Is there a clean way to access the conan database from a recipe?

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I have the issue that I want to access data from a generic repository on the same artifactory as the conan repository. Therefore currently I have added this dirty workaround:

        def getConanDatabase(self):
            color = colorama_initialize()
            out = ConanOutput(sys.stdout, sys.stderr, color)
            user_home = get_conan_user_home()
            base_folder = os.path.join(user_home, ".conan")

            cache = ClientCache(base_folder, out)
            localdb = LocalDB.create(cache.localdb)
            return localdb

# some other code

        user, token = self._conanDB.get_login(self.conanURL) 

        head = {'Authorization': "Bearer %s" % str(token)}
        try:
            tools.get(fullUrl, destination=self._test_data_folder,
                      headers=head)
        except ConanException as ex:
            print("Raw Data Loading Error: ", ex)

While this works good in the current situation I assume that there is a high probability that this will break in the future due to conan updates and the fact that I just hijacked the necessary conan functions to access this database. Is there currently a better way to achive the same thing?

[memsharded]

Of course if there would be a way for the get function to just use known authentication for a already known base url this would be the most convenient solution.

The problem I see with this solution, is that this is not necessarily always true. Different repos can have different access policies, permissions, etc., so the token available for Conan might not work for a generic repo or viceversa. We could have a deeper look, but if the solution is not general enough, then implementing it as a built-in, is not possible. Same applies for reading the token directly from the local DB, that token still might not be valid for a generic repo, so enabling reading the DB token still feels a bit hacky, even if the access was simplified.

I think that if I had to do it, I’d try to be pragmatic and keep it as simple as possible, have just some read-only credentials for that test generic repo, and pass them in env-var.

Another alternative would be to create conan packages with those files inside, that would have some beneficial advantages, for example if you are using the same data as test input for different packages, that would be cached in the conan cache, saving tons of download time. Have you considered this approach?

[memsharded]

To sum it up there is no clean way to access an access token and most likely there won’t be one in the near future.

Yes, I am afraid that is the case, seems a complicated thing with too many potential corner cases.

If you are going to try wrapping them in packages that can be used as build-requires, that sounds good. Let us know how it goes and if you have any further question. Thanks!