Develop a Manual Task

This guide walks you through the steps to develop, deploy, test, and observe a manual task using Choreo.

In this guide, you will:

• Develop a manual task to fetch the weather forecast for a specified location for the next 24 hours from the OpenWeatherMap API.
• Process the weather data to a specific format.
• Send the formatted data to a specified email address.

Prerequisites

Before you try out the steps in this guide, complete the following:

• If you are signing in to the Choreo Console for the first time, create an organization as follows:

  1. Go to https://console.choreo.dev/, and sign in.
  2. Enter a unique organization name. For example, Stark Industries.
  3. Read and accept the privacy policy and terms of use.
  4. Click Create. This creates the organization and opens the Project Home page of the default project created for you.

• Fork the Choreo samples repository, which contains the sample integration for this guide.

  Repository file structure

  To work with the sample repository, it is important to familiarize yourself with the repository file structure. The sample code for this guide is in the <sample-repository-dir>/weather-to-email-integration directory. To understand how the functionality is implemented, you must read the code comments. The following table describes what you will find in each file in the repository:

  File path	File content
  Ballerina.toml	Contains metadata about the project
  Dependencies.toml	Lists the dependencies required for the project
  main.bal	Contains the entry point of the project, including the main function
  types.bal	Contains custom data types used in the project
  utils.bal	Contains utility functions and helper functions used in the project

• Go to OpenWeatherMap and sign up to obtain an API key. For details on how to obtain an API key, see the OpenWeatherMap documentation.

Step 1: Create a manual task component

1. Go to https://console.choreo.dev/ and sign in. This opens the project home page.
2. If you already have one or more components in your project, click + Create. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.
3. Click the Manual Task card.

4. Enter a unique name and a description for the component. You can use the name and description given below:

   Field	Value
   Component Name	WeatherToEmail
   Description	My first manual task

5. Go to the GitHub tab.

6. To allow Choreo to connect to your GitHub account, click Authorize with GitHub. If you have not already connected your GitHub repository to Choreo, enter your GitHub credentials and select the repository you created in the prerequisites section to install the Choreo GitHub App.

   Alternatively, you can paste the Choreo samples repository URL in the Provide Repository URL field to connect to it without requiring authorization from the Choreo Apps GitHub application. However, authorizing the repository with the Choreo GitHub App is necessary if you want to enable Auto Deploy for the component.

   Note

   The Choreo GitHub App requires the following permissions:

   • Read and write access to code and pull requests.
   • Read access to issues and metadata.

   You can revoke access if you do not want Choreo to have access to your GitHub account. However, write access is exclusively utilized for sending pull requests to a user repository. Choreo will not directly push any changes to a repository.

7. Enter the following information:

   Field	Description
   Organization	Your GitHub account
   Repository	choreo-samples
   Branch	main
   Buildpack	Ballerina
   Project Directory	weather-to-email-integration

   Tip

   • Buildpack specifies the type of build to run depending on the implementation of the component. It converts the integration code into a Docker image that can run on Choreo cloud. If an integration is developed using WSO2 Integration Studio, select Micro Integrator as the buildpack. If an integration is developed using the Ballerina language, select Ballerina as the buildpack.

   • Project Directory specifies the location of the project to build the component.

8. Click Create. Choreo initializes the component with the sample implementation and opens the Overview page of the component.

Step 2: Build the manual task

To build the manual task, follow the steps given below:

1. In the left navigation menu, click Build.
2. In the Builds pane, click Build. This opens the Commits pane where you can see all the commits related to the component.

3. Select the latest commit and click Build. This triggers the build process and displays the build progress in the Build Logs pane.

   Info

   The build process can take a while to complete. When the build process is complete, the build will be listed in the Builds pane along with the build status.

Here, you will see the build status as Success.

Step 3: Deploy the manual task

To deploy the manual task, follow the steps given below:

1. In the left navigation menu, click Deploy.
2. In the Set Up card, click Configure & Deploy.

3. In the Configurations pane, specify values as follows for the configurable variables:

   Tip

   The configurable variables populated here are defined in the sample Ballerina project used in this guide. To learn how to declare configurable variables in Ballerina, see the Ballerina documentation on declaring configurable variables. If configurable variables are detected in a connected Ballerina project, Choreo prompts for the respective values during component deployment.

   Field	Value
   apiKey	The API key you obtained in the prerequisites section
   latitude	Latitude of the location to get the weather forecast
   longitude	Longitude of the location to get the weather forecast
   email	The email address to receive the formatted weather forecast information

   Note

   If you use Ballerina as the buildpack and you want to set a configurable variable as a secret, click the lock icon corresponding to the configurable variable. This marks it as a secret and conceals the input value.

