(dynamic-providers)=

Dynamic providers

Dynamic providers are a Pulumi feature that allows the core logic of a provider to be defined and managed within the context of a Pulumi program. This is in contrast to a normal ("real", sometimes "side-by-side") provider, whose logic is encapsulated as a separate plugin for use in any program. Dynamic providers are presently only supported in NodeJS/TypeScript and Python. They work as follows:

• The SDK defines two types:

  • That of dynamic providers -- objects with methods for the lifecycle methods that a gRPC provider would normally offer (CRUD, diff, etc.).
  • That of dynamic resources -- those that are managed by a dynamic provider. This type specialises (e.g. by subclassing in NodeJS and Python) the SDK's core resource type so that all dynamic resources have the same Pulumi package -- pulumi-nodejs for NodeJS and pulumi-python for Python.

  These are located in gh-file:pulumi#sdk/nodejs/dynamic/index.ts in NodeJS/TypeScript and gh-file:pulumi#sdk/python/lib/pulumi/dynamic/dynamic.py in Python.

• The SDK also defines a "real" provider that implements the gRPC interface and manages the lifecycle of dynamic resources. This provider is named according to the single package name used for all dynamic resources. See gh-file:pulumi#sdk/nodejs/cmd/dynamic-provider/index.ts for NodeJS and gh-file:pulumi#sdk/python/lib/pulumi/dynamic/__main__.py for Python.

• A user extends the types defined by the SDK in order to implement one or more dynamic providers and resources that belong to those providers. They use these resources in their program like any other.

• When a dynamic resource class is instantiated, it captures the provider instance that manages it and serializes this provider instance as part of the resource's properties.

  • In NodeJS, serialization is performed by capturing and mangling the source code of the provider and any dependencies by (ab)using v8 primitives -- see gh-file:pulumi#sdk/nodejs/runtime/closure for the gory details.
  • In Python, serialization is performed by pickling the dynamic provider instance -- see gh-file:pulumi#sdk/python/lib/pulumi/dynamic/dynamic.py's use of dill for more on this.

• The serialized provider state is then stored as a property on the dynamic resource. It is consequently sent to the engine as part of lifecycle calls (check, diff, create, etc.) like any other property.

• When the engine receives requests pertaining to dynamic resources, the fixed package (pulumi-nodejs or pulumi-python) will cause it to make provider calls against the "real" provider defined in the SDK.

• The provider proxies these calls to the code the user wrote by deserializing and hydrating the provider instance from the resource's properties and invoking the appropriate code.

These implementation choices impose a number of limitations:

• Serialized/pickled code is brittle and simply doesn't work in all cases. Some features are supported and some aren't, depending on the language and surrounding context. Dependency management (both within the user's program and as it relates to third-party packages such as those from NPM or PyPi) is challenging.
• Even when code works once, or in one context, it might not work later on. If e.g. absolute paths specific to one machine form part of the provider's code (or the code of its dependencies), the fact that these are serialized into the Pulumi state means that on later hydration, a program that worked before might not work again.
• Related to the problem of state serialization is the fact that dynamic provider state is only updated when the program runs. It is therefore not possible in general to e.g. change the code of a dynamic provider and expect an operation like destroy (which does not run the program) to pick up the changes.