Development

This section only needs to be read by developers of this project. People that want to make a fix or develop some extension, and people that want to test the project are also considered developers for the purpose of this section.

Repository

The repository for the IBM Z HMC collection is on GitHub:

https://github.com/zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules

Setting up the development environment

The development environment is pretty easy to set up.

Besides having a supported operating system with a supported Python version (see Supported environments), it is recommended that you set up a virtual Python environment.

Then, with a virtual Python environment active, clone the Git repo of this project and prepare the development environment with make develop:

$ git clone git@github.com:zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules.git
$ cd zhmc-ansible-modules
$ make develop

This will install all prerequisites the project needs for its development.

Generally, this project uses Make to do things in the currently active Python environment. The command make help (or just make) displays a list of valid Make targets and a short description of what each target does.

Building the documentation

The documentation for the IBM Z HMC collection is published on GitHub Pages at https://zhmcclient.github.io/zhmc-ansible-modules/.

That web site represents a defined set of versions of this collection and automatically gets updated whenever a pull request gets merged into the repository branch that corresponds to the version. The automatic update mechanism is implemented in the GitHub Actions workflow file .github/workflows/docs.yml.

The versions to be represented on that site are defined in docs/source/conf.py in the section for “sphinx-versioning”.

In order to build this “versioned” documentation locally, issue:

$ make docs

The top-level document to open with a web browser will be docs_build/index.html. Note that the versioned documentation is built from the defined branches, so it does not include the content of your Git work directory.

In order to see the effects of some change in your Git work directory, there is a second documentation build that builds an “unversioned” documentation from the content of your Git work directory:

$ make docslocal

The top-level document to open with a web browser will be docs_local/index.html; it is opened automatically when the documentation has been built successfully.

Testing

Again, an invocation of Make runs against the currently active Python environment.

There are four kinds of tests currently, available as make targets:

  • make linkcheck - Check links in documentation

  • make test - Run unit and function tests with test coverage

  • make sanity - Run Ansible sanity tests (includes flake8, pylint, validate-modules)

  • make end2end - Run end2end tests (against a real environment)

For the unit and function tests, the testcases and options for pytest can be specified via the environment variable TESTOPTS, as shown in these examples:

$ make test                                      # Run all unit and function tests
$ TESTOPTS='-vv' make test                       # Specify -vv verbosity for pytest
$ TESTOPTS='-k test_partition.py' make test      # Run only this test source file

Releasing a version

This section shows the steps for releasing a version to Ansible Galaxy.

It covers all variants of versions that can be released:

  • Releasing a new major version (Mnew.0.0) based on the master branch

  • Releasing a new minor version (M.Nnew.0) based on the master branch

  • Releasing a new update version (M.N.Unew) based on the stable branch of its minor version

This description assumes that you are authorized to push to the remote repo at https://github.com/zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules and that the remote repo has the remote name origin in your local clone.

Any commands in the following steps are executed in the main directory of your local clone of the zhmc-ansible-modules Git repo.

  1. Set shell variables for the version that is being released and the branch it is based on:

    • MNU - Full version M.N.U that is being released

    • MN - Major and minor version M.N of that full version

    • BRANCH - Name of the branch the version that is being released is based on

    When releasing a new major version (e.g. 1.0.0) based on the master branch:

    MNU=1.0.0
    MN=1.0
    BRANCH=master
    

    When releasing a new minor version (e.g. 0.9.0) based on the master branch:

    MNU=0.9.0
    MN=0.9
    BRANCH=master
    

    When releasing a new update version (e.g. 0.8.1) based on the stable branch of its minor version:

    MNU=0.8.1
    MN=0.8
    BRANCH=stable_${MN}
    
  2. Create a topic branch for the version that is being released:

    git checkout ${BRANCH}
    git pull
    git checkout -b release_${MNU}
    
  3. Edit the Galaxy metadata file:

    vi galaxy.yml
    

    and set the ‘version’ parameter to the version that is being released:

    version: M.N.U
    
  4. Edit the change log:

    vi docs/source/release_notes.rst
    

    and make the following changes in the section of the version that is being released:

    • Finalize the version.

    • Change the release date to today’s date.

    • Make sure that all changes are described.

    • Make sure the items shown in the change log are relevant for and understandable by users.

    • In the “Known issues” list item, remove the link to the issue tracker and add text for any known issues you want users to know about.

    • Remove all empty list items.

