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Open Hour Agendas and Notes: 2020 09
Cassandra edited this page Oct 12, 2020
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Open Hour meeting videos are available on YouTube. Starting with the August 20, 2020 video, there are timestamps to mark where each topic discussion begins.
- Salt news, updates, Docs Jam, and SaltConf
- Salt Enhancement Proposals: SEP 25: Add runtime registers to Salt, SEP 26: Package Salt with Tiamat, SEP 27: Create a Community Advisory Board
- Contributor topic request: Saltclass state and support, revisiting and discussing this issue: https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/52407
- Open community discussion & questions
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 3:19 on the video
- The Open Hour is a free conversation between the Salt contributor base and Core Team. All community members are welcome to suggest topics and attend.
- Twitch streams are ongoing. We receive several questions about tests from community members. A great place to get those answered is the Twitch Test Clinic streams. Research & Development stream is on hold for about a month.
- Documentation Jam is confirmed for October 7. The most common piece of community feedback is that the documentation needs improvement. We're going to set aside a whole day to work on docs live via Zoom and Twitch.
- There will be a keynoter, Erin McKean of Google, speaking during the jam.
- Three pathways that attendees can focus on during the jam: module case studies, issue creation, and issue triage.
- If you want to attend the Jam and need setup help on your machine, attend the Documentation Clinic on September 30 or check out the Doc Clinic video on YouTube afterwards.
- SaltConf 20 Virtual is October 29. The agenda and schedule are in progress. There will be virtual booths for contributors.
- Team focus: getting ready for code freeze, drafting Advisory Board SEP, Docs Jam work
- Code freeze date is changed to September 29. After a review, we realized that we wouldn't be able to get some critical items in without changing the freeze date. Things that have passing tests and Magnesium label will be merged if they're in.
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 11:01 on the video
- Tiamat SEP will be closing soon. There is a Tiamat channel on Slack that has lots of good Tiamat conversation. The next task for the SEP is to review the feedback and address it.
SaltStack Core Team
Discussion begins at 14:28 on the video
- Link to the relevant issue: https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/52407
- A PR has been open for some time that is on large Salt class refactoring. Salt Class had been created, but then the team realized it needed changes. An effort to refactor it is underway.
- Feedback from community member who submitted this topic request: “This is the root of what’s holding saltclass back, and it has references from/to a whole host of other issues. The problems are so significant that it’s really not usable in the current state (eg. The broken merging means states appear multiple times in the topfile it generates). I am (we are) reclass users and saltclass looked a great first-class citizen replacement. The concept is great but it seems since the original merge there has been very little attention given and the original maintainer appears too tied up to give it the attention it needs. In addition there seems nobody else willing to address the problems, so it would be good to get some eyes on the problems and perhaps see what can be done to get it some attention (and establish some lines of responsibility)"
- One possible solution to move this forward is to create a Salt class working group.
- Salt news, updates, and SaltConf 20 Virtual
- Salt Enhancement Proposal (SEP) 25: Add runtime registers to Salt
- Salt Enhancement Proposal (SEP) 26: Package Salt with Tiamat
- Big Feature Roadmap: PyTest
- Open community discussion & questions
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
- Twitch streams: Triage, Test Clinics and Research & Development. The schedule is on the Salt Community Events Calendar.
- Core Team development focus: ZD issues, resolving bugs, rules features, and preparing for feature freeze.
- PRs that are green with passing tests and the Magnesium label will be merged into the release, provided they have changelogs, docs, etc. if necessary.
- For PR help, reach out to Cassandra who will get you in touch with someone who can help ready the PR.
- Upcoming events
- Documentation jam: Dates and times TBD. This will be an opportunity for people to work on improving documentation in areas chosen by the Docs Working Group. One of the most common requests from community members is improved documentation. This event will help improve documentation.
- SaltConf 20 is scheduled for Oct 29 online. The Call for Proposals is open. Community members are encouraged to submit talks that will appeal to other contributors. SaltConf will have material for enterprise users as well as contributors.
Salt Enhancement Proposal (SEP) 25: Add runtime registers to Salt
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 7:15 on the video
- GitHub conversation about the SEP is being monitored.
