Custom Rules

For users with Premium, you can create their own rules, in Javascript. See Custom Packaging on how to create a distribution for your VA, which can include rules, sounds and callbacks.

See the documentation at the acars-pdk repository on how to create aircraft configs, rules, and package them for distribution

Testing

What I do is create a tests folder, so it looks like this:

rules/
  tests/
    lights.test.js  < will be created below
  lights.js
  package.json < will created below
manifest.json

Create a package.json file in the root of the rules folder, so it looks like:

{
  "name": "VA Rules",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "type": "module",
  "scripts": {
    "tests": "tap"
  }
}

Next, grab the mocks.js file from here. This is used to mock the methods that ACARS provides, so that in the tests, there are faked versions available. If you cloned the sample repository, this file is already there.

Then, install tap using:

npm install --save-dev tap

Next, create a tests/lights.test.js. The example shown above is the Rule class that's being assumed to be used. The important parts are commented:

import t from 'tap'
import * as Lights from '../lights.js'
import {createMocks} from "./mocks.js"

t.before(createMocks)

t.test('Test the lights function', t => {
    const rule = new Lights.Rule()
    // You can pass the data that is only relevent to your rule here in the PIREP and Data objects
    t.equal(rule.evaluate({}, {}), 0)
    t.end()
})

note

You can use webpack and babel to create a smaller distribution, which you can then create a packaged, minimized build, which then can be used by ACARS. So you're welcome to create your rules using Typescript and transpile them.

Then you can finally run your tests:

cd rules
npm run tests

note

You can use the clock plugin to fast forward time - call your rule, advance the clock, call it again and check for violations

Testing​

Testing