Pack authoring without Go: subprocess packs in v0.12.0
· 6 min read
The friction
Through v0.11.0, writing a new helmdeck pack meant writing Go. Specifically:
- Fork the repo
internal/packs/builtin/your_pack.gowith aHandlerFuncreturningjson.RawMessageinternal/packs/builtin/your_pack_test.gowith table-driven tests- Register in
cmd/control-plane/main.go - Rebuild the control-plane binary, redeploy
For maintainers, that's fine. For a community contributor whose stack is Python/Node/Rust, the Go-toolchain dependency is a barrier — even when the pack itself is "wrap this REST API in a typed schema."
T811 closes the gap, MVP-style.
