[Feature flag] Enable `global_ci_catalog`

Owners

  • Most appropriate Slack channel to reach out to: #g_pipeline_authoring
  • Best individual to reach out to: Briley Sandlin @bsandlin
  • PM: @dhershkovitch @jreporter

Expectations

What are we expecting to happen?

Turning this on adds the global CI/CD catalog under the explore menu.

When is the feature viable?

When the transition plan is completed.

What might happen if this goes wrong?

Having multiple CI/CD catalog pages or not able to fetch CI/CD resources.

Rollout Steps

Note: Please make sure to run the chatops commands in the Slack channel that gets impacted by the command.

Rollout on non-production environments

  • Verify the MR with the feature flag is merged to master and have been deployed to non-production environments with /chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>
  • Enable the feature globally on non-production environments with /chatops run feature set global_ci_catalog true --dev --staging --staging-ref
  • Verify that the feature works as expected. The best environment to validate the feature in is staging-canary as this is the first environment deployed to. Make sure you are configured to use canary.
  • If the feature flag causes end-to-end tests to fail, disable the feature flag on staging to avoid blocking deployments.

For assistance with end-to-end test failures, please reach out via the #quality Slack channel. Note that end-to-end test failures on staging-ref don't block deployments.

Specific 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_TEAM_NAME).

  • Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to both production and canary with /chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>
  • Deploy the feature flag at a 100% with /chatops run feature set global_ci_catalog true
  • Verify that the feature works for the specific actors.

Preparation before global rollout

  • Set a milestone to this rollout issue to signal for enabling and removing the feature flag when it is stable.
  • 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.
  • Leave a comment on the feature issue announcing estimated time when this feature flag will be enabled on GitLab.com.
  • Notify the #support_gitlab-com Slack channel and your team channel (more guidance when this is necessary in the dev docs).
  • Ensure that the feature flag rollout plan is reviewed by another developer familiar with the domain.

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_TEAM_NAME).

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.

The MR that does the release is: !135403 (merged)

  • Close [the feature issue][&11674 (closed)] 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 <feature-flag-name> --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 global_ci_catalog false
Edited by Mark Nuzzo