[Feature flag] Rollout of `ci_remove_userless_ci`
Summary
This issue is to rollout the feature on production,
that is currently behind the ci_remove_userless_ci
feature flag.
Owners
- Team: Pipeline Execution
- Most appropriate slack channel to reach out to:
#g_pipeline_execution
- Best individual to reach out to: @allison.browne
- PM: @jheimbuck_gl
Expectations
What are we expecting to happen?
An extremely legacy use case of builds being authorized without users is completely blocked. The only time we should see this code path triggered is if 6 year old builds are run.
What might happen if this goes wrong?
Legit builds could be blocked from accessing git pulls.
What can we monitor to detect problems with this?
Sentry errors for GitAccess class
What can we check for monitoring production after rollouts?
Consider adding links to check for Sentry errors, Production logs for 5xx, 302s, etc.
Rollout Steps
Rollout on non-production environments
- Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to non-production environments.
-
/chatops run auto_deploy status 03dd18efdfa70c0cff8d13fa1f968787dde33142
-
-
Enable the feature globally on non-production environments. -
/chatops run feature set ci_remove_userless_ci true --dev --staging --staging-ref
-
-
Verify that the feature works as expected. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable. The best environment to validate the feature in is staging-canary as this is the first environment deployed to. Note you will need to make sure you are configured to use canary as outlined here when accessing the staging environment in order to make sure you are testing appropriately.
Specific rollout on production
- Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to both production and canary.
-
/chatops run auto_deploy status 03dd18efdfa70c0cff8d13fa1f968787dde33142
-
- If you're using project-actor, you must enable the feature on these entries:
-
/chatops run feature set --project=gitlab-org/gitlab,gitlab-org/gitlab-foss,gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com ci_remove_userless_ci true
-
-
Verify that the feature works on the specific entries. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable.
Preparation before global rollout
-
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.
Global rollout on production
For visibility, all /chatops
commands that target production should be executed in the #production
slack channel and cross-posted (with the command results) to the responsible team's slack channel (#g_pipeline_execution
).
-
Incrementally roll out the feature. - If the feature flag in code has an actor, perform actor-based rollout.
-
/chatops run feature set ci_remove_userless_ci 50 --actors
-
- Enable the feature globally on production environment.
-
/chatops run feature set ci_remove_userless_ci 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.
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.
You can either create a follow-up issue for Feature Flag Cleanup or use the checklist below in this same issue.
-
Create a merge request to remove ci_remove_userless_ci
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.
-
-
Ask for review and merge it. -
Ensure that the cleanup MR has been included in the release package. If the merge request was deployed before the monthly release was tagged, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post. -
/chatops run release check <merge-request-url> <milestone>
-
-
Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone. -
If not already done, clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in #production
channel:-
/chatops run feature delete ci_remove_userless_ci --dev --staging --staging-ref --production
-
-
Close this rollout issue.
Rollback Steps
-
This feature can be disabled by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set ci_remove_userless_ci false