- There is some question as to whether this is a SEP or something else. This is TBD after further conversations.
- SEP submitter is in a time zone that doesn't work with community events, driving much of the conversation to the SEP itself.
Salt Enhancement Proposal (SEP) 26: Package Salt with Tiamat
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 8:45 on the video
- Tiamat work is ongoing. This SEP was covered extensively in the September 10 Open Hour.
- Tiamat will ultimately make things easier when packaging.
- Someone wanted to know if Tiamat builds of 3001.1 are available. There are plans to create it, though it doesn't exist yet. When it's live, it'll be added to the SEP.
- Community member question: What is the difference between single binary builds and Wonder.
- Wonder is how everything will be packaged with devs for Debian.
- Single binary is more meant for testing pipelines. This will also likely be used as part of Salt SSH.
- Community member question: Will SEPs be updated to reflect SEP-related conversations that are happening elsewhere (Slack, Open Hours, etc.)?
- Yes. This is a work in progress.
- There isn't an explicit timeline, but there are guidelines in the SEP repo. The timeline can change depending on how big a change is or how much discussion occurs.
- Tiamat is a large SEP so is taking longer than some others.
SaltStack Engineer Pedro Algarvio
Discussion begins at 16:58 on the video
- A community member requested that we cover more big picture items such as Validate & Sanitize and PyTest as well as the usual bug fixes.
- There is a blog post available about the switch to PyTest. The switch hasn't yet happened. The changes have been made. The core team allowed time for the community to become aware of the change.
- The switch hasn't happened due to some failures that happened. Pedro is in the middle of cleaning up the remaining failures. There is still a Windows failure that affects both PyTest and RunTest that still needs fixed. The switch to PyTest will be final once these items are addressed and is in a stable CI status.
- As soon as the cleanup is complete, this will be labeled for PRs, leave that open for a week or two, then make the switch.
- We are already getting PRs that are running tests using PyTest. This is a good thing.
- Community member question: Are there plans to have a tutorial or guide on how to test custom execution and state modules with PyTest fixtures?
- Yes. The current testing documentation will become obsolete with the switch. Documentation will be refactored and updated to reflect the change.
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 24:48 on the video
- Community member question: When is the Magnesium feature freeze?
- It's scheduled for September 22 by end-of-business Mountain Time.
- As always, community members are encouraged to submit Open Hour topics. This can include but isn't limited to PR updates, development questions, requests for assistance, or almost anything Salt-related that people are curious about.
Agenda
- Salt news, updates, and SaltConf 20 Virtual
- Community Advisory Board
- Salt Enhancement Proposal (SEP) 26: Package Salt with Tiamat
- Open community discussion & questions
- Meeting video 2020-09-10
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
- We're always looking for suggested Open Hour topics. If there's something you'd like to discuss in an Open Hour, contact Cassandra so she can put it on the agenda. We also encourage people to speak up via chat or verbally during the Open Hours.
- Triage Tuesdays continue on Twitch along with R&D, Test Clinic, and Open Hour. All events are on the Salt Community Events which anyone can subscribe to.
- Core Team Focus for the week
- Development: Continued work on tech debt, ZeroMQ work, label and potential SEP discussions. The dev done date for Magnesium is scheduled for September 22.
- Community: Continued work on the new contributor greeting and orientation tools, Docs Jam planning.
- New feature: greeting bot
- When someone makes their first contribution to the Salt project, they'll get an automatic response that thanks them for their contribution and provides helpful information. This includes links to the Contributor Guide, Slack, Calendar, Wiki, and other resources.
- When someone's first merge occurs, they'll now get an automatic response congratulating them.
- Over time, the bot will probably have more automatic responses for common situations. We hope this will give people a better understanding of their contribution statuses and help them find information they may need.
- Save the dates:
- The Docs Jam is scheduled for October 7. This will be a time for community members to work together and improve documentation. Before the event, we'll host a Docs Clinic to help prepare attendees. The Clinic will be September 30.
- SaltConf 20 is scheduled for October 29. Registration will open in the coming weeks. We're looking for speakers. If you're interested in giving a talk, submit your proposal via the Call for Speakers form.
