Skip to content

Warn about compliance pipeline confusion

Manuel Grabowski requested to merge docs/mg-compliancewarning-20230207 into master

What does this MR do?

We have Support cases from time to time where the users contacting us don't even know that they have Compliance Pipelines configured. Besides those cases, it's also very hard to figure out if you don't already know about them. I've had to help coworkers understand why a pipeline was behaving in odd and unexpected ways a couple of times already, in cases where the customer was aware that they were using them – but didn't mention it and just assumed that we'd figure it out.

While mostly an UX issue (I think the Pipeline Editor should show a big fat warning, for example, see Design: Notify about the compliance pipeline in... (#329850)), maybe this paragraph can help the people who actually define compliance pipelines realize that they need to communicate that very well to avoid confusion. Very open to suggestions for wording it differently, putting it somewhere else… just wanted to start that conversation.

I was even considering to add a simple job to the CI config example that just includes an echo "This job is from the compliance pipeline in $compliance_project" to give people the idea that adding such a job might help people in their org debug things a bit more easily.

Related issues

Author's checklist

If you are a GitLab team member and only adding documentation, do not add any of the following labels:

  • ~"frontend"
  • ~"backend"
  • ~"type::bug"
  • ~"database"

These labels cause the MR to be added to code verification QA issues.

Reviewer's checklist

Documentation-related MRs should be reviewed by a Technical Writer for a non-blocking review, based on Documentation Guidelines and the Style Guide.

If you aren't sure which tech writer to ask, use roulette or ask in the #docs Slack channel.

  • If the content requires it, ensure the information is reviewed by a subject matter expert.
  • Technical writer review items:
    • Ensure docs metadata is present and up-to-date.
    • Ensure the appropriate labels are added to this MR.
    • Ensure a release milestone is set.
    • If relevant to this MR, ensure content topic type principles are in use, including:
      • The headings should be something you'd do a Google search for. Instead of Default behavior, say something like Default behavior when you close an issue.
      • The headings (other than the page title) should be active. Instead of Configuring GDK, say something like Configure GDK.
      • Any task steps should be written as a numbered list.
      • If the content still needs to be edited for topic types, you can create a follow-up issue with the docs-technical-debt label.
  • Review by assigned maintainer, who can always request/require the reviews above. Maintainer's review can occur before or after a technical writer review.
Edited by Manuel Grabowski

Merge request reports