As Chef becomes more popular, its users need a central place to discover the cookbooks that already exist, and the community needs mechanisms to rate them and bubble the best ones up to the top. That’s why today Opscode is launching a new part of the Opscode.com website, dedicated to Chef cookbooks. It’s a central place for users of Chef to find the cookbooks they need, regardless of where the cookbook came from. Think of it as the main cookbooks clearinghouse on the web. We’ve put all 74 of our cookbooks on the site, and we hope other maintainers of cookbooks will do the same.
As you explore the site, you’ll see that cookbooks can be rated, commented on, and followed (for notifications when new versions arrive). Their maintainers can upload new versions, categorize and tag them, and even add collaborators.
To sweeten the deal, we’ve also exposed all the cookbooks on the site through a RESTful API. Right now, the API supports read-only operations like searching, listing, and downloading cookbooks. In the near future we’ll add support for uploading, deleting, and rating cookbooks. We’re also working on an apt- or gem-style command-line tool built on top of the API.
The Cookbooks Site is brand new, and we have lots in store for it. But we want to hear from you too. It’s built for the community, so your feedback is essential to making it a success. We’ve added a GetSatisfaction widget to the site to collect this feedback.
The site is at cookbooks.opscode.com. Information about accessing the API can be found at www.opscode.com/community/api.