Writing Tasks

Writing a task in minion is very easy. Simply create a new class called Task_<Taskname> and put it inside classes/task/<taskname>.php.

<?php

class Task_Demo extends Minion_Task
{
    protected $_options = [
        'foo' => 'bar',
        'bar' => null,
    ];

    /**
     * This is a demo task
     *
     * @return null
     */
    protected function _execute(array $params)
    {
        var_dump($params);
        echo 'foobar';
    }
}

You'll notice a few things here:

• You need a main _execute() method. It should take one array parameter.
  • This parameter contains any command line options passed to the task.
  • For example, if you call the task above with ./minion --task=demo --foo=foobar then $params will contain: ['foo' => 'foobar', 'bar' => null]
• It needs to have a protected $_options array. This is a list of parameters you want to accept for this task. Any parameters passed to the task not in this list will be rejected.

Namespacing Tasks

You can "namespace" tasks by placing them all in a subdirectory: classes/task/database/generate.php. This task will be named database:generate and can be called with this task name.

Parameter Validations

To add validations to your command line options, simply overload the build_validation() method in your task:

public function build_validation(Validation $validation)
{
    return parent::build_validation($validation)
        ->rule('foo', 'not_empty') // Require this param
        ->rule('bar', 'numeric'); // This param should be numeric
}

These validations will run for every task call unless --help is passed to the task.

Task Help

Tasks can have built-in help. Minion will read class docblocks that you specify:

<?php

/**
 * This is a demo task.
 *
 * It can accept the following options:
 *  - foo: this parameter does something. It is required.
 *  - bar: this parameter does something else. It should be numeric.
 *
 * @package    Kohana
 * @category   Helpers
 * @author     Kohana Team
 * @copyright  (c) 2009-2011 Kohana Team
 * @license    http://kohanaframework.org/license
 */
class Minion_Task_Demo extends Minion_Task

The @ tags in the class comments will also be displayed in a human readable format. When writing your task comments, you should specify how to use it, and any parameters it accepts.