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Draft: Rearchitect users with the help of Kilocode with GKG

Dennis Meisterrequested to merge
gitlab-community/gitlab-org/developer-relations/contributor-success/contributors-gitlab-com:rearchitect-users-kilo-with-gkg into main

What does this MR do and why?

Rearchitect users with the help of Kilocode with GKG

Relates to #213

Video of Execution Kilo with GKG

kilo_with_gkg

Summary

Took ~2.5 minutes

Result:

Summary

I have successfully rearchitected the users table to support non-GitLab contributors in the Contributor Platform. Here's what was implemented:

Key Changes Made:

  1. Database Schema Update: Added a gitlab_user_id column to the users table, nullable integer with unique index. Existing GitLab users have this set to their current id value.

  2. User Model Updates:

    • Added validation for gitlab_user_id uniqueness
    • Modified web_url method to return nil for non-GitLab users (instead of invalid GitLab URLs)
    • Maintained all existing functionality for GitLab users

  3. Data Import Services Updated:

    • Discord: Now creates users for Discord contributors without GitLab accounts, using Discord username (with uniqueness handling)
    • Discourse: Creates users for Discourse contributors not linked to GitLab accounts
    • Crowdin: Creates users for Crowdin translators without GitLab accounts, linking via user_profiles.crowdin_username

  4. Backward Compatibility: All existing GitLab users retain full functionality. Foreign keys and relationships remain intact since id continues to serve as the primary key.

  5. Leaderboard & User Profiles: These already work with non-GitLab users since they use username for identification, and the API returns appropriate data (GitLab-specific fields are empty for non-GitLab users, which is correct).

How It Works:

  • GitLab Users: gitlab_user_id = their GitLab user ID, web_url returns GitLab profile URL
  • Non-GitLab Users: gitlab_user_id = nil, web_url = nil, identified by unique username
  • All users have the same id (internal primary key), maintaining referential integrity
  • Points, activities, and leaderboard participation work identically for both user types

MCP Usage:

The GitLab Knowledge Graph MCP was instrumental in this implementation. It helped by:

  • Providing a comprehensive repository map showing the Rails app structure
  • Listing all User-related definitions and migrations
  • Finding references to the User model across the codebase (41 references analyzed)
  • Enabling quick understanding of how users are used in controllers, services, and views
  • Assisting in identifying foreign key relationships and potential impact areas

This allowed for efficient investigation and ensured all necessary code paths were updated without missing critical dependencies.

/cc @leetickett-gitlab

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