Data types

This page lists custom data types used in Bolt plans and their functions.

Custom data types

Bolt ships with several custom data types that can be used within a plan.

ApplyResult

You can access ApplyResult functions with dot notation, using the syntax: ApplyResult.function.

The following functions are available to ApplyResult objects.

Function Return type Description
action String The action performed. ApplyResult.action always returns the string apply.
catalog Optional[Hash]
error Optional[Error]
message Optional[String] The _output field of the result's value.
ok Boolean Whether the result was successful.
report Hash[String, Data]
target Target
to_data Hash A serialized representation of ApplyResult.
value Hash A hash including the Puppet report from the apply action under a report key.

ContainerResult

The run_container plan function returns a ContainerResult object. A ContainerResult is a standalone object (not part of a ResultSet) that includes either the stdout and stderr values from running the container, or an _error object if the container exited with a nonzero exit code.

You can access ContainerResult functions with dot notation, using the syntax: ContainerResult.function.

The following functions are available to ContainerResult objects.

Function Return type Description
[] Data Accesses the value hash directly and returns the value for the key. This function does not use dot notation. Call the function directly on the ContainerResult. For example, $result[key].
error Optional[Error] An object constructed from the _error field of the result's value.
ok Boolean Whether the result was successful.
status String Either success if the result was successful or failure.
stderr String The value of 'stderr' output by the container.
stdout String The value of 'stdout' output by the container.
to_data Hash A serialized representation of ContainerResult.
value Hash[String, Data] A hash including the stdout, stderr, and exit_code received from the container.

Future

The background() plan function returns a Future object, which can be passed to the wait() plan function to block on the result of the backgrounded code block.

You can access Future functions with dot notation, using the syntax: Future.function.

The following functions are available to Future objects.

Function Return type Description
state Enum['done', 'error', 'running'] Either 'running' if the Future is still executing, 'done' if the Future finished successfully, or 'error' if the Future finished with an error.

ResourceInstance

ResourceInstance objects are used to store the observed and desired state of a target's resource and to track events for the resource. These objects do not modify or interact with a target's resources.

The ResourceInstance data type is experimental and might change in a future release. You can learn more about this data type and how to use it in the experimental features documentation.

You can access ResourceInstance functions with dot notation, using the syntax: ResourceInstance.function.

The following functions are available to ResourceInstance objects.

Function Return type Description
[] Data Accesses the state hash directly and returns the value for the specified attribute. This function does not use dot noation. Call the function directly on the ResourceInstance. For example, $resource['ensure'].
add_event Array[Hash[String, Data]] Add an event for the resource.
desired_state Optional[Hash[String, Data]] Attributes describing the desired state of the resource.
events Optional[Array[Hash[String, Data]]] Events for the resource.
overwrite_desired_state Hash[String, Data] Overwrites the desired state of the resource.
overwrite_state Hash[String, Data] Overwrites the observed state of the resource.
reference String The resources reference string. For example, File[/etc/puppetlabs].
set_desired_state Hash[String, Data] Sets attributes describing the desired state of the resource. Performs a shallow merge with existing desired state.
set_state Hash[String, Data] Sets attributes describing the observed state of the resource. Performs a shallow merge with existing state.
state Optional[Hash[String, Data]] Attributes describing the observed state of the resource.
target Target The resource's target.
title String The resource title.
type Variant[String, Type[Resource]] The resource type.

Result

For each target that you execute an action on, Bolt returns a Result object and adds the Result to a ResultSet object. A Result object contains information about the action you executed on the target.

You can access Result functions with dot notation, using the syntax: Result.function.

The following functions are available to Result objects.

Function Return type Description
[] Variant[Data, Sensitive[Data]] Accesses the value hash directly and returns the value for the key. This function does not use dot notation. Call the function directly on the Result. For example, $result['key'].
action String The type of result. For example, task or command.
error Optional[Error] An object constructed from the _error field of the result's value.
message Optional[String] The _output field of the result's value.
ok Boolean Whether the result was successful.
sensitive Optional[Sensitive[Data]] The _sensitive field of the result's value, wrapped in a Sensitive object. Call unwrap() to extract the value.
status String Either success if the result was successful or failure.
target Target The target the result is from.
to_data Hash A serialized representation of Result.
value Hash[String, Data] The output or return of executing on the target.

Command and script result value keys

The Result object returned by the run_command and run_script plan function includes the following keys on the value hash:

Key Type Description
exit_code Number The command's or script's exit code.
merged_output String Output written to both standard error (stderr) and standard out (stdout) in the order that Bolt received the output.
stderr String Output written to standard error (stderr).
stdout String Output written to standard out (stdout).

