Gear Specifications
Important: This page provides only a brief overview. For complete and authoritative information, always refer to the official Gear Specifications on GitLab. Developers should consult the official documentation when building gears.
What are Flywheel Gears?
Flywheel gears are containerized applications that process data within the Flywheel platform. Built on Docker, they follow a standardized structure that enables seamless integration with Flywheel's ecosystem.
Essential Components
Every gear requires three key components:
- manifest.json - Defines metadata, inputs, and configuration
- Dockerfile - Specifies the container build process
- Run script - Contains the executable code
The manifest.json
file is particularly critical as it defines how Flywheel interacts with your gear, including:
- Basic metadata (name, version, author)
- Input file specifications
- Configuration parameters
- Environment variables
- Execution command
Execution Environment
When running, gears operate in a standardized directory structure:
/flywheel/v0/
- Main working directory/flywheel/v0/input/
- Input files/flywheel/v0/output/
- Output destination/flywheel/v0/config.json
- Runtime configuration/flywheel/v0/manifest.json
- Gear manifest
Resources for Gear Developers
- Official Gear Specifications
- Required reading for all gear developers
- Gear Building Tutorial - Step-by-step guide for beginners
- Flywheel Gear Toolkit (flywheel-gear-toolkit) - Python package to simplify development
- Gear Exchange - Share your gears with the community