rfc: add platform support RFC

rfc/008-platform-support.md

@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+# RFC 008: Platform Support
+
+## Objective
+
+Implement support for diverse platforms in Contrast, ensuring that:
+
+1. Users can mix-and-match features throughout all platforms supported by Contrast
+2. Code with a platform dependency can be deduplicated
+3. New platforms and platform features can be added with low complexity (that's `O(1)`, at best)
+
+## Problem statement
+
+Contrast currently distinguishes between platforms based on their distinct features.
+Taking the `AKS-CLH-SNP` platform as an example, this serialized platform string conveys
+the following information:
+
+- Kubernetes engine: `AKS`
+  - (Implicit: Kata upstream / Microsoft fork)
+- Hypervisor: `CLH`
+- Hardware platform: `SNP`
+
+The user picks such a platform through its serialized string (for example `AKS-CLH-SNP`), and the
+code then implements actions based upon that, such as when writing platform-specific Kata
+configuration values in the [node-installer].
+
+With new features being added to Contrast, such as GPU support, more information needs
+to be contained in such a platform description.
+
+This comes at the cost of growing complexity of conditional statements
+depending on the platform throughout the implementation code, as the
+current implementation doesn't distinguish between platform features
+(for example which hypervisor is used) but only between full platform combinations.
+
+[node-installer]: https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/blob/3f39682ea9a383b2557923e257bd065e461b8ee6/nodeinstaller/internal/constants/constants.go#L48
+
+## Proposal
+
+### Structured Representation
+
+Throughout the implementation code, platforms shouldn't be represented as _individual combinations_,
+but rather through a generic, structured type that contains information about their _features_.
+
+So `AKS-CLH-SNP` could become something like this:
+
+```go
+type Platform struct {
+    KubernetesDistribution KubernetesDistribution
+    Hypervisor Hypervisor
+    HardwarePlatform HardwarePlatform
+}
+
+// AKS-CLH-SNP
+foo := Platform{
+    KubernetesDistribution: AKS,
+    Hypervisor: CloudHypervisor,
+    HardwarePlatform: SNPMilan,
+}
+```
+
+This would allow the implementation code (for example the aforementioned switch for [Kata configuration])
+to be reduced to only depend on the information bits it requires.
+
+For example, this:
+
+```go
+case platforms.MetalQEMUTDX, platforms.K3sQEMUTDX, platforms.RKE2QEMUTDX:
+```
+
+Could become this:
+
+```go
+case TDX
+```
+
+This would also enable easy validation of user error, as the individual types can be checked for
+validity at parsing time, making invalid states unrepresentable [^1].
+
+However, to get to such a structured format, the information needs to be passed to Contrast in another
+structured format, such as a configuration file or another canonical serialized format, which should
+be discussed in the following section.
+
+[Kata configuration]: https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/blob/3f39682ea9a383b2557923e257bd065e461b8ee6/nodeinstaller/internal/constants/constants.go#L48
+
+### Serialization
+
+As platforms are passed throughout multiple (programming) languages, such as the `justfile` and Go code for
+developers, but - in the most primitive way - from a user invoking the CLI in a shell to Go code, there must
+be a serializable, machine-readable representation of a platform.
+
+This could be a configuration file that's read by the CLI and other dependants.
+
+This would reduce implementation complexity, as Contrast could rely on existing YAML / TOML / JSON / etc. parsing
+libraries and no canonical string representation of a platform would need to be implemented.
+
+Additionally, adding platform features would not lead to unreasonably large string representations, which might
+be hard to read for humans at some point.
+
+## Considerations
+
+### Node-Installer Images
+
+As it would be complex and costly to publish node-installer images for all supported platform
+combinations, it might be better to ship a singular one-size-fits-all node installer with support
+for all platforms. This could also be a foundation for heterogeneous deployments that utilize multiple
+platforms (for example GPU- and Non-GPU machines).
+
+To ensure a good developer experience, bandwidth used for transferring the node-installer images should
+be kept to a minimum, which is contrary to the aforementioned idea, but could be counteracted with
+minimizing the individual components in the node-installer, such as the node images.
+
+[^1]: https://geeklaunch.io/blog/make-invalid-states-unrepresentable/

tools/vale/styles/config/vocabularies/edgeless/accept.txt

@@ -137,3 +137,6 @@ RTMR
 RTMRs
 precalculator
 initrd
+deduplicated
+unrepresentable
+serializable