opendesk/docs/development.md

Developing openDesk deployment automation

Active development on the deployment is currently only available for project members. But contributions will be possible soon once the CLA process is sorted out.

• Overview
• Default branch, develop and other branches
• External artifacts - charts.yaml and images.yaml
  • Linting
    • Disable linting selectively
  • Renovate
  • Mirroring
    • Get new artifacts mirrored
• Creating new charts / images

Overview

The following sketch provides an high level overview to get a basic understanding of the deployment relevant structure of this repository. An understanding of that structure is vital if you want to contribute to the development of the deployment automation of openDesk.

flowchart TD
    J[helmfile.yaml\nor a helmfile outside of this repository]-->A
    J-->K[./helmfile/environemnts/*your_environment*/values.yaml.gotmpl\nor any an environment values file]
    A[./helmfile_generic.yaml]-->B[./helmfile/apps/*all_configured_apps*/helmfile.yaml\nReferences the relevant app Helm\ncharts using details from 'charts.yaml']
    B-->C[./values-*all_configured_components*.yaml.gotmpl\nValues to template the charts\nwith references to the `images.yaml`]
    A-->D[./helmfile/environments/default/*\nwith just some examples below]
    D-->F[charts.yaml]
    D-->G[images.yaml]
    D-->H[global.*]
    D-->I[secrets.yaml\nreplicas.yaml\nresources.yaml\n...]
    A-->|overwrite defaults with your\ndeployment/environment specific values|E[./helmfile/environments/default/values.yaml.gotmpl]

The helmfile.yaml file in the root folder serves as the foundation for the entire deployment. It references the helmfile_generic.yaml file, which includes app-specific helmfile.yaml files, as well as global values files located in ./environments/default.

helmfile.yaml also refers to three predefined environments: dev, test, and prod.

The helmfile_generic.yaml file is designed to be referenced from external repositories, where custom environments may be defined. An example is demonstrated in the helmfile.yaml file.

Before you look into any app specific configuration it is recommended to review the contents of ./environments/default to get an understanding of what details are maintained in there, as they are usually referenced by the app configurations.

Default branch, develop and other branches

The main branch is configured to be the default branch, as visitors of the project on Open CoDE should see that branch by default.

Please use the develop branch to diverge your own branch(es) from. See the workflow guide for more details on naming conventions.

There is a CI bot that automatically creates a merge request once you initially pushed your branch to Open CoDE. The merge request will of course target the develop branch, be in status draft and have you as assignee.

In case you do not plan to actually merge from the branch you have pushed, please close or delete the auto-created MR.

External artifacts - charts.yaml and images.yaml

The charts.yaml and images.yaml are the central place to reference external artifacts that are used for the deployment.

Beside the deployment automation itself some tools work with the contents of the files:

• Linting: Ensures consistency of the file contents for the other tools.
• Renovate: Automatically create MRs that update the components to their latest version.
• Mirror: Mirror artifacts to Open CoDE.

Please find details on these tools below.

Linting

In the project's CI there is a step dedicated to lint the two yaml files, as we want them to be in

• alphabetical order regarding the components and
• in a logical order regarding the non-commented lines (registry > repository > tag).

In the linting step the openDesk CI CLI is used to apply the just mentioned sorting and the result is compared with the unsorted version. If there is a delta the linting fails and you probably want to fix it by running the CLI tool locally.

Note: Please ensure that in component blocks you use comments only at the beginning of the block or at its end. Ideally you just stick with the many available examples in the yaml files.

Example:

  synapse:
    # providerCategory: "Supplier"
    # providerResponsible: "Element"
    # upstreamRegistry: "https://registry-1.docker.io"
    # upstreamRepository: "matrixdotorg/synapse"
    # upstreamMirrorTagFilterRegEx: '^v(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)$'
    # upstreamMirrorStartFrom: ["1", "91", "2"]
    registry: "registry.opencode.de"
    repository: "bmi/opendesk/components/supplier/element/images-mirror/synapse"
    tag: "v1.91.2@sha256:1d19508db417bb2b911c8e086bd3dc3b719ee75c6f6194d58af59b4c32b11322"

Disable linting selectively

If you follow the "push early, push often" paradigm to save your work to the central Git instance or you just fix a typo in the text of an existing documentation you might want to avoid the CI with its linting to be executed, as it might not offer additional value.

GitLab offers two options to skip the CI on a commit/push:

• Add [ci skip] to your commit message (details). Note: The string has to be removed before merging your feature branch into develop.
• Use the related git push option git push -o ci.skip (details).

Renovate

Uses a regular expression to match the values of the following attributes:

• # upstreamRegistry required: Attribute's value must be prefixed with https:// for Renovate.
• # upstreamRepository required
• tag required

Checks for newer versions of the given artefact and creates a MR containing the newest version's tag (and digest).

Mirroring

• See also: https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/opendesk/tooling/oci-pull-mirror

Note: The mirror is scheduled to run every hour at 42 minutes past the hour.

openDesk strives to make all relevant artifacts available on Open CoDE so there is the mirroring process configured to pull artifacts that do not originate from Open CoDE into projects called *-Mirror within the openDesk Components section.

The mirror script takes the information on what artifacts to mirror from the annotation inside the two yaml files:

• # upstreamRegistry required: To identify the source registry
• # upstreamRegistryCredentialId: optional: In case the source registry is not public the access credentials have to be specified as ENV variables containing the value of this key in their name, so you want to specific that key all uppercase:
  • MIRROR_CREDENTIALS_SRC_<upstreamRegistryCredentialId>_USERNAME
  • MIRROR_CREDENTIALS_SRC_<upstreamRegistryCredentialId>_PASSWORT
• # upstreamRepository required: To identify the source repository
• # upstreamMirrorTagFilterRegEx required: If this annotation is set it activates the mirror for the component. Only tags are being mirrored that match the given regular expression. Note: You have to use single quotes for this attribute's value in case you use backslash leading regex notation like \d.
• # upstreamMirrorStartFrom optional: Array of numeric values in case you want to mirror only artifacts beginning with a specific version. You must use capturing groups in # upstreamMirrorTagFilterRegEx to identify the single numeric elements of the version within the tag and use per capturing group (left to right) one numeric array element here to define the version the mirror should start with.

Get new artifacts mirrored

If you want new images or charts to be mirrored that are not yet included in one of the yaml files there are two options:

You include them in your branch with all required annotations and either

1. ask somebody from the platform development team to trigger the mirror's CI based on your branch or
2. you get your branch merged to develop already.

Creating new charts / images

When you create new Helm charts please check out the openDesk Best Practices for Helm charts.

You may also want to make use of our standard CI to easily get Charts and Images that are signed, linted, scanned and released. Check out the .gitlab-ci.yaml files in the project's Charts or Images to get an idea how little you need to do yourself.