[Feature flag] Rollout of `packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata`
Summary
This issue is to rollout the abbreviated form of metadata packages on production, that is currently behind the packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata
feature flag.
Enabling this flag, will:
- allow newly uploaded npm packages to persist their metadata.
- on the metadata endpoint, the that metadata will be loaded for each version and the abbreviated form will be returned.
Owners
- Team: Package
- Most appropriate slack channel to reach out to:
#s_package
- Best individual to reach out to: @10io
- PM: @trizzi
Stakeholders
n / a
Expectations
What are we expecting to happen?
Metadata is saved when uploading a new version of an NPM package.
Some fields of that metadata is returned by the metadata endpoint (project level and instance level).
What might happen if this goes wrong?
Since the metadata is minimally validated, we could wrongly reject npm package uploads.
We're adding more data in the metadata API endpoint. That endpoint is already doing some heavy liftings tasks, this additional load could lead to ~performance issues.
What can we monitor to detect problems with this?
-
https://dashboards.gitlab.net/d/api-rails-controller/api-rails-controller?orgId=1&var-PROMETHEUS_DS=Global&var-environment=gprd&var-stage=main&var-controller=Grape&var-action=GET%20%2Fapi%2Fpackages%2Fnpm%2Fpackage_name&var-action=GET%20%2Fapi%2Fprojects%2F:id%2Fpackages%2Fnpm%2Fpackage_name
- Latency should be stay below
5s
- Latency should be stay below
Rollout Steps
Rollout on non-production environments
- Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to non-production environments.
-
/chatops run auto_deploy status 20b3faecffed415deb79b7b55002d6bc7f016c90
-
-
Enable the feature globally on non-production environments. -
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata true --dev
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata true --staging
-
-
Verify that the feature works as expected. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable.
Specific rollout on production
- Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to both production and canary.
-
/chatops run auto_deploy status 20b3faecffed415deb79b7b55002d6bc7f016c90
-
- If you're using project-actor, you must enable the feature on these entries:
-
/chatops run feature set --project=10io/packages-bin packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata true
-
/chatops run feature set --project=issue-reproduce/packages/npm/many-packages packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata true
-
-
Verify that the feature works on the specific entries. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable.
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 has an actor, perform actor-based rollout.
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata 10 --actors
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata 20 --actors
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata 50 --actors
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata 70 --actors
-
- Enable the feature globally on production environment.
-
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata true
-
- If the feature flag in code has an actor, perform actor-based 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_npm_abbreviated_metadata
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_npm_abbreviated_metadata --dev
-
/chatops run feature delete packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata --staging
-
/chatops run feature delete packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata
-
-
Close this rollout issue.
Rollback Steps
-
This feature can be disabled by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set packages_npm_abbreviated_metadata false