• Immutable Page
• Info
• Attachments
• More Actions: Raw Text Print View Render as Docbook Delete Cache ------------------------ Check Spelling Like Pages Local Site Map ------------------------ Rename Page Delete Page ------------------------ Subscribe User ------------------------ Remove Spam Revert to this revision Package Pages Sync Pages ------------------------ Load Save SlideShow

QA in the Continuous Rollouts Process

The proposed merge workflow is in https://dev.launchpad.net/MergeWorkflowDraft. This merge workflow assumes that QA is the blocker of a branch to be rolled out to production, so we need to do the bookkeeping to provide the QA information.

First, a definition

A bug is the smallest unit of QA. So, deciding if something needs QA is based on the existence of the bug. But, it's not required to have a bug for each branch. Inform that a branch is [no-qa] when it's the case, and the revision is QA-covered.

Branches from a QA perspective

As a rule, if a branch needs QA, it should be represented by at least one bug. Rarely, QA is not necessary for some branches, or can't be done. Also rarely, some branches cannot be QA'd until more branches land -- they are incremental branches towards a larger bug. Equally rarely are expected branches that only revert others that are bad fixes or rollout blockers: they rollback other branches.

Marking branches appropriately when landing them

To represent and sign those situations, there are three new commit message tags: [no-qa], [incr] and [rollback]. Note that the idea is to gather as much as possible information in the merge proposal, so you only have to pass parameters to ec2 land and bzr lp-land instead of handcrafting the commit message for it to be in a QA-consistent state.

Each category below describes what you need to do to make the assertion. It also tells you what automation it will trigger. To get your branch landed, you must assert that your branch falls in one of the following categories:

1. We can QA it, and it fixes one or more bugs.
   • What you do: Link the bug to the branch in Launchpad.
   • What the tagger does: Each related bug is marked Fix Committed and tagged qa-needstesting, and a comment is added mentioning the revision number and branch name it landed in.
2. We can QA it, and it is an incremental step towards one or more bugs.

   • What you do: Link the bug to the branch in Launchpad, and pass --incr or --incremental to ec2 land or bzr lp-land.

   • What the tagger does: Each related bug is tagged qa-needstesting, and a comment is added mentioning the revision number and branch name it landed in. The status of the bug will remain In Progress.
3. We cannot QA it, and it is an incremental step towards one or more bugs.

   • What you do: Link the bug to the branch in Launchpad, and pass --incr or --incremental and --no-qa to ec2 land or bzr lp-land.

   • What the tagger does: Each related bug is tagged qa-untestable, and a comment is added mentioning the revision number and branch name it landed in. The status of the bug will remain In Progress.

   NOTE: don't say that the last branch in an incremental chain is [incr]. Just submit it like category 1.

4. We cannot QA it, but it fixes one or more bugs.

   • What you do: Link the bug and the branch in Launchpad, and pass --no-qa to ec2 land or bzr lp-land.

   • What the tagger does: Each related bug is marked Fix Committed and tagged qa-untestable.
5. We cannot QA it, and it does not have an associated bug.

   • What you do: Pass --no-qa to ec2 land or bzr lp-land.

   • What the tagger does: Nothing. We include it in a QA report for the current cycle (just a wiki page for now).
6. We cannot QA it, and it's just a rollback of a previous bad or unQAed branch.

   • What you do: Pass --rollback to ec2 land or bzr lp-land.

   • What the tagger does: Each related bug is tagged qa-rollback. The status of the bug will remain the same.

Note: Regular branches that fix qa-bad bugs should be submitted like category 1.

PQM will enforce these rules with the usual regex dances. ec2 land and bzr lp-land help you conform to the PQM regex with quicker and more helpful error messages. Alternatively, you can add "[incr]", "[no-qa]" or "[rollback]" in your PQM submission message yourself, if using pqm-submit directly, but we don't recommend it.

What the new blesser should do?

The very important part of having the bugs tagged correctly is that this will determine the QA state of the branch that fixes it, and as a consequence say if the revision is ok to be rolled out to production or not.

The blesser will check each revision for a bug, and:

1) If there isn't a bug, it assumes the revision as qa-untestable, revision is blessed. 2) If there's a bug and it's qa-untestable, qa-ok or qa-rollback, revision is blessed. 3) If there's a bug and it's qa-needstesting or qa-bad, revision is not blessed.