Life Cycle Actions

Life Cycle Actions are actions that are executed when specific events occur within a lab's life cycle. These actions can be used to send a web request, send a notification to a user, send an e-mail to a user, or execute a script. This guide will walk you through how to create Life Cycle Actions in a lab. For an overview of how automations is Skillable work please see Overview of How Lab Automation Works.

Best Practices for Using Life Cycle Actions

• When executing scripts, be sure to include proper error handling within your script.

• Refrain from outputting data in your LCA.

• If a Cloud Platform is specified, and the LCA depends on cloud resources to deploy and/or become available, adjust LCA execution time with either a Delay or the Fabric Build Sequence feature under the Advanced tab to make sure resources are available before the LCA attempts to run.

Life Cycle Configuration

Life Cycle Actions are configured to execute an action at a specified event during the life cycle of the lab.

Add Life Cycle Actions

To add Life Cycle Action to your lab profile, follow these steps for every Action:

1. Select the Advanced tab, and in the new Life Cycle Actions section, select Add Life Cycle Action.

2. From the Action Type dropdown, select the action you want performed.

3. From the Event dropdown, select the event when you want the Action to be triggered.

4. In the Delay box, set the number of seconds after the Life Cycle Event occurs that the Action should trigger, if wanted.

5. In the Error Action dropdown, select the type of action to Skillable Studio will take if an error occurs.

   1. If you select Notify User as the Error Action, an Error Notification field will appear. Type the text the user will receive in the Notifications toast notification in the lab interface.

6. Uncheck Enabled if necessary.

7. Select OK to add the Life Cycle Action.

Events

Life Cycle Events include:

Optional Settings

There are additional settings that can optionally be configured for a Life Cycle Action:

Actions

Life Cycle Actions include:

Send Web Request

A Web Request is used to send a URL request. The URL can optionally contain placeholders that will be replaced by live data.

Placeholders include:

• @lab.LabProfile.Id

• @lab.LabInstance.Id

• @lab.LabInstance.GlobalId

• @lab.User.Id

• @lab.User.ExternalId (if launched via API)

• @lab.User.email

• @lab.User.FirstName

• @lab.User.LastName

• @lab.Tag (if included when launched by API)

Lab data can be appended to the URL.

When Append Lab Data is enabled, the following lab data will be appended to the URL as URL parameters in the name=value format.

• labProfileId

• labInstanceId

• globalLabInstanceId

• userId

• userExternalId (if launched via API)

• email

• firstName

• lastName

• tag (if included when launched via API)

Web Requests have multiple verb options

• GET

• POST

• DELETE

• PUT

Headers

You can optionally include HTTP headers. Each header should be on a separate line and in the name=value format.

Send Notification to User

This will send a notification to the lab user's lab, during the specified event. This can contain plain text, or @lab replacement tokens. When the notification is sent to the lab user, information will be replaced by the @lab replacement token.

For example, if you were to configure the notification to the below, the notification will say "Hello" followed by the lab user's first name.

Hello, @lab.User.FirstName

You can give the notification a name. If a name is provided, only one copy of the notification with that name will be displayed in the lab client. This allows you to replace a notification with updated text.

Send E-mail to user

This will send an E-mail to the lab user, during the specified event. This can contain plain text,or @lab replacement tokens. When the notification is sent to the lab user, information will be replaced by the @lab replacement token.

Execute Script in Virtual Machine

Scripts can be used to target a virtual machine with a PowerShell, Bash or Shell script.

Scripts support Blocking, which allows you to block further execution of the lab life cycle until the action completes. You can use this to sequence actions that depend on each other. It is recommended to use the blocking feature if the script in the LCA will take very long to complete. Scripts also support @lab replacement tokens, that can be used in PowerShell, Bash and Shell scripts.

Multiple script types are available:

• PowerShell: PowerShell script execution without UI shown to the lab user.

• PowerShell with UI: PowerShell script execution with PowerShell UI visible to the lab user.

• Windows Command Shell: Shell script execution without UI shown to the lab user.

• Windows Command Shell with UI: Shell script execution with Command Prompt UI visible to the lab user.

• Bash: Bash script execution without UI shown to the lab user.

Execute Script in Container

Scripts can be used to target a container with a Bash script.

