GTE2|feed> because cool discussion

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

I feel attracted to trying out http4k on this use case

jmfayard · Answer

Me too but that s not my fault they made such a great presentation at kotlinconf

dave · Answer

< jmfayard> I m afraid that was a while ago too long But you also only have to wait 8 days to see the sequel It s been a while in the making and we can promise you something that may well make your head exploding head wink

ephemient · Answer

if porting to JS is too much work there s always things like or then your JVM bytecode runs on the client and you only need static hosting

Vampire · Answer

o O

ephemient · Answer

<https libktx github io ktx sample web project > uses teavm for example

Vampire · Answer

Interesting but I guess it also has limitations like reflection not working

ephemient · Answer

CheerpJ supports reflection

Vampire · Answer

Nice TIL

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

what s the catch why isn t it more popular is it free to use thinking face

ephemient · Answer

CheerpJ isn t free TeaVM is but has some limitations

Vampire · Answer

At least TeaVM seems to only support certain APIs

Vampire · Answer

ephemient · Answer

it s enough enough for some Kotlin projects

Vampire · Answer

Yeah definitely worth a try TeaVM is ASLv2 licensed

Vampire · Answer

From the pricing page it looks like CheerpJ needs a hosted runtime though either self hosted or cloud hosted

ephemient · Answer

<https docs leaningtech com cheerpj Frequently Asked Questions> The CheerpJ runtime library is hosted by us on a dedicated CDN backed domain and we invite users to link to it in order to take advantage of caching and cross application resource sharing

ephemient · Answer

actually I hadn t realized the community tier was free

Vampire · Answer

Well it says only for testing but well smile

ephemient · Answer

on another note is porting to Kotlin JS really that difficult the only JVM dependency I see is SnakeYAML and perhaps <https github com Him188 yamlkt> could fill that role

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

also KotlinPoet and JVM reflection

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

we re talking about porting <https github com typesafegithub github workflows kt tree main script generator|this project>

ephemient · Answer

ah I looked at library earlier

ephemient · Answer

not sure what reflection you re using but <https github com square kotlinpoet issues 304|https github com square kotlinpoet issues 304> may be in the future

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

thanks I was about to create the request myself I ve added a comment

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

ephemient · Answer

kotlinpoet is usually discussed in < C5HT9AL7Q|squarelibraries>

Piotr Krzemiński · Answer

thx moved <https kotlinlang slack com archives C5HT9AL7Q p1680861053572329>