Skip to content

Document the locked state of feature gates #49388

Open
@tengqm

Description

@tengqm

This is a Feature Request

What would you like to be added

When a feature gate is about to mature (or deprecate), the Kubernetes core code base will selectively mark it with lockedToDefault: true. This flag means the the gate is still there and you won't risk a "unknown feature gate" error when the gate is explicitly specified, AND more importantly, the gate cannot be set to values other than the default one.

This used to be an implementation details, aka some information only matters to the developers. However, starting from v1.32, feature gates that are marked with lockedToDefault: true is not shown in the --help message from the core components (e.g. kube-apiserver).

We need to faithfully document this details.

  • Update the feature gate data files with "locked-to-default" information
  • Augment the related shortcode to expose this to docs users

Why is this needed

There are always some features that are seemed very important for users.
Users will struggle with the support levels of a feature, not simply about its Alpha-Beta-GA status, but also when it is okay to be specified as a command line argument (or configuration option), and when it is not okay.
They also need to know when a gate is accepted by a component binary, is it really effective.
Silent failures are sometimes the most dangerous rabbit holes for cluster operators.

Comments

This is gonna be a labor-intensive work.
Clearly articulate the effect of locked is another challenge from documentation's perspective.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    area/web-developmentIssues or PRs related to the kubernetes.io's infrastructure, design, or build processeskind/featureCategorizes issue or PR as related to a new feature.lifecycle/frozenIndicates that an issue or PR should not be auto-closed due to staleness.priority/important-longtermImportant over the long term, but may not be staffed and/or may need multiple releases to complete.sig/architectureCategorizes an issue or PR as relevant to SIG Architecture.triage/acceptedIndicates an issue or PR is ready to be actively worked on.

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions