Hi Alex,

do you think any of these pieces could be moved to 'official yocto',
specifically as bitbake-layers subcommands? I read through the README, and
it seems that things like 'status' and 'run' would fit very well there.

I would agree that 'status' and 'run' would be useful additions, though I can't say I'll have time to volunteer to do it :(.

Also note that there's a proposal for a json schema and layer tooling that
would be provided directly in oe-core:
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgit.y
octoproject.org%2Fpoky-contrib%2Flog%2F%3Fh%3Dakanavin%2Fsetup-
layers&data=05%7C01%7Cchris.laplante%40agilent.com%7C533ad5afc07
54a885d7808da75907dff%7Ca9c0bc098b46420693512ba12fb4a5c0%7C0%7C0
%7C637951560728773611%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjA
wMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C
%7C&sdata=hN7QRlYqAPxigCSQfNlaCM7nWZ4vvSLv5IWzckYWAFU%3D
&reserved=0

I saw that a few weeks ago and it is certainly good work :). (as are the other existing solutions, like kas, whisk, etc.)

But IMHO bundling the layer setup tool inside bitbake itself feels a bit like the chicken-and-egg problem. I'd like my spec file (or JSON file, kas configuration file, whatever) to be a complete manifest of things to download. But with bitbake-layers, first I need to know the right version of poky and where to get it. Also, I think it would be hard to implement 'yb sync'-like functionality there, specifically if we wanted to be able to change between poky branches.

Overall the thing I like about yb is that it is independent of Yocto/BitBake and easier to setup. Like an IDE, I can install it once and use it across multiple projects.

I can't help but say that there's a certain bit of irony in referring to
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fxkcd
.com%2F1987%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cchris.laplante%40agilent.com%7C
533ad5afc0754a885d7808da75907dff%7Ca9c0bc098b46420693512ba12fb4a5c0
%7C0%7C0%7C637951560728773611%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIj
oiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3
000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=uTq3p2HeA0Xfe3DMZ1fxkAxlHfOJNXM4za2XIC
v5OcA%3D&reserved=0 - when introducing yet another external tool
for yocto layer management :-)

The irony is not lost on me :), especially given the layer setup tool conversation last month.

Chris