# Cookbook dependency graphing

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [July 10, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288 "2013-07-10T00:00:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 13\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/1 "2013-07-10T00:00:51Z")

</div>

Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
gems.

> **[leftathome/depgraph](https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)**
>
> Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata. - leftathome/depgraph

Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.

I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks like  
this:

{ "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
...  
}

Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mike](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/mike/32/18_2.png) [@Mike](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Mike)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/2 "2013-07-10T05:07:50Z")

</div>

A while back, I did something similar for roles only:  
[http://miketheman.github.io/knife-role-spaghetti/](http://miketheman.github.io/knife-role-spaghetti/)

Does this make my (albiet, not really touched this code in a while)  
code obsolete?

-M

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 8:00 PM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:

> Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> gems.
> 
> [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> 
> Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> 
> I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks like  
> this:
> 
> { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> ...  
> }
> 
> Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/3 "2013-07-10T05:32:57Z")

</div>

Oh, this looks really nice! I especially like how the cookbooks are  
rendered vs roles 🙂

Actually I'm working with application cookbooks rather than roles, and I'm  
working from inside a cookbook repo rather than a Chef repo.

A combination of both would be perfect 😉

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 7:07 AM, Mike [miketheman@gmail.com](mailto:miketheman@gmail.com) wrote:

> A while back, I did something similar for roles only:  
> [knife-role-spaghetti by miketheman](http://miketheman.github.io/knife-role-spaghetti/)

> Does this make my (albiet, not really touched this code in a while)  
> code obsolete?
> 
> -M
> 
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 8:00 PM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby  
> > depgraph  
> > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and  
> > installed  
> > gems.
> > 
> > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > 
> > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> > graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > 
> > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > like  
> > this:
> > 
> > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > ...  
> > }
> > 
> > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/4 "2013-07-10T05:38:45Z")

</div>

Guess I'm too stupid to install it...

In my `Gemfile`:

```auto
source 'https://rubygems.org'

gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'

```

Then I run:

```auto
D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
Resolving dependencies...
Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'

```

Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?

Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the  
problem?

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:

> Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> gems.
> 
> [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> 
> Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> 
> I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> like this:
> 
> { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> ...  
> }
> 
> Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roman\_Bobrovski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/roman_bobrovski/32/409_2.png) [@Roman\_Bobrovski](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Roman_Bobrovski)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/5 "2013-07-10T05:41:03Z")

</div>

Great tool!

I used:  
gem install specific\_install  
gem specific\_install -l [git@github.com](mailto:git@github.com):leftathome/depgraph.git

--  
Roman B

On Wednesday, 10 July, 2013 at 8:38 AM, Torben Knerr wrote:

> Guess I'm too stupid to install it...
> 
> In my `Gemfile`:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> source 'https://rubygems.org'
> 
> gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> 
> ```
> 
> Then I run:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
> Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
> remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
> rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
> Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
> Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
> Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
> Resolving dependencies...
> Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
> https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
> Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'
> 
> ```
> 
> Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?
> 
> Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the problem?
> 
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . \<[leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) ([mailto:leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com))\> wrote:
> 
> > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed gems.
> > 
> > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > 
> > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > 
> > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks like this:
> > 
> > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > ...  
> > }
> > 
> > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/6 "2013-07-10T05:43:57Z")

</div>

Well, Mike, the code I wrote today doesn't look at roles at all. I didn't  
think too hard about mapping cookbook changes to roles, as I'd decided that  
I'd implement that as a pretty simple grep. In other words:

Inbound change set includes changes to "cookbook1" -\> Look up "cookbook1"  
in dependency graph, find dependencies on "cookbook2" -\> Look for roles  
containing either "cookbook1" or "cookbook2" -\> Test those roles first.

That's basically the logic I am looking to implement.

The other fun thing, which I'd thought would somehow involve me writing an  
entirely new Jenkins plugin but now appears to be implementable via  
ScriptTrigger, is going to be "Run Librarian, build aggregate change set."  
Then run through the above parsing logic.

I'm currently supporting a unified Chef repo but hope to tool things in  
such a way that individual cookbook repos get updated with each central  
release. I don't know if this sounds fancy or not but the implementation  
is actually not at all fancy and I feel a bit stupid for not trying this  
approach earlier (basically involves a merciless application of "git  
filter-branch" as part of the release job).

Honestly, the visualization came about on my way towards getting to the  
JSON object, but internally everyone seems to really like the graphviz  
renders. Someone even mentioned that they were using your knife plugin,  
Mike!

Hmm, maybe I should be rendering the dependency graph and including it in  
the yard-generated documentation site.

