Patch release pipeline: Merge default branch MRs
Context
Currently, during the patch release process, we run a chatops
command to merge the security/gitlab
MRs to the repo's default branch.
/chatops run release merge --security --default-branch
This creates and starts a pipeline in release-tools repository, then posts the link of that pipeline in #f_upcoming_release
Problem Statement
There are a few downsides to having this process in a chatops
command:
- harder to follow and debug, since the process incorporates multiple repositories (chatops, release-tools)
- the link in
#f_upcoming_release
often gets buried during a release process, and gets deleted after slack retention - can be run out of order (not much of a problem in this step, but becomes a bigger problem in later stages of the release, as described in #20079)
Migrating to a release-tools pipeline
Recently, we've introduced release-tools
pipelines that are automatically created with patch release task issues, and they get started by release managers during the patch release process. As an example, the pipeline security_release_release_preparation
mentioned here allows the release managers to start the release preparation process by triggering the start
job. Having this process in a pipeline linked to the task issue grants more visibility and discoverability for the process, and scalable for future checks and automation.
This issue is to create a release-tools
pipeline "Patch release default branch merge pipeline" for merging the default branch MRs in security/gitlab
. This pipeline should:
- Invoke the same rake task as the initial
chatops
command, - Be created with, and linked in the patch task issue template, and
- Follow the guidelines from https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-tools/-/blob/master/doc/release-pipelines.md
Exit Criteria
-
Pipeline to merge default branch MRs during a patch release gets created and linked with the patch release task issue gitlab-org/release-tools!3104 (merged) -
It sends slack notifications to report on status gitlab-org/release-tools!3121 (merged) -
Patch release task issue has instructions to start the pipeline jobs gitlab-org/release-tools!3125 (merged)