This guide explains how to set up your development environment and how to use the Chatlayer CLI cldk which is available as a command line app.

✅ Prerequisites

To use the App Integration framework, you should be familiar with the following:

• Node.js
• Javascript

Knowledge of Typescript is helpful but not required.

To install CLI on your local system, you need the following:

• Node.js App Integration requires version 14 of Node.js. For more information on installing Node.js, see nodejs.org . If you are unsure what version of Node.js runs on your system, run node -v in a terminal window.
• npm package manager App Integration CLI and the App you develop with this framework depends on many features and functions. To download and install Node.js packages, you need the npm package manager. This guide uses the npm client command line interface, which is installed with Node.js by default. To check that you have installed the npm client installed, run npm -v in the terminal window.

🔧 Install the Chatlayer CLI (cldk for short)

You use the App Integration CLI to create project, generate a templated app and perform variety of ongoing development tasks such as testing, building, validating and deploying.

To install the cldk, open a terminal window and run the following command

npm install -g @chatlayer/app-platform

To know about all the commands that will be accessible after installing it, please refer to the detailed documentation of the cldk

🎉 Create a workspace and scaffold a new app

You develop apps in the context of an App Integration workspace.

To create a new workspace and initial starter app:

Run the command cldk scaffold and provide the name my-first-app, as shown below:

cldk scaffold my-first-app

After a while it installs the necessary Node.js packages and other dependencies.

The CLI creates a new workspace and a simple app where you can fill in your code.

Once the above command is run, you should have the following directory structure:

apps
  my-first-app
    README.md
    index.js
    package.json

Navigate to the app directory and run

npm install

To install the required dependencies.

Have a look at the App Schema to have a look at what is possible with the app integrations