(working on getting the OK to contribute that back, BTW - works just as  
well with individual cookbooks as it does with whole repositories...)

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Mike [miketheman@gmail.com](mailto:miketheman@gmail.com) wrote:

> A while back, I did something similar for roles only:  
> [knife-role-spaghetti by miketheman](http://miketheman.github.io/knife-role-spaghetti/)
> 
> Does this make my (albiet, not really touched this code in a while)  
> code obsolete?
> 
> -M
> 
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 8:00 PM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby  
> > depgraph  
> > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and  
> > installed  
> > gems.
> > 
> > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > 
> > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> > graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > 
> > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > like  
> > this:
> > 
> > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > ...  
> > }
> > 
> > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:48am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/7 "2013-07-10T05:48:11Z")

</div>

Hi Torbin,

I threw this together today on my Macbook, so I'm not surprised to find  
that you're having trouble getting it to work on Windows. I'm pretty sure  
at least some of the depgraph codebase pre-dates Chef and it definitely  
_wasn't_ designed with Bundler in mind. The gemspec is actually declared  
in the Rakefile.

However, I can attest that "rake gem" and "sudo gem install  
pkg/depgraph-VERSION.gem" got it installed for me. No idea how easy it's  
going to be for you to get graphviz / ruby-graphviz functioning on Windows,  
though.

I don't know if the original gem is actively maintained at this point --  
haven't put together a pull request yet -- but if you get it working on  
Windows, send me a PR and I'll merge it on in...

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:

> Guess I'm too stupid to install it...
> 
> In my `Gemfile`:
> 
> ```auto
> source 'https://rubygems.org'
> 
> gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> 
> ```
> 
> Then I run:
> 
> ```auto
> D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
> Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
> remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
> rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
> Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
> Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
> Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
> Resolving dependencies...
> Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
> https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
> Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'
> 
> ```
> 
> Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?
> 
> Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the  
> problem?
> 
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> > gems.
> > 
> > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > 
> > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> > graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > 
> > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > like this:
> > 
> > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > ...  
> > }
> > 
> > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/8 "2013-07-10T06:13:41Z")

</div>

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Roman B [rombob@gmail.com](mailto:rombob@gmail.com) wrote:

> Great tool!
> 
> I used:  
> gem install specific\_install  
> gem specific\_install -l [git@github.com](mailto:git@github.com):leftathome/depgraph.git

Thanks Roman, that did the trick! 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 7:55am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/9 "2013-07-10T07:55:22Z")

</div>

Hi Steve,

thanks! It works on Windows as well, you just need graphviz installed (and  
in the path), and you need to install it either as you or Roman described.

I just understood that it simply looks for all the `metadata.rb` files in  
the current directory, so it works both with librarian and berkshelf (just  
make sure the cookbooks are vendored e.g. to the `./cookbooks` directory).  
That is cool! 🙂

One improvement would be to show the version number of the resolved  
cookbook in the graph nodes in addition to only the name. One step further  
you could also label the edges with the version constraints, if any.

P.S.: for the use case you describe (i.e. finding out which other cookbooks  
depend on an updated cookbook) you could also argue that this is the job of  
a dependency manager to find out. I'm not sure if librarian can do that,  
but berkshelf supports this exactly via `berks contingent COOKBOOK -F json`

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 7:48 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:

> Hi Torbin,
> 
> I threw this together today on my Macbook, so I'm not surprised to find  
> that you're having trouble getting it to work on Windows. I'm pretty sure  
> at least some of the depgraph codebase pre-dates Chef and it definitely  
> _wasn't_ designed with Bundler in mind. The gemspec is actually declared  
> in the Rakefile.
> 
> However, I can attest that "rake gem" and "sudo gem install  
> pkg/depgraph-VERSION.gem" got it installed for me. No idea how easy it's  
> going to be for you to get graphviz / ruby-graphviz functioning on Windows,  
> though.
> 
> I don't know if the original gem is actively maintained at this point --  
> haven't put together a pull request yet -- but if you get it working on  
> Windows, send me a PR and I'll merge it on in...
> 
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:
> 
> > Guess I'm too stupid to install it...
> > 
> > In my `Gemfile`:
> > 
> > ```auto
> > source 'https://rubygems.org'
> > 
> > gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Then I run:
> > 
> > ```auto
> > D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
> > Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
> > remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
> > remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
> > rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
> > Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
> > Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
> > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
> > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
> > Resolving dependencies...
> > Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
> > https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
> > Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?
> > 
> > Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the  
> > problem?
> > 
> > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> > 
> > > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> > > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> > > gems.
> > > 
> > > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > > 
> > > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> > > graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > > 
> > > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > > like this:
> > > 
> > > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > > ...  
> > > }
> > > 
> > > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/10 "2013-07-11T05:52:00Z")

