opencharm

Opencharm is an open-source software project that provides a framework and tooling for building, packaging, and deploying modular services using a charm-oriented packaging model. It aims to simplify the development and operation of distributed applications by enabling developers to define service units, configuration, and relations in portable units called charms, which can be composed to form complete applications. The project emphasizes portability across cloud and container environments, and compatibility with various orchestration and configuration systems.

Opencharm's core components include a runtime that orchestrates charms, a packaging and registry system, and a set of command-line tools that assist in building, testing, and deploying charms. The ecosystem supports multiple languages and runtimes, with an emphasis on declarative configuration and reusable service patterns. It is designed to integrate with cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, and operational dashboards, providing observability hooks and lifecycle management for charms.

Governance is community-driven, with contributions managed via public repositories and governance by a rotating maintainers group. The project follows open-source licensing and encourages collaboration, documentation, and example charms to promote adoption.

It has been used by developers and operators to prototype service architectures, automate deployment workflows, and experiment with charm-based patterns in both on-premises and cloud environments. It remains under active development, with regular releases and a growing ecosystem of example charms and tooling.