v0.15.0

Composer V0.15.0

Hello and welcome to v0.15.0 of Hyperledger Composer. This release contains breaking changes around the administrative access for the runtime as well as an upgrade to to Node8. Whilst you may not be able to asynch-await the CongaComic, please promisify that you read the details of these changes.

Features

✨ Business Network Cards within the CLI. Playground users will already be familiar with the concept of Business Network Cards. These have now been applied throughout Composer and are now used by the runtime components. The consequence of this is that all CLI commands have been changed to reference --card instead of a named connection profile and identity. This is a disruptive change, but now the model is consistent through the complete Hyperledger Composer stack, which ties Composer Playground and the runtime together very nicely indeed 👍

Being such a large change, we have an updated tutorial that takes you through the basic use of the business network cards with the command line, and of course the CLI reference documentation has been updated to match the changes 📖

✨ Just like the CLI, the Composer REST Server now makes use of ... yup, you guessed it - Business Network Cards! Business Network Cards are now the only way that you can connect to and use the REST Server, as demonstrated nicely by the updated developer tutorial

✨ Node8 has now entered LTS, which makes it the default version of node used when following our installation guide. We have now updated the code base to use Node 8.9, and we will be making use of all the benefits that this level of NodeJS provides 🎉

If you have previously configured your system following the Composer guides, you can upgrade your version of NodeJS using the command nvm install --lts.

Business Network Card Notes

👉 Currently the Playground and runtime use separate file stores, this means that if you were to import a Business Network Card in Playground, it will not show up when running a composer card list command from the CLI.

👉 Business Network Cards created and generated while using our dev server can only be shared on the same machine. Equally, cards created and generated from docker playground and rest-server can only be shared on docker containers in the same network (also cards between environments 2 and 3 cannot be shared either even if on the same machine). By 'shared', we mean to convey the ability to use the same card across the Composer stack, and/or for multiple persons to use the same card concurrently (subject to connection profile restrictions).

👉 Business Network Cards that only contain secrets are not shareable. To guarantee a card can be shared perform the following steps:

• composer card import (if the card has not been imported already)
• composer network ping using the card
• composer card export
  The resulting card can be shared (subject to above restrictions)

👉 Due to the change in Business Network Cards, we recommend that when upgrading, you should delete all existing connection profiles and credentials that exist under ~/.composer-connection-profiles and ~/.composer-credentials

Bug Fixes

Not content with delivering business network card continuity across Composer, the congas have been busy tackling as many issues as possible. These include:
🐞 #2575 and #2554 relate to fixes for the default json generation when testing business networks in Playground.
🐞 #2597 prevents errors being thrown in Playground if you have made breaking changes to a model file, having already created Resources from the (now invalid) model. You will not be able to see them, but you will be able to continue working with the new definitions.
🐞 #2637 enables support for Passport usernames that contain an @ character within the REST server

Conga Comics

Never one to disappoint, our resident artist @EdMoffatt has a fresh new addition to the expanding #CongaComics collection... just make sure you have read the release notes first!

Missed out on a Conga Comic, or want to catch up with them all? Fear not, you can view the complete Conga Comic collection at conga-comics