Getting Started
Chalk enables you to quickly and easily ‘mark’ your build during development, so you benefit from detailed build telemetry and can know where code comes from and how it’s deployed. Generally, users apply Chalk during the build process. This involves adding informational ‘chalk marks’ to software. These marks report on the software and the build environment. You can also configure Chalk to wrap workloads to report during production.
Simplicity is a core design principle for Chalk. Employed properly, users should not have to do more than drop a single chalk mark in the right place in their CI/CD pipeline. For best results, initial configuration should be performed by the user who requires the data Chalk will generate.
While Chalk is designed for customization, we have also worked hard to create valuable out-of-the-box configurations and ensure it is easy to configure common use cases.
To get started, we’ll look at some Chalk basics and discuss how to chalk artifacts and report on them in production.
Your Learning Path
We recommend working through these sections in sequence, as each builds upon the concepts introduced in the previous ones:
1. Installation Guide
Begin your journey by installing Chalk on your system. This section covers both downloading pre-built binaries (the simplest approach) and building Chalk from source. You’ll learn how to set up Chalk so it’s ready to use in your local environment or deployment pipelines.
2. Chalk Basics
Once Chalk is installed, this section will introduce you to the fundamental operations: chalk marking binaries and container images, extracting chalk marks to view embedded metadata, and configuring basic reporting. These simple examples will help you understand Chalk’s core functionality and provide a foundation for more advanced usage.
3. Using Chalk Exec Reports
After mastering the basics, dive into Chalk’s powerful execution reporting capabilities. Learn how to capture runtime information about your applications, set up heartbeat monitoring for continuous observation, and customize reporting to focus on the data most relevant to your needs. This section bridges the gap between build-time metadata and runtime behavior.
4. Integrating with CI/CD
With a solid understanding of Chalk’s capabilities, you will be ready to implement it in your development workflows. This section explores how to integrate Chalk into popular CI/CD platforms like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI, and Azure DevOps. You’ll learn best practices for automating metadata collection and ensuring consistent marking across your artifacts.
What Comes Next?
After completing these initial sections, you will have a strong foundation in Chalk’s core functionality. From there, you can explore more advanced topics based on your specific needs:
- Customizing configurations for specialized use cases
- Setting up digital signing and attestation
- Implementing SBOM generation and security scanning
- Configuring advanced reporting workflows
Each of these topics builds upon the fundamentals covered in the Getting Started guide, allowing you to gradually expand your use of Chalk as your needs evolve.
Ready to begin? Start with installing Chalk and take the first step toward comprehensive software lifecycle observability.