</div>

P.S.: just added a pull requrest so it can be installed via bundler as well:

> <https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph/pull/1>
>
> This PR externalizes the gemspec within the Rakefile to its own \`depgraph.gemspe…c\` file. Inside the Rakefile we now \`require 'bundler/gem\_tasks'\` which now provides the rake tasks for packaging and release, e.g.:
> 
> \`\`\`
> D:\\Repos\\\_github\\depgraph\>rake -T
> rake build # Build depgraph-0.11.0.gem into the pkg directory
> rake install # Build and install depgraph-0.11.0.gem into system gems
> rake release # Create tag v0.11.0 and build and push depgraph-0.11.0.gem t...
> rake spec # Run RSpec code examples
> \`\`\`
> 
> Having the \`depgraph.gemspec\` it its own file allows you to define depgraph as dependency in a \`Gemfile\` so that it works with Bundler, e.g.:
> 
> \`\`\`
> source 'https://rubygems.org'
> 
> \# use steve's version of depgraph with -type cookbook support
> gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> \`\`\`

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> thanks! It works on Windows as well, you just need graphviz installed (and  
> in the path), and you need to install it either as you or Roman described.
> 
> I just understood that it simply looks for all the `metadata.rb` files in  
> the current directory, so it works both with librarian and berkshelf (just  
> make sure the cookbooks are vendored e.g. to the `./cookbooks` directory).  
> That is cool! 🙂
> 
> One improvement would be to show the version number of the resolved  
> cookbook in the graph nodes in addition to only the name. One step further  
> you could also label the edges with the version constraints, if any.
> 
> P.S.: for the use case you describe (i.e. finding out which other  
> cookbooks depend on an updated cookbook) you could also argue that this is  
> the job of a dependency manager to find out. I'm not sure if librarian can  
> do that, but berkshelf supports this exactly via `berks contingent COOKBOOK -F json`
> 
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 7:48 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > Hi Torbin,
> > 
> > I threw this together today on my Macbook, so I'm not surprised to find  
> > that you're having trouble getting it to work on Windows. I'm pretty sure  
> > at least some of the depgraph codebase pre-dates Chef and it definitely  
> > _wasn't_ designed with Bundler in mind. The gemspec is actually declared  
> > in the Rakefile.
> > 
> > However, I can attest that "rake gem" and "sudo gem install  
> > pkg/depgraph-VERSION.gem" got it installed for me. No idea how easy it's  
> > going to be for you to get graphviz / ruby-graphviz functioning on Windows,  
> > though.
> > 
> > I don't know if the original gem is actively maintained at this point --  
> > haven't put together a pull request yet -- but if you get it working on  
> > Windows, send me a PR and I'll merge it on in...
> > 
> > On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:
> > 
> > > Guess I'm too stupid to install it...
> > > 
> > > In my `Gemfile`:
> > > 
> > > ```auto
> > > source 'https://rubygems.org'
> > > 
> > > gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> > > 
> > > ```
> > > 
> > > Then I run:
> > > 
> > > ```auto
> > > D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
> > > Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
> > > remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
> > > remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
> > > rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
> > > Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
> > > Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
> > > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
> > > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
> > > Resolving dependencies...
> > > Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
> > > https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
> > > Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'
> > > 
> > > ```
> > > 
> > > Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?
> > > 
> > > Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the  
> > > problem?
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > > > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> > > > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> > > > gems.
> > > > 
> > > > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > > > 
> > > > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a  
> > > > dependency graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > > > 
> > > > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > > > like this:
> > > > 
> > > > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > > > ...  
> > > > }
> > > > 
> > > > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/11 "2013-07-11T16:46:35Z")

</div>

Pull request accepted! Thank you for choosing the open source development  
model. 😉

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:52 PM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:

