compile_time post mortem

gistfile1.md

Meeting

Start every PM stating the following

1. This is a blameless Post Mortem.
2. We assume everyone participating in the project wants to do a good job.
3. We will not focus on the past events as they pertain to "could've", "should've", etc.
4. All follow up action items must be actionable and have a participating individuals commitment to implement, design, or otherwise achieve them.

Post-mortem Facilitator: Thom May

Description

Chef Client 12.1.0 introduced the compile_time property on the chef_gem resource. Chef Sugar had previously provided compile_time as a method. Testing for the presence of the compile_time method led to errors when the user was also using Sugar.

Timeline

• 2013-10-15 Chef Sugar adds compile_time method
• 2015-02-17 https://www.chef.io/blog/2015/02/17/chef-12-1-0-chef_gem-resource-warnings/
• 2015-02-18 https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/xml/issues/22 - user updated cookbook in response to above, hit problems
• 2015-02-19 https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar/issues/89
• 2015-02-19 sous-chefs/aws#110
• 2015-02-21 Chef Client 12.1.0.rc.0 released
• 2015-03-03 Chef Client 12.1.0 released
• 2015-03-20 https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/chef-vault/commit/4739a6561a28f7ac7ea638dfef9c5634ef4171f8
• 2015-03-20 https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar/pull/96

Contributing Factor(s)

• "Traditional" way of doing things at compile time is ugly and non-obvious.
• Sugar added compile_time to rectify that.
• Sugar's compile_time takes a block of code to execute during the compile phase.
• Chef's compile_time is a parameter for chef_gem only. Takes a boolean.
• Sugar mixes in to the recipe DSL (which chef mixes in to "everything") and so checking for compile_time succeeds in both 11 and 12.
• Some widely used cookbooks (xml, omnibus) have direct dependencies on chef_sugar

Stabilization Steps

• Blog post originally used respond_to to check for compile_time. Blog post updated to use Chef::Resource::ChefGem.instance_methods(false).include?(:compile_time).
• Cookbooks updated by jtimberman et al.
• Seth Vargo updated Sugar to rename compile_time to at_compile_time, and added compat warnings to ease upgrades from 11: https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar/blob/master/lib/chef/sugar/filters.rb#L187

Impact

Technical:

• High profile cookbooks broken.
• Long standing Community projects broken, causing additional work and negatively impacting quality of life of volunteers.
• user disruption and mistrust of Chef

Community Guidelines:

• Seth received phone calls from users around this issue, which is totally unacceptable.
• https://github.com/sethvargo/chef-sugar/issues/97 is a violation of our community guidelines (seth blocked the reporter on github)
• bullying tactics related to the above are also a violation.

Corrective Actions

• Link Community Guidelines in the README of Chef projects. (Thom)
• Clarify communication lines for violations of the Community Guidelines. (Nathen)
• Make it clear what methods of contacting maintainers are acceptable (in the guidelines). (Nathen)
• Wider and deeper testing of community cookbooks and projects as part of release cycle (btm, sean, sethc, fletcher)
• Chef Developer Program (Thom - Community Summit)

My corrective actions are currently being implemented here: chef-boneyard/chef-rfc#114