Allowing to initiate (cdktf init) a project in an empty directory.

[ValAug]

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Description

References

[ansgarm]

Hi @ValAug 👋 This issue was about not being able to run cdktf init in a freshly cloned git repository because that one is not empty because of the .git directory, right?

[ValAug]

Hello,

That's correct.

ERROR: Cannot initialize a project in a non-empty directory.

Sorry that made a mistake in the issue title

[ValAug]

It looks like I have to delete what is created with the repo first then run cdktf init --template="typescript" for this work.

Still seen to be a good opportunity to enhance the whole process. We should be able to init the project without needing to delete what is created by GitHub

[jsteinich]

I just tried running git init followed by cdktf init and didn't run into any problems. I'm wondering if there is a README.md file being created with a new project or potentially a LICENSE file. @ValAug are either of those present or is there something else?

[ValAug]

Hello,

Thank you for the email.

I will break my steps below.

I created a folder locally for my project I created a GitHub repo to host the project I clone the repo in my project folder I created Inside the the repo I ran CDKTF init and I received the error about not empty directory.

As we know the repo comes with it own folders. What I did was to deleted those folders and run CDKTF init again and that allows me to create the project without error.

Which is a solution but this would mean that one will need to do the same each time that clones a repo.

On Thu, Apr 7, 2022 at 11:18 PM Jon Steinich @.***> wrote:

I just tried running git init followed by cdktf init and didn't run into any problems. I'm wondering if there is a README.md file being created with a new project or potentially a LICENSE file. @ValAug https://github.com/ValAug are either of those present or is there something else?

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[ansgarm]

Hi @ValAug, quick question: Do you create the new repo based on a template that already contains some kind of CDKTF project? (You wouldn't need to run cdktf init in that case, it is only required to create a new project but not required to be run by e.g. different team members after they cloned that existing project). We could make the latter more clear by detecting whether there's already a cdktf.json available and tell the user that they don't need to run init like they'd have to do when using Terraform directly.

[ValAug]

No the repo is new(empty).

My intention was to create the project in this new repo.

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 11:43 AM Ansgar Mertens @.***> wrote:

Hi @ValAug https://github.com/ValAug, quick question: Do you create the new repo based on a template that already contains some kind of CDKTF project? (You wouldn't need to run cdktf init in that case, it is only required to create a new project but not required to be run by e.g. different team members after they cloned that existing project). We could make the latter more clear by detecting whether there's already a cdktf.json available and tell the user that they don't need to run init like they'd have to do when using Terraform directly.

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[jsteinich]

Unless there is some issue that we aren't aware of, you should have no problem running cdktf init in an empty directory. @ValAug can you please run ls in the directory that you are trying to run cdktf init and let us know what it shows?

[ValAug]

Hey Jon,

Thank you again for trying to make this happen.

As Ansgar mentioned a cloned repo contains a .git directory, so that might be the underlying reason for this issue.

What I did was to remove the .git directory after cloning the new repo for cdktf init to work.

Hopefully this makes things clearer.

Thank you again

On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 12:32 PM Jon Steinich @.***> wrote:

Unless there is some issue that we aren't aware of, you should have no problem running cdktf init in an empty directory. @ValAug https://github.com/ValAug can you please run ls in the directory that you are trying to run cdktf init and let us know what it shows?

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[jsteinich]

What's strange is that I don't have any issues with this locally. I also can see the code which should already ignore a .git directory: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk/blob/2dba175c527d30daef6d623f701a950b4350afb8/packages/cdktf-cli/bin/cmds/helper/init.ts#L37

@ValAug what OS are you using?

[ValAug]

I’m Mac user and I use VsCode.

Could you please share your process?

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 4:48 PM Jon Steinich @.***> wrote:

What's strange is that I don't have any issues with this locally. I also can see the code which should already ignore a .git directory: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk/blob/2dba175c527d30daef6d623f701a950b4350afb8/packages/cdktf-cli/bin/cmds/helper/init.ts#L37

@ValAug https://github.com/ValAug what OS are you using?

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[jsteinich]

mkdir 1697
cd 1697
git init
cdktf init

[ValAug]

Interesting.

I am assuming this is the only possible way for CDKTF init to work.