Salt Community and Core Team
Discussion begins at 6:44 on the video
- We are in the early stages of planning a Community Advisory Board that will do things such as monitor SEPs, influence technical direction and decisions, and help manage Working Groups. There are still a lot of things to define. We'll iterate on board creation and logistics.
- An Advisory Board exists to help lead and guide an organization. It's a volunteer group that gives advice and support to a group. They're specific with set guidelines and goals. It represents community members and, in this case, would work with both the community and the Core Team.
- We're looking for feedback on what this Advisory Board could do for the community and want to know how community members would like to be represented. Since we're building this from scratch, we have options and flexibility in how to give the community a voice.
- Advisory Board suggestions from contributors:
- Better documentation.
- Good communication that is clear and accessible in a timely manner. Communication should be focused on issue and PR status and changes that are relevant to the community.
- Create and share consistent and informative meeting notes.
- If you're interested in joining the Advisory Board and taking on a leadership role in the Salt Community, contact Cassandra. We're still working on the member selection process and board size. It would be a commitment of a few hours per month and would require meeting attendance and some light documentation.
SaltStack Engineers Bryce Larson and David Murphy
Discussion begins at 18:58 on the video
- Motivation
- When we make a new release, because all dependencies we package along with Salt, thre are so many that any time requirements change, it takes a lot of time to find source RPMs, etc. This holds us back from releasing more quickly.
- The native Python environment for native minions is limited.
- With Mac and Windows, we package dependencies all in one bundle and can create them within a couple hours. This makes us package Linux and other operating systems as easily. Then at release, users can simply tag and the PR is ready to go.
- In use, it's making it quicker and easier to build Salt on non-Windows and non-Mac operating systems. It's being used successfully with Arista currently. Previously, we had to support and backport a cumbersome amount of packages making maintenance more difficult.
- Regular packages will contain Py files that can be modified. There will also be a single binary available that people can run for testing use (but not production use).
- Packages are built more quickly when using Tiamat.
- Potential downsides
- We have to keep up on CVEs in the dependencies that we use. However, this is now quicker to turn around and we can address CVEs more quickly.
- Packages without many dependencies will now be architecture-dependent when being installed.
Salt Community and Core Team
- There were no general questions.
Agenda and Video Link
- Salt news, updates, and SaltConf 20 Virtual
- SEP 25: Add runtime registers to Salt
- New contributor greeting & experience
- Community Advisory Board planning
- Open community discussion & questions
- Meeting video 2020-09-03
Community Manager Cassandra Faris
- Triage added to Twitch streams.
- Releases, SEPs, and Updates.
- Core Team Focus
- Development: Continued work on tech debt, ZeroMQ work, label and potential SEP discussions.
- Community: Continued work on the new contributor greeting and orientation tools, Docs Jam planning.
- A new Salt-Enhancement Proposal (SEP) on packaging Salt with Tiamat is available for discussion and review. We will be discussing it during the September 10 Open Hour.
- Core Team Focus
- In the coming weeks, Salt will switch to PyTest as the only test runner because runtests.py is reaching its end of life. A blog post is live on the community site: https://community.saltstack.com/blog/pytest-a-journey-of-three-years/
- Events
- Docs Jam setup clinic Sep. 30
- Docs Jam Oct. 7
- SaltConf Virtual: Oct. 29
- The Call for Proposals (CFP) is open to anyone who would like to give a talk. Tell us the cool stuff you're doing with Salt.
- Proposal submission form https://forms.gle/V5pMDiWnV9YRFtNJ6
- If you need ideas for talks or help writing your proposal, reach out to Cassandra.
SaltStack Project Manager Sage Robins
Discussion begins at 3:05 on the video
- The SEP is available here.
- The SEP is in its initial stage. Its author is going to review it again but can't join an Open Hour to discuss due to time zone constraints.
- If a SEP author wants to have a live discussion, we can schedule that. SEP discussions can work well with asynchronous communication.
SaltStack Community Manager Cassandra Faris
Discussion begins at 7:22 on the video
- We are in the early stages of creating a Community Advisory Board.
- We would like to hear what the community would like from this board.
- At this moment, we're doing research and discussing what the Board would do.