> P.S.: just added a pull requrest so it can be installed via bundler as  
> well:  
> [Switch to external depgraph.gemspec so DepGraph can be used with Bundler by tknerr · Pull Request #1 · leftathome/depgraph · GitHub](https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph/pull/1)
> 
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:
> 
> > Hi Steve,
> > 
> > thanks! It works on Windows as well, you just need graphviz installed  
> > (and in the path), and you need to install it either as you or Roman  
> > described.
> > 
> > I just understood that it simply looks for all the `metadata.rb` files in  
> > the current directory, so it works both with librarian and berkshelf (just  
> > make sure the cookbooks are vendored e.g. to the `./cookbooks` directory).  
> > That is cool! 🙂
> > 
> > One improvement would be to show the version number of the resolved  
> > cookbook in the graph nodes in addition to only the name. One step further  
> > you could also label the edges with the version constraints, if any.
> > 
> > P.S.: for the use case you describe (i.e. finding out which other  
> > cookbooks depend on an updated cookbook) you could also argue that this is  
> > the job of a dependency manager to find out. I'm not sure if librarian can  
> > do that, but berkshelf supports this exactly via `berks contingent COOKBOOK -F json`
> > 
> > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 7:48 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi Torbin,
> > > 
> > > I threw this together today on my Macbook, so I'm not surprised to find  
> > > that you're having trouble getting it to work on Windows. I'm pretty sure  
> > > at least some of the depgraph codebase pre-dates Chef and it definitely  
> > > _wasn't_ designed with Bundler in mind. The gemspec is actually declared  
> > > in the Rakefile.
> > > 
> > > However, I can attest that "rake gem" and "sudo gem install  
> > > pkg/depgraph-VERSION.gem" got it installed for me. No idea how easy it's  
> > > going to be for you to get graphviz / ruby-graphviz functioning on Windows,  
> > > though.
> > > 
> > > I don't know if the original gem is actively maintained at this point --  
> > > haven't put together a pull request yet -- but if you get it working on  
> > > Windows, send me a PR and I'll merge it on in...
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Torben Knerr [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Guess I'm too stupid to install it...
> > > > 
> > > > In my `Gemfile`:
> > > > 
> > > > ```auto
> > > > source 'https://rubygems.org'
> > > > 
> > > > gem 'depgraph', git: 'https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git'
> > > > 
> > > > ```
> > > > 
> > > > Then I run:
> > > > 
> > > > ```auto
> > > > D:\Repos\_github\_cookbooks\gitlab>bundle install
> > > > Fetching https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git
> > > > remote: Counting objects: 316, done.
> > > > remote: Compressing objects: 100% (124/124), done.
> > > > rRemote: Total 316 (delta 171), reused 311 (delta 166)
> > > > Receiving objects: 100% (316/316), 69.82 KiB | 73 KiB/s, done.
> > > > Resolving deltas: 100% (171/171), done.
> > > > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.......
> > > > Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
> > > > Resolving dependencies...
> > > > Could not find gem 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32' in
> > > > https://github.com/leftathome/depgraph.git (at master).
> > > > Source does not contain any versions of 'depgraph (>= 0) x86-mingw32'
> > > > 
> > > > ```
> > > > 
> > > > Is it supposed to be installed as a gem?
> > > > 
> > > > Not a Ruby expert, but I don't see a .gemspec there. Might this be the  
> > > > problem?
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 2:00 AM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made  
> > > > > some REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby  
> > > > > depgraph tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and  
> > > > > installed gems.
> > > > > 
> > > > > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > > > > 
> > > > > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a  
> > > > > dependency graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > > > > like this:
> > > > > 
> > > > > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > > > > ...  
> > > > > }
> > > > > 
> > > > > Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/ranjib/32/1040_2.png) [@Ranjib](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/12 "2013-07-10T00:30:24Z")

</div>

\m/  
do it!

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:00 PM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:

> Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> gems.
> 
> [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> 
> Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> 
> I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> like this:
> 
> { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> ...  
> }
> 
> Hope someone out there finds this useful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/cookbook-dependency-graphing/4288/13 "2013-07-10T05:03:24Z")

</div>

Like! 🙂  
On Jul 10, 2013 2:30 AM, "Ranjib Dey" [dey.ranjib@gmail.com](mailto:dey.ranjib@gmail.com) wrote:

> \m/  
> do it!
> 
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:00 PM, steve . [leftathome@gmail.com](mailto:leftathome@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > Not sure if anyone's already doing something like this, but I made some  
> > REALLY MINOR modifications to the most ancient and venerable Ruby depgraph  
> > tool and got it parsing cookbook metadata instead of C# code and installed  
> > gems.
> > 
> > [GitHub - leftathome/depgraph: Modified version of Ruby depgraph that parses Chef cookbook metadata.](http://github.com/leftathome/depgraph)
> > 
> > Default behavior is to parse, fire up graphviz and show you a dependency  
> > graph. That's fine but I wanted it as a JSON object.
> > 
> > I added the -json switch to allow you to generate an object that looks  
> > like this:
> > 
> > { "cookbook" : ["dependency1", "dependency2"],  
> > ...  
> > }
> > 
> > Hope someone out there finds this useful.