BDK Overview
An overview of the Book Development Kit (BDK).
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An overview of the Book Development Kit (BDK).
Last updated
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The Book Development Kit (BDK) is a software toolkit for developing Books in Kognitos. Books are collections of related automation (tasks). They can be added to an agent to expand automation functionality and integrate with external tools.
Although Kognitos builds and maintains a variety of Books to address common automation use cases, there may be situations where a custom Book is needed. The BDK is designed to help with:
With the BDK, you can create procedures that interact with third-party APIs, databases, and external services. If your organization uses tools or services not natively integrated with Kognitos, you can build a custom Book to integrate them directly into your automation workflows.
Extend Kognitos’ features to support more complex scenarios beyond standard functionality. Whether you need to support advanced data manipulation or custom data validation, the BDK provides the tools to create custom Books that meet your unique requirements.
The BDK is comprised of the following software components:
1
BDK API
The core Python library for Book development.
2
BDK Book Template
3
BDK Linter
4
BDK Poetry Plugin
5
BDK Runtime
A runtime that connects a Book with the Kognitos platform. It is packaged as a Docker image that serves as the foundation for Book containers.
The Book Development Lifecycle outlines the stages of software development for a new Book and how the BDK components interact throughout the process.
The planning phase is where the Book's functionality is defined. In this stage, you identify the external systems the Book will integrate with and outline the workflows or automation goals. This stage clarifies objectives and requirements, setting the foundation for development.
Refer to our Planning Checklist to help you plan your project.
The development phase is where the Book’s functionality is implemented using the BDK API and other tools:
The BDK Book Template provides starter code to streamline setup.
The BDK Linter enforces coding standards and identifies potential issues.
The BDK Poetry Plugin manages dependencies, versioning, and documentation.
The testing phase ensures that Books perform as intended. The BDK Book Template includes a testing framework for validating Book functionality.
In this stage, the Book is packaged and prepared for deployment. The code is packaged with the BDK Runtime using Docker and deployed externally.
Once deployed, the Book is ready to run in Kognitos, enabling you to extend your automations with custom workflows.
A Python template that simplifies the process of developing a new Book.
A linting tool built as a plugin. It analyzes code throughout development to identify potential issues and ensures Books are implemented, documented, and annotated correctly.
A Python dependency management and packaging tool that uses . It manages dependencies, versioning, formatting, and documentation generation for a Book.
