What is the recommended way to dynamically pull google .proto dependencies so that they are available available to protoc-gen-go-grpc? We are trying to avoid committing these files to our own git repos, due to the extreme duplication this will end up causing.

All my google searches on this are coming up blank. I know this can't be a new issue but for some reason, google just isn't giving me anything useful here.

As an example I have a dependency:

import "google/api/annotations.proto";

Is there a recommended approach / recommended source for downloading these files on-demand in CI?

What is the recommended way to dynamically pull google .proto dependencies so that they are available available to protoc-gen-go-grpc? We are trying to avoid committing these files to our own git repos, due to the extreme duplication this will end up causing.

All my google searches on this are coming up blank. I know this can't be a new issue but for some reason, google just isn't giving me anything useful here.

As an example I have a dependency:

import "google/api/annotations.proto";

Is there a recommended approach / recommended source for downloading these files on-demand in CI?

• protocol-buffers
• grpc

1 Answer 1

I maintain a clone of googleapis and use an environment variable to reference it. Then, whenever I invoke protoc, I add --proto_path=${GOOGLEAPIS} to ensure these are available.:

GOOGLEAPIS="/path/to/googleapis"

protoc \
--proto_path=${GOOGLEAPIS} \
...

This approach can be applied to other well-defined sets of protocol buffer sources too including your own corporate hierarchy.

For example, gRPC maintains a "canonical set of common protocol buffers" called grpc-proto including e.g. grpc.health.v1.Health and this can be bundled:

GRPCPROTOS="/path/to/grpc-proto"

protoc \
--proto_path=${GOOGLEAPIS} \
--proto_path=${GRPCPROTOS} \
...