missing (?) nudges config for FBC ?

[gsaslis]

I am just onboarding our operator onto the file-based catalog format on konflux, so please bear with me.

If I have understood correctly, every time a new build of the operator bundle is completed, that build needs to be referenced in the FBC catalog-template.json (and then catalog.json must be updated accordingly, with opm alpha render-template basic ... )

Would it then make sense to set up a nudging relationship bundle -> fbc , and configure build.appstudio.openshift.io/build-nudge-files: "v4.13/catalog-template.json" on the gatekeeper-operator-bundle pipeline ?

[gsaslis]

@arewm does this make sense, or am I misunderstanding something ?

Is there another / better recommended way to keep the catalog-template.json and catalog.json up-to-date with new builds of the bundle ?

[arewm]

That wouldn't be possible today because you cannot construct a catalog from a catalog template within Konflux if you want to use a hermetic build. A complication to updating the catalog directly is the fact that the catalog needs to be built with the bundle pullspecs as they will be released (i.e. not any development pullspecs that Konflux pushes to directly). If the metadata of your bundle image isn't changing, then it could be possible to use the nudging operations to update the digest directly in the catalog using https://konflux-ci.dev/docs/advanced-how-tos/releasing/maintaining-references-before-release/.

This is essentially the flow that is proposed with an issue that I created in KONFLUX-5311. If that feature is implemented, a new task would be created to enable you to dynamically generate the catalog for the fragment from the catalog template in your git repository. This task would run the opm alpha render-template command with any necessary migrations, replace the bundle pullspecs so that they can be valid at release time, and then use the modified source when building the FBC image.

There seemed to be some hesitation from the operator framework maintainers when I discussed this flow with them. From an operator framework perspective, templates are meant to be generic and not necessarily something that are depended upon. From a Konflux perspective, however, requiring this extra rendering step results in automation complications.

[gsaslis]

thanks very much @arewm ! that all makes sense!

for now, we are using the nudges to update just the image digest. We'll be looking forward to improvements in this area.

[gsaslis]

@arewm one question about:

If the metadata of your bundle image isn't changing, then it could be possible to use the nudging operations to update the digest directly in the catalog using https://konflux-ci.dev/docs/advanced-how-tos/releasing/maintaining-references-before-release/.

This worked well as long as we had the FBC component in the same application as the rest of our component. However, according to Konflux docs - bullet 4, the FBC component should be in a separate application.

Is it possible to nudge a component in a different application ?

[arewm]

Yes, it is possible to nudge across applications. If it is noted anywhere that that isn't possible then we need to update it.

[gsaslis]

Thanks for confirming! It just wasn't obvious to me that it would be - I assumed the component being nudged had to be in the same application I guess. It's better this way though! 👍🏼

[arewm]

It used to be that they had to be in the same Application. It was one of the first changes made after the functionality was introduced.

redhat-appstudio/application-service#434
konflux-ci/build-service#242