Modifying an Existing Package

You may want to modify an existing package to: : * Add a new method

• Swap out a plugin
• Add more specific business logic

You can do this easily in Steamship!

As an example, let’s assume we want to change the audio-markdown (opens in a new tab) package to use Assembly’s speech to text instead of Whisper. The goal of the package is to automatically convert audio files to Markdown using specific spoken words to start and end elements.

First, fork the the package repository.

Change the package handle in steamship.json to a new unique value. You should also update the steamshipRegistry section with your contact info.

{
    "type": "package",
    "handle": "audio-markdown-with-assembly", <-- new value
    ...
}

Now we can edit the code to use a different transcription plugin. In a package, src/api.py contains the main implementation. Looking in this file, we see that it is using the Whisper speech to text blockifier:

BLOCKIFIER_HANDLE = "whisper-s2t-blockifier"

This handle is a reference to the plugin being used. We also provide a plugin (opens in a new tab) for transcription via AssemblyAI. Its handle is s2t-blockifier-default. If we replace the existing handle with this value, our package will use the AssemblyAI plugin instead:

BLOCKIFIER_HANDLE = "s2t-blockifier-default"

That’s it! We can now deploy our new package using the Steamship CLI:

ship deploy

and use it like any other package.

If we wanted to instead add functionality to the package, for example adding an RST output format, we could add a new method to the package:

@post("get_rst")
def get_rst(self, task_id: str):
    """Get the rst for a transcribed audio file based on task_id."""
 
    # implementation here