- If you'd be interested in joining the Advisory Board, contact Cassandra.
- The Advisory Board may be responsible for the following:
- Suggesting, determining, and monitoring best practices.
- Coauthoring and monitoring SEPs.
- Provide feedback on Working Group Captains and other community leadership decisions.
- Provide technical influence and direction for the Salt project.
- As we get closer to implementing the board, we'll narrow the goals, roles, and responsibilities.
- Some benefits of an advisory board:
- Helps more voices be heard.
- Provide leadership and community representation.
Salt Community and Core Team
Discussion begins at 13:57 on the video
- Overview: We're trying to improve the new contributor experience by telling new contributors what to expect after submitting their first PR or issue. In addition to acknowledging the new contribution, we want to provide them with some useful Salt resources.
- We're creating a greeting bot that will automatically comment on new contributions in GitHub. We want the bot to be useful and want community feedback on what it should say.
- We also want to know what information new contributors need when they begin working on the project. Like documentation improvements, this is going to be an ongoing project. Today's discussion will help determine which improvements to focus on first.
- Basic information new contributors need:
- What is Salt? How is it different from other projects in the same space?
- What is the development and PR process and timeline?
- Who are our personas? What might they need?
- Community member suggestions for new contributor info (Quotes taken directly from contributor comments in Zoom and Twitch chat and verbal discussion):
- "Continuing the current top of new Salt user instead of new developer. IMHO one issue I have is the workflow of developing new Salt code. The normal process of commit to a git repo in a branch, and then testing it on a Salt master is a bad workflow while developing. I found salt-ssh to be a far better workflow, but I also consider salt-ssh to be the redheaded step child of the Salt project. Improving salt-ssh to make it more usable would be great. I was just running into a new feature from 3000, jinja.load_map, and found it doesn't work with salt-ssh, because of the extra_refs issue. There are many other salt-ssh-isms that get in the way".
- "The current workflow is slow, hard to iterate quickly, and hard to debug. For someone that is not a python expert, and needs to test constantly to see what they're doing is correct, it takes like 5-10 minutes to iterate a change…. Perhaps a guide on setting up a salt development environment that makes it easier to quickly iterate through writing modules, etc".
- "Examples are way too basic. Need more "howto" advanced guides Write an external pillar? When to use them? Formulas are terrible to digest for a newcomer".
- "Vault integration with approve approach doc basically says "go to hashicorp docs for details" Documentation assumes contributors know a lot of things".
- "Perhaps a guide on setting up a salt development environment that makes it easier to quickly iterate through writing modules, etc. Right now the current workflow is slow and sucks, but I got some suggestions on using LXC/kitchen to make it faster. Perhaps a guide on setting that all up".
- "How-to turn a salt module into a pop/idem project".
- "People starting get easily confused by terminology. They can read pillar, and even read a description of it, but still don't understand it. On the top of why people don't find documentation is people don't directly navigate the Salt site, they google search for a term and read what they find.".
- Reference material needed:
- "Better graphics to represent processes and flows".
- "Not specifically related to PR process, but I can tell you as a new Salt user, and not coming from a development background, that my biggest challenge has been documentation. It's mostly find as a reference, but even the non-python documentation is very python-focused, and can be difficult to digest".
- "There is a real dearth of "how to do this documentation", and not nearly enough examples".
- "There's a huge learning curve to do almost anything useful in Salt, and I fear you're losing market share to Ansible because Ansible is much easier to jump into".
- Unit Test information and streamlining
- "The single biggest issue historically and now with PRs has been lack of unit tests and now the requirement to have unit tests. I think the new requirement for unit tests is a general good idea, but a way to streamline the unit test process would be great. Some of the things mentioned like clear documentation, easy to find documentation, and on the clinics get the word out more. I didn't know they existed".
- Test clinics are a great place to start learning tests. Those occur on Twitch every Tuesday at 1:00pm MT/7:00pm UTC and Thursday at 9:00am MT/3:00pm UTC. Join a clinic for help with your tests or hands-on assistance working through them.
Salt Community and Core Team
- There were no general questions. The group continued discussing the new contributor experience until Open Hour ended.