<!-- The first four sections: "Problem to solve", "Intended users", "User experience goal", and "Proposal", are strongly recommended, while the rest of the sections can be filled out during the problem validation or breakdown phase. However, keep in mind that providing complete and relevant information early helps our product team validate the problem and start working on a solution. --> ### Problem to solve <!-- What problem do we solve? Try to define the who/what/why of the opportunity as a user story. For example, "As a (who), I want (what), so I can (why/value)." --> Groups (and subgroups) tend to have many repositories which share common files that they should be consistent among many or all of them (e.g. LICENSE, CONTRIBUTING, `.gitlab/*_templates`). Depending on the scale of the group, this may be a lot of hustle for maintainers to manage and some overhead for new repositories, but this content is critical for community-friendly teams. As a user who is responsible for a group's community, I want to be able to know what repositories of the group are not compliant with the community content I want to use, and ideally to have automated actions available in order to fix these inconsistencies. ### Intended users <!-- Who will use this feature? If known, include any of the following: types of users (e.g. Developer), personas, or specific company roles (e.g. Release Manager). It's okay to write "Unknown" and fill this field in later. Personas are described at https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/ * [Cameron (Compliance Manager)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#cameron-compliance-manager) * [Parker (Product Manager)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#parker-product-manager) * [Delaney (Development Team Lead)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#delaney-development-team-lead) * [Presley (Product Designer)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#presley-product-designer) * [Sasha (Software Developer)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#sasha-software-developer) * [Devon (DevOps Engineer)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#devon-devops-engineer) * [Sidney (Systems Administrator)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#sidney-systems-administrator) * [Sam (Security Analyst)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#sam-security-analyst) * [Rachel (Release Manager)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#rachel-release-manager) * [Alex (Security Operations Engineer)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#alex-security-operations-engineer) * [Simone (Software Engineer in Test)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#simone-software-engineer-in-test) * [Allison (Application Ops)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#allison-application-ops) * [Priyanka (Platform Engineer)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#priyanka-platform-engineer) * [Dana (Data Analyst)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#dana-data-analyst) --> This is indented for the Community Manager/Delaney (Development Team Lead) ### User experience goal <!-- What is the single user experience workflow this problem addresses? For example, "The user should be able to use the UI/API/.gitlab-ci.yml with GitLab to <perform a specific task>" https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/ux-research-training/user-story-mapping/ --> The user should be able to use the UI/API to see if all repositories of a group have the same LICENSE. Extra: The user should be able to use the UI/API to apply a common LICENSE (or .gitlab/*_templates) file to many or all repositories of a group ### Proposal <!-- How are we going to solve the problem? Try to include the user journey! https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/journeys/#user-journey --> - The user should be able to choose predefined or define rules consistency rules - The rules can be either about repository contents or configuration - The nature of the rules can be either generic or specific (i.e. "Files must exist and have same contents" -The user adds file paths- or "Repositories must have same LICENSE file") - Gitlab should be able to detect rules violation on the repository default branch - The user is the responsible to solve, ignore or whitelist rules violation (inconsistencies) Extra: - Given that the rule is violated by an update, propose the user to auto-solve (i.e. When the rule is "same-content", create automated MRs at the other repositories ) - Given a new repository, propose the user to auto-solve * \* The use of a repository template that is being imported solves the new repo scenario, but the rest of the repositories must be updated by hand (event if that is a rebase) and depending the number of the repositories, the user may fail to do it consistently. ### Further details <!-- Include use cases, benefits, goals, or any other details that will help us understand the problem better. --> Right now I'm referring to standard community related files, but code related files (e.g. linter rules or for node projects `.nvmrc` files ) are a potential target for consistency rules. Potential conflict could be the a subgroup with different rules () ### Permissions and Security <!-- What permissions are required to perform the described actions? Are they consistent with the existing permissions as documented for users, groups, and projects as appropriate? Is the proposed behavior consistent between the UI, API, and other access methods (e.g. email replies)?--> The essential permissions are: Guest (read the files) Extra (In the case of the automated MRs): - Reporter: Create MRs as the user ### Documentation <!-- See the Feature Change Documentation Workflow https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/workflow.html#for-a-product-change * Add all known Documentation Requirements in this section. See https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/feature-change-workflow.html#documentation-requirements * If this feature requires changing permissions, update the permissions document. See https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/permissions.html --> ### Availability & Testing <!-- This section needs to be retained and filled in during the workflow planning breakdown phase of this feature proposal, if not earlier. What risks does this change pose to our availability? How might it affect the quality of the product? What additional test coverage or changes to tests will be needed? Will it require cross-browser testing? Please list the test areas (unit, integration and end-to-end) that needs to be added or updated to ensure that this feature will work as intended. Please use the list below as guidance. * Unit test changes * Integration test changes * End-to-end test change See the test engineering planning process and reach out to your counterpart Software Engineer in Test for assistance: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/quality/test-engineering/#test-planning --> ### What does success look like, and how can we measure that? <!-- Define both the success metrics and acceptance criteria. Note that success metrics indicate the desired business outcomes, while acceptance criteria indicate when the solution is working correctly. If there is no way to measure success, link to an issue that will implement a way to measure this. --> ### What is the type of buyer? <!-- What is the buyer persona for this feature? See https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/buyer-persona/ In which enterprise tier should this feature go? See https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/pricing/#four-tiers --> ### Is this a cross-stage feature? <!-- Communicate if this change will affect multiple Stage Groups or product areas. We recommend always start with the assumption that a feature request will have an impact into another Group. Loop in the most relevant PM and Product Designer from that Group to provide strategic support to help align the Group's broader plan and vision, as well as to avoid UX and technical debt. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/#cross-stage-features --> ### Links / references