Is there a possible opportunity to be able to clone a brand new repo and initiate the CDKTF project in the future without receiving the error message that I am receiving ?

Thank again for your time and help Jon

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 5:00 PM Jon Steinich @.***> wrote:

mkdir 1697 cd 1697 git init cdktf init

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[jsteinich]

Is there a possible opportunity to be able to clone a brand new repo and initiate the CDKTF project in the future without receiving the error message that I am receiving ?

Absolutely. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what's different with your process/environment. Cloning an empty git repo will have a .git directory, but the same is true after running git init. Creating a repo in the GitHub UI can result in some other files being created if you check various boxes. Some of those would prevent cdktf init from working. We can check for those files, but it didn't sound like you had any of those present.

I've tried both Linux and Windows without issue, but I'm unable to check on Mac. @ansgarm can you try this out please?

[ansgarm]

@jsteinich worked for me as well on OS X:

> mkdir test-git-init
> cd test-git-init
> git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/ansgar/projects/playground/test-git-init/.git/
> ls -lAh
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  9 ansgar  staff   288B Apr 11 14:23 .git
> cdktf --version
0.10.1
> cdktf init --local
# worked

[ValAug]

Great!

Had you try reproducing my use case?

Thanks

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 8:28 AM Ansgar Mertens @.***> wrote:

@jsteinich https://github.com/jsteinich worked for me as well on OS X:

mkdir test-git-init cd test-git-init git init Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/ansgar/projects/playground/test-git-init/.git/ ls -lAh total 0 drwxr-xr-x 9 ansgar staff 288B Apr 11 14:23 .git cdktf --version 0.10.1 cdktf init --local

worked

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[ansgarm]

Hi @ValAug, could you create and link a public Github repo (which shows this behaviour after cloning) that I can clone to try to reproduce it locally on my machine?

[ValAug]

Hello,

https://github.com/ValAug/cdktf-demo.git

cdktf init --template="typescript" --local ERROR: Cannot initialize a project in a non-empty directory

ls -a . .. .git README.md

Thank you Augusto

On Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 9:33 AM Ansgar Mertens @.***> wrote:

Hi @ValAug https://github.com/ValAug, could you create and link a public Github repo (which shows this behaviour after cloning) that I can clone to try to reproduce it locally on my machine?

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-- Thank you Augusto Valdivia *Cloud Architect * augustovaldivia.ca http://augustovaldivia.ca

[jsteinich]

In that example the problem is README.md. Should be easy enough to add an exception for that.

[ansgarm]

While we could ignore a README.md, we wouldn't be able to make this proposed change: https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk/issues/1315 without e.g. asking the user whether overwrite that file 😇

[ValAug]

Is this a no for the enhancement?

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 4:21 AM Ansgar Mertens @.***> wrote:

While we could ignore a README.md, we wouldn't be able to make this proposed change: #1315 https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk/issues/1315 without e.g. asking the user whether overwrite that file 😇

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-- Augusto Valdivia

[ansgarm]

Hi @ValAug,

no, that's no decision yet. I rather wanted to link to the other issue this proposal might collide with, to make sure we take that into consideration.

To me it would be perfectly fine to allow e.g. a README.md file until we work on the other issue and only then think about the overwriting vs. asking the user problem. It seems that it can happen quite easily that a user creates a new repository with a README.md file when using the Github UI for that.

[tgmatt]

I recently came across this problem while trying cdktf out, and it begs the question; why can't it init in a non-empty directory if none of the files that exist conflict with what the init is trying to create? Surely you can just check the files it intends to create and fail if a conflict exists?

[ansgarm]

Hi @tgmatt, the cdktf-cli currently uses node-sscaff for the different templates we support (and for user defined "remote" templates) and that library does not currently support checking whether files exist (it will just overwrite them).

While we could technically solve this for static files in the template, it would be harder for files that are written programmatically via the .hooks.sscaff.js script. One example would be the package-lock.json file and node_modules directory that are created when executing npm install in a post hook in such a script.

Maybe extending our list of allowed files (currently Readme.md and hidden files [e.g. .git]) to more files that might appear from various workflows (i.e. when using certain Git tools or IDEs) could improve this further. For example here is the list of allowed files from Create React App – however, they don't share the custom template problem (which can introduce any file).

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