Implementation:Apache Kafka Git Archive And Build

Knowledge Sources	Apache Kafka
Domains	Release_Engineering, Build_Systems
Last Updated	2026-02-09 12:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete tool for creating source tarballs and building binary distributions provided by the Kafka release module.

Description

The git module provides targz for creating source archives via git archive and clone for creating clean checkouts. The runtime module provides cmd for executing build commands like Gradle's releaseTarGz task. Together they produce the source and binary artifacts needed for an Apache release.

Usage

Import these functions when automating the artifact build phase of a release. Use targz to create the source tarball, clone to create a clean build environment, and cmd to run Gradle build tasks.

Code Reference

Source Location

Repository: Apache Kafka
File: release/git.py (L102-113), release/runtime.py (L109-146)

Signature

def targz(rev, prefix, target, **kwargs):
    """
    Creates a tar.gz archive from a git revision.
    Uses 'git archive --format tar.gz --prefix {prefix} --output {target} {rev}'.
    """

def clone(url, target, **kwargs):
    """
    Clones a git repository to the target directory.
    """

def cmd(action, cmd_arg, *args, **kwargs):
    """
    Execute an external command with retry support.
    Prints the action description and command, captures output,
    and offers retry on failure.
    """

Import

from git import targz, clone
from runtime import cmd

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
rev	str	Yes	Git revision to archive
prefix	str	Yes	Directory prefix inside the tarball
target	str	Yes	Output file path for the tarball
url	str	Yes (for clone)	Repository URL to clone
action	str	Yes (for cmd)	Human-readable action description
cmd_arg	str	Yes (for cmd)	Shell command to execute

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
targz	None	Source tarball created at target path
clone	None	Repository cloned to target directory
cmd returns	bool	True if command succeeded, False if allowed_failure and failed

Usage Examples

Build Source and Binary Artifacts

from git import targz, clone
from runtime import cmd
import tempfile

version = "3.7.0"
rc_tag = "3.7.0-rc0"

# Create source tarball from tag
targz(rc_tag, f"kafka-{version}-src/", f"kafka-{version}-src.tgz")

# Clone for clean build
with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdir:
    clone("https://github.com/apache/kafka.git", tmpdir)
    cmd("Building binary distribution",
        f"./gradlew releaseTarGz", cwd=tmpdir)

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