Debug and Test Operator SDK in VS Code

Chris Lenard — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 21:24:13 +0000

If you built a kubernetes operator with Operator-SDK and you need to use environment variables, you will find it difficult to debug and test in VS Code. There are many avenues to debug and test:

make run
make test
VS Code debugger
VS Code CodeLens
go run
go test

`.env` File

First, we need to centralize all environment variables into a .env file in the project root.

Here is an example of how the .env file should look.

FOO_BAR=barfoo
DEBUG_LEVEL=info
WATCH_NAMESPACE=""

The only caveat is your file must NOT contain any # characters. Makefile uses # for comments and will not play friendly.

`godotenv` Package

Next, you will add the godotenv package, which reads .env and creates environment variables.

Now, in main.go add to the beginning of the main function

// Set env vars, if available.
godotenv.Load("./.env")

Testing

Using the same approach, you can make a method in a unit test file like this

func before() {
  godotenv.Load("../../.env")
}

Call before() at the beginning of any test that requires environment variables.

VS Code

These changes are necessary to make VS Code CodeLens work. Add this property to .vscode/settings.json

{
  "go.testEnvFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env"
}

and the envFile property to .vscode/launch.json

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "FooBar",
      "type": "go",
      "request": "launch",
      "mode": "auto",
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}/main.go",
      "envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/.env",
      "args": []
    }
  ]
}

Conclusion

That's it. Now, you can debug and test any way you want. Enjoy!

DEV Community: Chris Lenard