remove puppeteer from dependencies

[flamewow]

Reason/Context

Please try answering few of those questions

• Why we need this improvement?
  puppeteer is used only for PDF generation while being quite heavy (~200Mb)
• How will this change help?
  download time will be increased drastically
• What is the motivation?
  PDF generation is not used very often and for users that are not using it at all 200Mb overhead is way too much

Description

Please try answering few of those questions

• What changes have to be introduced?
  remove puppeteer from dependencies
• Will this be a breaking change?
  yes
• How could it be implemented/designed?
  change PDF generation function to accept puppeteer instance as a parameter. In that case, users that need PDF will have to install puppeteer separately and pass it as an argument

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[magicmatatjahu]

@flamewow Hi! Thanks for the issue. Usually if you install a template once then the puppeter should be cached and reused in the next render. The problem may be the CI environment, where the puppeter will be installed with every job and I agree this can be frustrating.

I can't understand how do you want pass puppeteer instance as a parameter. Using Generator API it can be easy to do, but how do you want pass reference to the instance by the CLI? I only see solution that puppeter should be installed separately - before the template - globally and then we should use this global dep in the hook rather local instance.

EDIT: Did you try our tip under the list of parameters?

NOTE: If you only generate an HTML website, set the environment variable PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD to true and the generator will skip downloading chromium.

[derberg]

yeah, it is not really puppeteer that is heavy here but chromium and you can skip it as @magicmatatjahu mentioned.

PDF generation is not used very often

unfortunately, we do not know that really

if using PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD is not something that satisfies you, the only good solution would be to completely remove PDF support from this template really and create a separate template like, pdf-template. Positive side effect would be better visibility of this option, so users would see they can generate markdown, HTML and PDF with 2 different templates. Thoughts? Of course we would need help here

[flamewow]

@derberg creating a separate pdf-template package (will depend on html-template I would guess) sounds like a great option.
Ofc that's additional overhead for package management (and that's on you guys, to keep it under @asyncapi namespace in npm registry). Will be able to help with the code

[derberg]

Ofc that's additional overhead for package management (and that's on you guys, to keep it under @asyncapi namespace in npm registry)

this part is easy, we have releases and deps update inside asyncapi org fully automated.

will depend on html-template I would guess

definitely. I haven't seen the code that generated pdf for some time but should be easy to port to new template and use html-template as dependency

Will be able to help with the code

would you be able to handle this with just our guidance, and best to become CODEOWNER of the template?

[flamewow]

@derberg
How would we approach that?

would you be able to handle this with just our guidance, and best to become CODEOWNER of the template?

in both cases, i.e. just contributor and codeowner

[derberg]

so it would look like this:

• we create a new repo
• you create PR to remove puppeteer from html-template
• there also needs to be PR opened to Generator to remove some stuff from dockerfile https://github.com/asyncapi/generator/blob/master/Dockerfile#L5-L10
• and yeah, a PR to new repo where you create a template for pdf generation basically
• in PR to new repo you also create a CODEOWNER file where you add your handle, and one of the reviewers so you are not the only maintainer there. I don't think there will be much maintenance needed with pdf template as it will just consume whatever is produces in HTML template, not much code I believe

Then, as a result, according to our open governance model you can (you do not have to) also become a member of Technical Steering Committee. You should definitely look at this for more details.

Of course, I can guide you through all the steps, explain CI and all that stuff around.

I see you are working on https://github.com/flamewow/nestjs-asyncapi so might be good for you to engage with us more as TSC member and consider moving the nestjs project here, under AsyncAPI organization too as it would help with recognition.

[flamewow]

Sounds good, let me start with "create a template for pdf generation",
once it works I'll message you (let me know how) so we can continue with next steps:

• create a new repo for pdf-template
• PR to remove puppeteer from html-template
  ..

[derberg]

@flamewow you can tag me here or just join our Slack and ping me there in #tooling channel. Also, next week because of the hackathon we organize and also hacktoberfest I will be live-streaming a Contributor first meeting, every Wednesday, throughout the entire October. Feel free to join, on any platform where the stream goes or live on zoom in case you need some explanation/guidance. Here is a link to the AsyncAPI calendar, I will update the invite this week with all the links to all the streaming platforms

[arjangeertsema]

This has become even more relevant: puppeteer/puppeteer#7921

[duxi90]

There is also this issue to take into consideration:
puppeteer/puppeteer#6622 (comment)

[magicmatatjahu]

@arjangeertsema @duxi90 Thanks for raise that issues! We have to do something about these problems, but you can still use html templates without puppeter via flag:

PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD=true ag ... @asyncapi/html-template ...

[github-actions]

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