How do I create a remote workspace directly?

[eliaskickbush]

Hello community, as part of using the automation API, I find myself needing to list all of my currently existing stacks.

For this I am using the Workspace method called ListStacks. However, in order to get a workspace that points to my remote backend (S3), I'm currently creating a dummy stack in order to use that stack's method to fetch the workspace:

ctx := context.Background()
stack, err := auto.UpsertStackInlineSource(ctx, "list-helper", "project", func(ctx *gopulumi.Context) error {
    return nil
})
if err != nil {
    fmt.Println("there was an error creating temporary stack: ", err.Error())
    return errors.New("could not create temporary stack")
}

wksp := stack.Workspace()
stacks, err := wksp.ListStacks(ctx)
if err != nil {
    fmt.Println("there was an error fetching workspace: ", err.Error())
    return errors.New("could not create temporary stack")
}

Isn't there a direct way to create a Workspace that points to the remote backend? Currently, the only way I can find to directly create a Workspace is to create a Local one, with NewLocalWorkspace.

Thanks in advance!

[EvanBoyle]

Isn't there a direct way to create a Workspace that points to the remote backend?

The ProjectSettings determine what backend to connect to. Here is an example where the project settings specify a local file. This is not exactly what you are looking for, but this code could be updated so that the Backend points to an S3 filestate backend:

https://github.com/pulumi/automation-api-examples/blob/80afd678f6adc51eb9f0279ca62408b7f1e4623c/go/inline_passphrase_secrets_provider/main.go#L94-L100

There is some confusing and conflicting terminology in Automation API, so I'd like to define a few things to help clarify.

In the context of Automation API and source, the terms Remote (source code in git), Local (source code in a folder on your machine), and Inline (function pointer in process) all refer to the location of the pulumi program source code, not the machine or backend where the code executes.

Workspace is the execution context containing a Pulumi project. Today the only implementation of that interface is LocalWorkspace where the backing Pulumi CLI is on the machine running your program. The thought with this interface is that we might one day implement a different kind of workspace where the Pulumi CLI and machinery were running in the cloud, on a remote server, etc.