Download result value keys

The Result object returned by the download_file plan function includes the following key on the value hash:

Key Type Description
path String The path to the downloaded file on the local host.

ResultSet

For each target that you execute an action on, Bolt returns a Result object and adds the Result to a ResultSet object. In the case of apply actions, Bolt returns a ResultSet with one or more ApplyResult objects.

You can access ResultSet functions with dot notation, using the syntax: ResultSet.function.

The following functions are available to ResultSet objects.

Function Return type Description
[] Variant[Result, ApplyResult, Array[Variant[Result, ApplyResult]]] The accessed results. This function does not use dot notation. Call the function directly on the ResultSet. For example, $results[0].
count Integer The number of results in the set.
empty Boolean Whether the set is empty.
error_set ResultSet The set of failing results.
filter_set ResultSet Filters a set of results by the contents of the block.
find Optional[Variant[Result, ApplyResult]] Retrieves a result for a specified target.
first Optional[Variant[Result, ApplyResult]] The first result in the set. Useful for unwrapping single results.
names Array[String] The names of all targets that have a Result in the set.
ok Boolean Whether all results were successful. Equivalent to $results.error_set.empty.
ok_set ResultSet The set of successful results.
results Array[Variant[Result, ApplyResult]] All results in the set.
targets Array[Target] The list of targets that have results in the set.
to_data Array[Hash] An array of serialized representations of each result in the set.

Target

The Target object represents a target and its specific connection options.

You can access Target functions with dot notation, using the syntax: Target.function.

The following functions are available to Target objects.

Function Return type Description
config Optional[Hash[String, Data]] The inventory configuration for the target. This function returns the configuration set directly on the target in inventory.yaml or set in a plan using Target.new or set_config(). It does not return default configuration values or configuration set in Bolt configuration files.
facts Optional[Hash[String, Data]] The target's facts. This function does not look up facts for a target and only returns the facts specified in an inventory.yaml file or set on a target during a plan run. To retrieve facts for a target and set them in inventory, run the facts plan or puppetdb_fact plan.
features Optional[Array[String]] The target's features.
host Optional[String] The target's hostname.
name Optional[String] The target's human-readable name, or its URI if a name was not given.
password Optional[String] The password to use when connecting to the target.
plugin_hooks Optional[Hash[String, Data]] The target's plugin_hooks configuration options.
port Optional[Integer] The target's connection port.
protocol Optional[String] The protocol used to connect to the target. This is equivalent to the target's transport, expect for targets using the remote transport. For example, a target with the URI http://example.com using the remote transport would return http for the protocol.
resources Optional[Hash[String, ResourceInstance]] The target's resources. This function does not look up resources for a target and only returns resources set on a target during a plan run.
safe_name Optional[String] The target's safe name. Equivalent to name if a name was given, or the target's uri with any password omitted.
target_alias Optional[Variant[String, Array[String]]] The target's aliases.
transport String The transport used to connect to the target.
transport_config Hash[String, Data] The merged configuration for the target's transport. This function returns configuration that includes defaults set by Bolt, configuration set in inventory.yaml, configuration set in bolt-defaults.yaml, and configuration set in a plan using set_config().
uri Optional[String] The target's URI.
user Optional[String] The user to connect to the target.
vars Optional[Hash[String, Data]] The target's variables.

Type Aliases

Bolt also ships with type aliases, which provide an alternate name for existing types or lists of types. These types can be used within a plan, and have all of the attributes and functions of whichever Puppet type they are set to in the plan.

TargetSpec

A TargetSpec is an alias for any of the following types:

  • String

  • Target (defined above)

  • Array[TargetSpec] (yep, it's recursive!)

You can pass TargetSpec objects to get_targets() to return an Array[Target]. Generally, you shouldn't need to worry about the distinction between TargetSpec and Target/Array[Target], because most Bolt plan functions handle them automatically. But if your use case requires it, you can use get_targets() to return an exact list of targets.

📖 Related information

  • For more information on how to use TargetSpec in a plan, see Writing plans.

PlanResult

A PlanResult describes the supported return values of a plan. This is the type returned from the run_plan() plan function. Similarly, a parallelize() plan function returns an Array[PlanResult]. Plans can return just about any Puppet type, so the PlanResult can be any of the following types:

  • Boolean

  • Numeric

  • String

  • Undef

  • Error

  • Result

  • ApplyResult

  • ResultSet

  • Target

  • ResourceInstance

  • Array[PlanResult]

  • Hash{String => PlanResult}. In other words, a Hash where each key is a String and each corresponding value is a PlanResult, which could be any of the above types, including another Hash.

📖 Related information