Assets

Overview of assets and how to use them.

Overview

Assets are images or video files referenced in assignment files or notes. For example, you might add a screenshot of your software to show a learner where to click. Or you might show a video before your learner starts a challenge.

Assets can only be managed from Instruqt CLI, or directly via the API.

Insert assets

Place all your assets in a directory called assets located in the track root directory like in the following example:

.
├── 01-title
│   └── assignment.md
├── assets
│   ├── image.png
│   └── video.mp4
├── config.yml
└── track.yml

↳ Here the assets directory contains a png image file and an mp4 video file.

Refer to assets

Refer to assets by using the relative paths. For example, refer to ../assets/img.png if you want to use the img.png file within the assignment.md file. The ../ part of the path tells to go up one directory and from there the assets/ part tells to go to the assets subdirectory.

You can also create nested folders inside the assets directory to keep them organized.

Windows file paths

When working from a Windows machine, use the backslash as the directory separator in your relative path— for example, ..\assets\img.png. Otherwise, you will get an error stating that your asset does not exist when pushing your track to the Instruqt platform.

Local and remote assets

Push

Your assets are also pushed when you push a track to the Instruqt platform. And the relative paths to images and videos are converted to fully qualified URLs. So they can be viewed in the sandbox by your learners.

For example, if your local track has this code in an assignment.md file:

![My Image](../assets/image.png)

The instruqt track push command automatically converts this to:

![My Image](https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/[TRACK_ID]/[ASSET_HASH]/assets/image.png

Pull

When you pull a track to your machine, the fully qualified URLs are converted into relative paths to images and videos so you can preview your files locally.

Work with assets from your code editor

You can install a Markdown plugin in your code editor to make it easy to insert videos and images. The Markdown All in One plugin works well with VS Code. Point the completion.root setting to your assets directory and VS Code will show a handy autocomplete menu when you start to insert image code in your markdown.

Examples

Embed an image into the assignment text

This example embeds an image in the assignment.md sidebar text. This is useful for showing a screenshot or other image to your learner as part of the challenge instructions:

---
slug: my-challenge
id: un6vygpcp3mj
type: challenge
title: My Challenge
tabs:
- title: Google tab
  type: website
  url: https://google.com
difficulty: basic
timelimit: 600
---

Hello there, assets!
![Image Description](../assets/image.png)

Embed a video in a challenge note

This example embeds a video in a challenge note. Notice the relative path format on line 12 of the assignment.md file:

---
slug: title
id: un6vygpcp3mj
type: challenge
title: Title
tabs:
- title: Challenge title
  type: website
  url: https://google.com
notes:
- type: video
  url: ../assets/video.mp4
difficulty: basic
timelimit: 600
---

See the video URL on line 12 of this file.

Embed an image in the track description

This example embeds an image in the track description. Notice how there is only a single dot before the slash ./ which means the assets directory is in the current directory:

slug: my-new-track
id: 7gespmlsjdzq
type: track
title: Track Title Here
teaser: This is the best track ever!
description: |-
  Want to put an image in your track description? It's easy:
  ![Image Description](./assets/image.png)

Assets API

Then assets API is HTTP based and in order to consume it you must have a valid authentication token (will be referred as token). The API supports uploading, fetching and getting information about your asset.

Uploading asset

Request

HTTP Method: POST https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/<track_id> ↳ Replace <track_id>

Request headers

Name
Value

Authorization

Bearer <token>

Response

Asset MD5 hash value encoded to string will be returned in response body.

Fetching asset

Request

HTTP Method: GET https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/<track_id>/<asset_hash>

Request headers

Name
Value

Authorization

Bearer token

Response

Asset will be returned in response body as a binary stream.

Response headers

Name
Value

Content-Length

Size of a requested asset in bytes

Content-Type

Content-type of an asset, f.e. image/png

Asset info

Request

HTTP Method: HEAD https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/<track_id>/<asset_hash>

Response

Empty

Response headers

Name
Value

Content-Length

Size of a requested asset in bytes

HTTP status codes

Code
Meaning

200

Request was successful

404

Requested asset not found

500

Internal Instruqt error or error in the underlying storage.

Use assets in assignments

You can refer to an uploaded asset inside a markdown using the same URL which is used to fetch an uploaded asset

https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/<track_id>/<asset_hash>

Embed an image into the assignment text

This example embeds an image in the assignment.md sidebar text. This is useful for showing a screenshot or other image to your learner as part of the challenge instructions:

---
slug: my-challenge
id: un6vygpcp3mj
type: challenge
title: My Challenge
tabs:
- title: Google tab
  type: website
  url: https://google.com
difficulty: basic
timelimit: 600
---

Hello there, assets!
![Image Description](https://play.instruqt.com/assets/tracks/mk9ukiebswjx/ed965e981aa26d375329f4bd1575bc49)
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