## Problem [Deployment Approval](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html) has two configuration types - [Unified approval setting](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html#unified-approval-setting) and [Multiple approval rules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/environments/deployment_approvals.html#multiple-approval-rules). The former one was introduced initially as part of MVC, but the latter one was introduced shortly after as a more flexible configuration. Having two different methods of configurations causes a couple of problems, such as: - It's confusing users about which configuration they should use, where Multiple approval rules can cover all. - More effort required in developments. We need to support both configurations whenever adding a new feature. - UX and documentation is more challenging. - It's buggy. The feature behavior is not consistent between them e.g. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/367943+ ## Proposal Deprecate and Remove Unified Approval Setting in favor of Multiple approval rules. To do so, we need to finish the issues in the following order: 1. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/388189+ 1. https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9042+ ... Support Multiple approval rules in Setting UI. 1. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/388191+ ... Backend completely block all requests of changing Unified Approval setting. Users need to switch to Multiple approval rules if they need to update the approval setting. 1. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/357798+ ... Migrate Unified approval setting data to Multiple approval rules. Since data can't be exactly mapped, users might encounter disturbance in their approval workflow, in this case users need to manually adjust the rules. 1. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/388190+ This epic targets %"16.0" as we're currently preparing deprecation announcement in this [issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ci-cd/release-group/release/-/issues/181). ## Related - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ci-cd/release-group/release/-/issues/181+ - https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/6832+