Transcripts#

Transcripts provide a way to script interactions between Unison code and the Unison Codebase Manager (UCM). They are written as markdown documents containing fenced code blocks which define the Unison code and UCM commands to be performed. These interactions are called "stanzas" and they're evaluated starting from the top of the file.

When writing Unison code in a transcript, start a code block with triple backticks followed by "unison":

``` unison
myTerm = "Hello world"
```

Let's say you want to add this term to a Unison codebase. You can describe that in a fenced code block started by triple backticks followed by the word "ucm":

``` ucm
.> add myTerm
```

The > is a prompt indicator that you'll use to separate the directory structure indicator on the left and the ucm commands on the right. . means that the prompt is located at the root . of the codebase. You can change this to reflect the results of running commands like creating new namespaces in your script or cd-ing around the codebase. To the right of the prompt, you can issue UCM commands for interacting with the codebase.

To run a transcript when you start up the UCM, provide the transcript argument followed by a path to the markdown file like so:

ucm transcript path/to/transcript.md

By default, transcripts are run against a new codebase each time. When a transcript is run it creates a temporary file to house the new codebase and deletes it upon finishing the run. Note that unlike the default behavior of initializing a new codebase with the UCM codebase-create argument, transcripts do not contain the base library. If you would like your codebase to run against a codebase with the base library in scope, you can add a ucm block which issues a pull command for your desired base library.

If a transcript can be successfully executed, the UCM will create an output file which captures the results of the interactions being described. The output of the transcript run will be written in a .output suffixed file with the same name and filepath as the original.

👉 Did you know? Transcripts can help project maintainers triage and fix bugs! Simply write your reproduction as a transcript and attach the markdown file to your bug report.

Transcript Options#

• You can save the codebase that your transcript produced with the --save-codebase flag for debugging and sharing. At the end of the transcript run, the UCM will print out the location of the directory where you can find your codebase and give you instructions for how to open it!
• If you would like to run your transcript against a particular codebase, use the transcript.fork option. Here's an example of how it might be called: ucm transcript.fork path/to/transcript.md --codebase aParticularCodebase This will make a copy of the codebase given as an argument and run the transcript against it. Don't worry - your original codebase will remain unaltered.