Edit and Run

[marniks7]

Is your feature request related to a problem ?

CI can be used not only for automated operations, but to run any task that user might need.

E.g. I would like to run E2E tests (pipeline) manually with some parameters. They can fail.
It is nice to be able to change one (few) parameters and rerun it once again.
Or another operation, e.g. download backup, upload backup or run deploy.

Tekton can be used as common purpose pipeline \ workflow engine, e.g. for Chaos Engineering, and to experiment we need to rerun with different parameters like "duration of chaos", "wait"

Describe the solution you'd like

I would like to see 'Rerun with Parameters' near 'Rerun' button for TaskRun\PipelineRun\Run

Jenkins analog: https://plugins.jenkins.io/rebuild/

Describe alternatives you've considered

kubectl apply -f with different parameters, no alternatives in UI

Additional context

• The idea is to use the same form as for CreatePipelineRun and add parameter pipelinerun to url, this parameter can be used as template
http://localhost:9097/#/pipelineruns/create?namespace=tekton-namespace&pipelinerun=my-previous-pipeline-run
• New button
  
• One more problem I see that Rerun with Parameters for this approach will support only those parameters that are specified in CreatePipelineRun.js, in particular I am worried about absence of workspaces. This can be done in separate PR
• I am willing to implement this functionality if no concerns

[AlanGreene]

Thanks for the feature request @marniks7. I think this makes a lot of sense and would be great to add. However, as you mentioned I also have some concerns about missing support in the existing Create PipelineRun UI, particularly for workspaces, but also array params.

Adding a 'Rerun with parameters' (naming might need some work, 'parameters' is an overloaded term) makes it more likely that users will run into issues and could potentially end up with unexpected behaviour depending on how their pipelines are written. I think it's important that the user has full visibility into what they're creating, so not showing unsupported fields but having them passed in the background would not be good. Likewise, stripping unsupported fields wouldn't be great either as it's unlikely this would yield the desired outcome.

We're tracking the missing functionality for the Create UI in #1283 and #2171. Any contributions (design, investigation, code, …) on either of those would be very welcome and get us closer to being able to add this new feature safely.

[marniks7]

@AlanGreene , I was thinking about this feature and has another proposal:
Edit YAML and Run - this is reliable and advanced solution, which will allow to edit YAML, so user will achieve 'whatever floats user boat'.

Edit and Run (just renamed Rerun with Parameters)
To make it reliable it will require deep YAML analyze: backend vs UI: comparison for all supported fields by UI. In case if all fields supported by UI - show form Create PipelineRun with values, otherwise fallback to Edit YAML and Run.
However, I have no idea yet how to make such deep analyze :)

[AlanGreene]

A YAML input to create a run or edit and rerun an existing one sounds good to me as an escape hatch for unsupported features in the UI or if someone just has a blob of YAML somewhere already that they want to execute.

To make it reliable it will require deep YAML analyze backend

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

[marniks7]

unsupported features in the UI are inevitable, we cannot keep up with all backend alpha features and different backend \ UI versions can be used.
Nevertheless, in order to support Edit and Run (without YAML as input), we need to be able to understand if ALL fields in current yaml are supported by current UI or not.
For example, list of supported fields can be described as those:

• apiVersion
• kind
• spec.workspaces.[].name
• spec.workspaces.[].configMap.name
• spec.workspaces.[].secret.secretName
• spec.pipelineRef.name
• spec.serviceAccountName

If PipelineRun YAML contains any field except above - we fallback to direct YAML edit, otherwise Edit and Run.

---

Another idea:
We can take YAML schema, keep all fields supported by UI and validate that PipelineRun YAML corresponds to that schema.

[AlanGreene]

I think a good starting point would be to always present the option to switch to 'YAML mode'. That would unblock users who want to use features not currently supported in the UI, and buy us time to figure out the best approach to handle this (new UI, comparison of supported features, detect when UI doesn't support a used feature, etc.).

[marniks7]

Hi @AlanGreene,

How do you want to handle this?

1. Step1: Is it fine to implement "Switch to YAML" on CreatePipelineRun page first without switch back?
2. Step2: Support "Edit and Run" as YAML option by default
3. Step3: Refactor CreatePipelineRun.js to have the same format as PipelineRun in backend
4. Step4: Allow switch back, all unsupported fields will NOT be removed, but stored
5. Step5: Detect when UI doesn't support something and show warning(?)

Create as YAML

1. Use Monaco-Editor and add React Monaco Editor
2. On CreatePipelineRun page add toggle to switch to yaml. Could you please add your vision where this toggle (or maybe another element type) should be?
   Toggle:
   
   Monaco-Editor:
   
3. In order to switch from model to yaml just convert to YAML
4. Add support for yamlmode=true to the query params when yaml mode is turned on

Edit and Run

1. Add pipelinerun to the URL query params for CreatePipelineRun
2. Open CreatePipelineRun in yamlmode=true with pipelinerun=XXX

Important Notes

1. Unfortunately, Content-Security-Policy will require downgrade because of
   Do not use inline styles! microsoft/monaco-editor#271
2. Possible improvement. For yaml-schema suggestions & validations use monaco-yaml. Because monaco doesn't support it for yaml Feature request: support JSONSchema with YAML microsoft/monaco-editor#1470

Model Options and type-safe validations in runtime (for future)

1. Generate models for Tekton Run(s) from CRDs or json schema
   1.1. Option to check2 https://github.com/bcherny/json-schema-to-typescript
   1.2. Option to check1 kubernetes-models-ts
   1.3. Drop fields NOT supported in UI (?)
2. OR play with type safe

[tekton-robot]

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[AlanGreene]

/remove-lifecycle stale
This is currently in progress. We already have a YAML mode for creating a PipelineRun, and there's a PR open adding the ability to edit YAML of an existing run as the basis for creating a new one.

[AlanGreene]

We recently updated the Dashboard to display list and details pages for the new v1beta1 CustomRun (replacement for the deprecated v1alpha1 Run).

Now that we have the YAML mode for Create PipelineRun we should add the same (including this edit and rerun feature) for both TaskRun and CustomRun to ensure consistency.

[AlanGreene]

/area roadmap

[tekton-robot]

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity.
Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle stale with a justification.
Stale issues rot after an additional 30d of inactivity and eventually close.
If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close with a justification.
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/lifecycle stale

Send feedback to tektoncd/plumbing.

[AlanGreene]

/remove-lifecycle stale

[tekton-robot]

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity.
Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle stale with a justification.
Stale issues rot after an additional 30d of inactivity and eventually close.
If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close with a justification.
If this issue should be exempted, mark the issue as frozen with /lifecycle frozen with a justification.

/lifecycle stale

Send feedback to tektoncd/plumbing.

[AlanGreene]

/lifecycle frozen

[AlanGreene]

Edit and run functionality is available for PipelineRun, TaskRun, and CustomRun resources via the YAML mode editor. There are no current plans to expand the form-based UI capabilities so closing for now. We may revisit this in future as part of broader changes to the app.