[Feature flag] Rollout of `packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines`
Summary
This issue is to rollout cross join queries removal (work part of #338861 (closed)) on production,
that is currently behind the packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines
feature flag.
This feature flag removes all the cross join queries made to ci_*
tables from the package code base
Owners
- Team: Package
- Most appropriate slack channel to reach out to:
#s_package
- Best individual to reach out to: @10io / @sabrams
- PM: @trizzi
Expectations
What are we expecting to happen?
No issues detected. In particular, no ~performance issue detected.
What might happen if this goes wrong?
Increased latency response times on package rest and GraphQL APIs
What can we monitor to detect problems with this?
graphQL APIs are hard to track. From our analysis, GraphQL queries are not impacted except for a single one (package -> pipelines
). Here is the p95 for that specific query: https://log.gprd.gitlab.net/goto/bd7bf41065b11d635d49b670d0e1bad3
Rollout Steps
Rollout on non-production environments
- Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to non-production environments.
-
/chatops run auto_deploy status c21eede7244061712f52e839a0d69c607c69862e
-
-
Enable the feature globally on non-production environments. -
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines true --dev
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines true --staging
-
-
Verify that the feature works as expected. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable.
Specific rollout on production
n / a this feature flag is a global one (aka actorless)
Preparation before global rollout
-
Check if the feature flag change needs to be accompanied with a change management issue. Cross link the issue here if it does. -
Ensure that you or a representative in development can be available for at least 2 hours after feature flag updates in production. If a different developer will be covering, or an exception is needed, please inform the oncall SRE by using the @sre-oncall
Slack alias. -
Ensure that documentation has been updated (More info). -
Announce on the feature issue an estimated time this will be enabled on GitLab.com. -
If the feature might impact the user experience, notify #support_gitlab-com
and your team channel (more guidance when this is necessary in the dev docs).
Global rollout on production
All /chatops
commands that target production should be done in the #production
slack channel for visibility.
-
Incrementally roll out the feature. - If the feature flag in code does NOT have an actor, perform time-based rollout (random rollout).
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines 10
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines 20
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines 50
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines 70
-
- Enable the feature globally on production environment.
-
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines true
-
- If the feature flag in code does NOT have an actor, perform time-based rollout (random rollout).
-
Announce on the feature issue that the feature has been globally enabled. -
Wait for at least one day for the verification term.
(Optional) Release the feature with the feature flag
If you're still unsure whether the feature is deemed stable but want to release it in the current milestone, you can change the default state of the feature flag to be enabled. To do so, follow these steps:
-
Create a merge request with the following changes. Ask for review and merge it. -
Set the default_enabled
attribute in the feature flag definition totrue
. -
Create a changelog entry.
-
-
Ensure that the default-enabling MR has been deployed to both production and canary. If the merge request was deployed before the code cutoff, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-default-enabling-mr>
-
-
Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone. -
Set the next milestone to this rollout issue for scheduling the flag removal.
WARNING: This approach has the downside that it makes it difficult for us to clean up the flag. For example, on-premise users could disable the feature on their GitLab instance. But when you remove the flag at some point, they suddenly see the feature as enabled and they can't roll it back to the previous behavior. To avoid this potential breaking change, use this approach only for urgent matters.
Release the feature
After the feature has been deemed stable, the clean up should be done as soon as possible to permanently enable the feature and reduce complexity in the codebase.
-
Create a merge request to remove packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines
feature flag. Ask for review and merge it.-
Remove all references to the feature flag from the codebase. -
Remove the YAML definitions for the feature from the repository. -
Create a changelog entry.
-
-
Ensure that the cleanup MR has been deployed to both production and canary. If the merge request was deployed before the code cutoff, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-cleanup-mr>
-
-
Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone. -
Clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in #production
channel:-
/chatops run feature delete packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines --dev
-
/chatops run feature delete packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines --staging
-
/chatops run feature delete packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines
-
-
Close this rollout issue.
Rollback Steps
-
This feature can be disabled by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set packages_remove_cross_joins_to_pipelines false