Share a layer

If you have built a reusable layer, you can share it with other Schoolyear AVD users by contributing it to the Schoolyear AVD image community repository.

AVD image community

Sharing layers through the community repository shares the image-building work between organizations. It also benefits other educational institutions that may have limited image-building expertise.

Your organization benefits because your layer gets more use, generating some feedback that can improve the layer and keep it stable over time.

Guidelines

You can share a layer via a GitHub pull request. Try to adhere to the following guidelines:

• Keep the layer focused on a single application or a single clear purpose.
• Use parameters for everything that might change over time.
• Include in the README how thoroughly you tested the layer (e.g. tested with teachers? students? summative exams? scale?).
• The layer should fail when a critical build step fails; avoid unnecessary try/catch blocks.
• Include code comments where needed.

Tip

If you are unsure whether your layer meets all of these guidelines, you can still open a pull request. We will help you improve it during the review.

Step by step guide

The contribution flow is the same as for a normal GitHub pull request:

1. Fork the schoolyear/avd-image-community repository, if you have not already done so.

2. Create a clean branch for your layer contribution. If your main branch of your repo already has other changes, you can use this example to create a clean branch:

   git remote add upstream https://github.com/schoolyear/avd-image-community.git
   git fetch upstream
   git switch -c new-layer --no-track upstream/main
   git push -u origin new-layer

3. Add your layer under the layers folder.

4. Commit and push the layer and publish the branch to your fork.

5. From your forked repository, open a pull request against the main branch in the Schoolyear repository.

Review expectations

When you submit a community layer, a Schoolyear employee, based on availability, will check whether you’ve met the guidelines. If you’ve met all of them, the PR will be squashed and merged.