Scripts support Blocking, which allows you to block further execution of the lab life cycle until the action completes. You can use this to sequence actions that depend on each other. It is recommended to use the blocking feature if the script in the LCA will take very long to complete. Scripts also support @lab replacement tokens, that can be used Bash scripts.

Execute Script in Cloud Platform

Cloud Platform scripts are used to target a cloud platform such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services with a PowerShell, Python, C# or JavaScript script.

Along with traditional syntax, there is additional syntax that can be used to interact with Skillable Studio.

• Setting Lab Variables: sets a variable that can be recalled in subsequent lab instructions using @lab replacement tokens, as many times as necessary.

• Sending Lab Notifications: Sends a a popup notification to the lab, using the text specified in the syntax.

Cloud Platform scripts support Blocking, which allows you to block further execution of the lab life cycle until the action completes. You can use this to sequence actions that depend on each other. It is recommended to use the blocking feature if the script in the LCA will take very long to complete.

Cloud Platform scripts also support @lab replacement tokens, that can be used in PowerShell scripts.

Language options include:

Azure

• Legacy PowerShell: uses PowerShell version 5.1.

  • Azure: Azure RM 6.8.1.

• PowerShell: uses PowerShell version 7.1.3.

  • Azure:

    • Azure AZ 5.7.0.

    • Azure-CLI 2.22.1.

• Python: uses Python version 3.9.4.

  • Azure: AZ SKY 1.13.0.

• C#: (Azure Only) uses C# .NET 5.

  • Azure: Azure.Core 1.13.0.

AWS

• Legacy PowerShell: uses PowerShell version 5.1.

  • AWS: AWSPowerShell.netcore 4.1.3.0.

• PowerShell: uses PowerShell version 7.1.3.

  • AWS:

    • AWS CLI 2.1.39.

    • AWS.Tools 4.1.10.0.

• Python: uses Python version 3.9.4.

  • AWS: AWS Boto3 1.17.50.

• JavaScript (AWS Only): uses node.js 14

  • AWS: AWS SDK for JS 3

  If a cloud platform script encounters an error, and that error is not caught, Skillable Studio will attempt to execute the script from the beginning every 60 seconds until true for up to 30 minutes. If after 30 minutes the script still fails to execute, it will not be attempted again. The error thrown by the script will be logged and can be retrieved on the lab instance details page. For languages that support error handling, you may catch errors to give the user a different message.

Execute Custom Script

Custom scripts allow you to execute scripts during the life cycle of a lab, using a specific package for the selected language or using native syntax for the selected language.

Scripts executed using this method are typically used to target outside of Skillable Studio. As a best practice, it is recommended to use Execute Script in Virtual Machine to target virtual machines and Execute Script in Cloud Platform to target cloud environments.

• PowerShell: PowerShell Gallery

• Python: PyPi

  • Add NuGet Package

• JavaScript: NPM

  • Add NPM Package

• C#: Nuget

  • Add PyPI package

  If a Life Cycle Action custom script encounters an error, and that error is not caught, Skillable Studio will attempt to execute the script from the beginning every 60 seconds until true for up to 30 minutes. If after 30 minutes the script still fails to execute, it will not be attempted again. The error thrown by the script will be logged and can be retrieved on the lab instance details page. For languages that support error handling, you may catch errors to give the user a different message.

For more information about the available languages, see our Automating Activities.

Life Cycle Actions Management

Once you have added Life Cycle Actions to your lab, they will be listed on the Life Cycle tab of the lab profile, organized by event. If there are more than one LCA per Event, they can be arranged in the order they should execute when the Event happens.

To change the order, select the Up or Down arrow on the right side of the Action that you want to move. You can only move Actions within an Event. Life Cycle Actions can be edited or deleted from the buttons on the right side of it as well.

Child Lab Profile LCA inheritance

When a child lab profile is configured to inherit the lab environment from a parent lab profile, LCAs can optionally be set to inherit from the parent lab profile.

To inherit Life Cycle Actions, select the checkbox on the Life Cycle tab of the child lab profile, to enable inheritance. Once inheritance is enabled, no other LCA configuration will be available on the child lab profile. All LCA changes must be made on the parent lab profile.

Related Topics

• PowerShell Gallery

• PyPi

• Javascript

• C#

• Automating Activities