   For example, if you consider the configurable variables in this guide and set the apiKey as a secret, its input value will be concealed as follows:

   

   If you want to update the input value at a later time, you can click Update Secret Content and specify a new value.

   

4. Click Deploy.

Step 4: Execute the manual task

To execute the manual task, follow the steps given below:

1. In the left navigation menu, click Execute.

2. Click Run Now. This triggers the task.

   Inject dynamic values into your application as command-line arguments

   If you want to inject dynamic values into your application as command-line arguments when you run a manual task, follow the steps given below:

   1. Click the drop-down icon next to Run Now and then click Run with Arguments.
   2. In the Runtime Arguments pane that opens, enter the arguments you want to pass to your application.
   3. Click Execute. This triggers the task with the specified arguments.

   The capability to run a manual task with arguments is supported for the following buildpacks:

   DockerfileGoJavaNodeJSWSO2 MIBallerina

   To explore a Dockerfile-based manual task with arguments, try out the Hello World Task sample. For instructions, see the readme.md file in the sample repository.

   Info

   When you work on Docker projects, the Run with Arguments capability is not supported if the Dockerfile contains CMD. In such scenarios, you must use ENTRYPOINT to define your default commands.

   To explore a Go-based manual task with arguments, try out the Hello World Go Task sample. For instructions, see the readme.md file in the sample repository.

   To explore a Java-based manual task with arguments, try out the Hello World Java Task sample. For instructions, see the readme.md file in the sample repository.

   Info

   When you work on Java projects:

   • The Run with Arguments capability is not supported if Procfile is available in the project.
   • The Main class should be defined in the manifest file.
   • If Maven files such as mvn.cmd exist in the project without the .mvn directory, the build will fail. To ensure a successful build, you must either commit the .mvn directory along with any Maven files or not include any Maven files in the project if you choose not to commit the .mvn directory.

   To explore a NodeJS-based manual task with arguments, try out the Hello World NodeJS Task sample. For instructions, see the readme.md file in the sample repository.

   Info

   When you work on NodeJS projects:

   • The Run with Arguments capability is not supported if Procfile is available in the project.
   • The project root must contain the package.json file with the main attribute defined.

   To explore a WSO2 MI-based manual task with arguments, try out the Weather to Logs Task sample. For instructions, see the readme.md file in the sample repository.

   Info

   When you work on WSO2 MI projects and you want to deploy a WSO2 MI integration as a manual task in Choroeo, you must use the WSO2 MI automation mode. For details, see Running the Micro Integrator in Automation Mode.

   To explore a Ballerina manual task with arguments, try out the Weather to Email Task sample. For instructions, see the README.md file in the sample repository.

   Info

   If you want to pass arguments to Ballerina main functions, you can use the Run with Arguments capability. For details on the arguments you can pass, see the Ballerina documentation. You can also override configurable values in the same manner. For more information, see Provide values to configurable variables.

Step 5: Test the manual task

Once the task is triggered, an email with the subject [WSO2 Choreo Demo] Next 24H Weather Forecast is sent from choreo.demo@gmail.com to the email address specified as the email configurable variable value in Step 3.

If the manual task ran successfully, you should receive an email similar to the following to the email address you specified:

Step 6: Observe the manual task

The observability view in Choreo displays graphs that depict details such as throughput, latency, diagnostic data, and logs to identify and troubleshoot anomalies in components you deploy.

To visualize and monitor the performance of the manual task you deployed, click Observability in the left navigation menu. You can observe the following:

• The throughput and latencies of requests served over a given period.
• The logs that are generated over a given period.
• The flame graph (Diagnostics View) that is generated over a given period.
• The low-code diagram.

To learn more about the observability details you can view via Choreo observability, see Observability Overview.

Step 7: Monitor executions

To track and monitor executions associated with the deployed scheduled task, go to the left navigation menu and click Execute.

Tip

The Execute view is applicable to both scheduled and manual tasks.

You can view the following information:

• The total number of executions within the past 30 days.

  

• The currently active executions and those that are already complete.

  Here, you can view information such as the execution ID, the revision of the execution, and the time it was triggered.

  

• Detailed execution logs for a specific execution.

  You can click on an execution to view detailed logs related to it.

  Info

  It may take a few minutes for the logs to appear. You may need to manually refresh to view the latest logs.