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Each of these use cases expects something more from each platform when we try to scale across other global partners.

The foundational code required to build extensions is provided by the Ripple SDK to easily help App Platform developers to easily build and test Extensions. 

Extensions offer that extra leverage to easily migrate and offer support for these platforms as they try to fully adopt to the Firebolt Architecture.

What is a Ripple Contract?

A contract is a concrete unit of work expected to be fulfilled by a Ripple extension.

Each contract maps to a Request, Response, or Event structure or enumeration defined mostly by Firebolt Openrpc Schema. 

An Extension implements a request processor based on the Request structure thereby providing fulfillment of the given contract.

Ripple Main uses the contract definition in the Extn manifest to create a map for Inter Extension Communication.

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Why

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HLA

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do we need a Ripple Contract?

Ripple SDK defines the contracts and deeply integrates them with the IEC(Inter Extension Communication) with the ExtnClient .  

Standardization: Similar to Ripple offering Firebolt capabilities contracts offer definition and control over the extensions. This provides a layer of abstraction that can be configured by each operator.

Below are some examples

1. Operator A can use a Mac address for a unique Device ID and Operator B can use a backend system to define a Device ID.
2. Operator A can use the local device persistent storage and Operator B can use a cloud persistence to store the same data. 

Authorization: The extension manifest has a fulfills  field that lists the contracts expected to be fulfilled by the extension. Extensions do not even register a processor for which a contract is not expected to be fulfilled by the manifest.

Permissions: Manifests also has a uses  field for each extension which decides the permissions for each extension in terms of calling other contracts. Using Contracts thus provides added layers of security for a given App Platform developer to build a complex and secure extension-based ecosystem.

Mapping: Each extension contains a list of contracts that it is expected to fulfill these are clearly defined in the Extension Manifests. Main uses this mapping to redirect the incoming Extn requests to the right extension so they can be correctly processed.

Abstraction: Using Extension Manifests operators can swap processors easily for eg let's say we have a backend service A which is getting deprecated and service B is its replacement.  The operator can create a new extension while using the same contract request and response structure defined in the SDK and switch easily to service B without impacting other sections of the platform.

HLA

Below is the High-Level architecture defined for Ripple used by the Video Accelerator device.

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Manifests

Ripple bootstraps three configuration json files during startup these files are referred to as manifests.

There are three types of manifests in Ripple

Device manifest

This manifest contains the below configurations

1. Websocket configuration for internal and 3rd party app secure connections
2. Device platform information
3. Distributor platform information
4. Distributor cloud services configurations
5. Privacy and data governance settings
6. Default values for settings and other known configurations
7. Permission Exclusory
8. Supported Capabilties
9. User grant policies
10. App lifecycle properties
11. Application properties

Sample Firebolt-device-manifest can be found here

App Library

List of applications that are launchable by Ripple. This app library can be empty if the launcher app wants to handle the catalog expectation for this implementation is to use Lifecyclemanagement API(s) provided by the Ripple RPC api(s) defined here.

Sample App library can be found here

Extension Manifest

Extension Manifest defines the list of Extensions needed to be loaded by Ripple to fulfill its contracts. A given Extension manifest contains

1. The default path for all extensions
2. Default extension type for the given platform (.so/.dll/.dylib)
3. An array of extensions each having an id, uses, fulfills, and config fields
4. Required contracts expected by the platform
5. RPC aliases for legacy and other extension support.

Sample Extension manifest can be found here

Ripple SDK

Ripple Main

IEC

Extensions

Bootstrap

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Firebolt App Lifecycle 1.0

A Firebolt application needs to comply with the Application Lifecycle policies defined by the schema. 

ADRs

Links and Stuff

TBA