  5. When releasing based on the master branch, edit the GitHub workflow file test.yml:

    vi .github/workflows/test.yml
    

    and in the on section, increase the version of the stable_* branch to the new stable branch stable_M.N created earlier:

    on:
      schedule:
        . . .
      push:
        branches: [ master, stable_M.N ]
      pull_request:
        branches: [ master, stable_M.N ]
    
  6. When releasing based on the master branch, edit the GitHub workflow file docs.yml:

    vi .github/workflows/docs.yml
    

    and in the on section, increase the version of the stable_* branch to the new stable branch stable_M.N created earlier:

    on:
      push:
        # PR merge to these branches triggers this workflow
        branches: [ master, stable_M.N ]
    
  7. Commit your changes and push the topic branch to the remote repo:

    git status  # Double check the changed files
    git commit -asm "Release ${MNU}"
    git push --set-upstream origin release_${MNU}
    
  8. On GitHub, create a Pull Request for branch release_M.N.U. This will trigger the CI runs.

    Important: When creating Pull Requests, GitHub by default targets the master branch. When releasing based on a stable branch, you need to change the target branch of the Pull Request to stable_M.N.

  9. On GitHub, close milestone M.N.U.

  10. The items in this step should be performed within no more than 1 minute, so that the documentation that is built uses the new version tag.

    • On GitHub, once the checks for the Pull Request for branch start_M.N.U have succeeded, merge the Pull Request (no review is needed). This automatically deletes the branch on GitHub.

      This also triggers a build of the documentation and subsequent publishing to Github pages. This build takes more than 1 minute to get to the point where it needs the new version tag that is added in the next item.

    • Add a new tag for the version that is being released and push it to the remote repo:

      git checkout ${BRANCH}
      git pull
      git tag -f ${MNU}
      git push -f --tags
      
    • Wait for the docs workflow named “Release M.N.U” to complete, on https://github.com/zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules/actions/workflows/docs.yml, and once it is complete, double check whether you see the new version in the release notes at https://zhmcclient.github.io/zhmc-ansible-modules/release_notes.html.

      If you do not see the new release notes, the build was faster than the pushing of the new tag, and this can be fixed by simply re-running the docs workflow via the corresponding button in GitHub Actions.

  11. Clean up the local repo:

    git branch -d release_${MNU}
    
  12. When releasing based on the master branch, create and push a new stable branch for the same minor version:

    git checkout -b stable_${MN}
    git push --set-upstream origin stable_${MN}
    git checkout ${BRANCH}
    

    Note that no GitHub Pull Request is created for any stable_* branch.

  13. On GitHub, edit the new tag M.N.U, and create a release description on it. This will cause it to appear in the Release tab.

    You can see the tags in GitHub via Code -> Releases -> Tags.

  14. Publish the collection to Ansible Galaxy and AutomationHub:

    You need to be registered on Ansible Galaxy and on Ansible AutomationHub, and your userid there needs to be authorized to modify the ‘ibm’ namespace.

    You need to have the following environment variables set:

    To upload the collection to both Ansible Galaxy and AutomationHub, execute:

    make upload
    

    This will show the collection version and will ask for confirmation.

    Attention!! This only works once for each version. You cannot re-release the same version more than once.

    Verify that the import on Ansible Galaxy succeeded, by checking the status at https://galaxy.ansible.com/my-imports (you need to log in).

    Verify that the new version is shown on Ansible Galaxy at https://galaxy.ansible.com/ibm/ibm_zhmc/ .

    Verify that the import on Ansible AutomationHub succeeded, by checking the status at https://console.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/my-imports?namespace=ibm (you need to log in). After the import succeeded, the release must still be approved by RedHat before it is published, so the approval status should show “waiting for approval”.

    Once it has been approved, verify that the new version is shown on Ansible AutomationHub at https://console.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/repo/published/ibm/ibm_zhmc .

Starting a new version

This section shows the steps for starting development of a new version.

These steps may be performed right after the steps for Releasing a version, or independently.

This section covers all variants of new versions:

  • Starting a new major version (Mnew.0.0) based on the master branch

  • Starting a new minor version (M.Nnew.0) based on the master branch

  • Starting a new update version (M.N.Unew) based on the stable branch of its minor version

This description assumes that you are authorized to push to the remote repo at https://github.com/zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules and that the remote repo has the remote name origin in your local clone.

Any commands in the following steps are executed in the main directory of your local clone of the zhmc-ansible-modules Git repo.

  1. Set shell variables for the version that is being started and the branch it is based on:

    • MNU - Full version M.N.U that is being started

    • MN - Major and minor version M.N of that full version

    • BRANCH - Name of the branch the version that is being started is based on

    When starting a new major version (e.g. 1.0.0) based on the master branch:

    MNU=1.0.0
    MN=1.0
    BRANCH=master
    

    When starting a new minor version (e.g. 0.9.0) based on the master branch:

    MNU=0.9.0
    MN=0.9
    BRANCH=master
    

    When starting a new minor version (e.g. 0.8.1) based on the stable branch of its minor version:

    MNU=0.8.1
    MN=0.8
    BRANCH=stable_${MN}
    
  2. Create a topic branch for the version that is being started:

    git checkout ${BRANCH}
    git pull
    git checkout -b start_${MNU}
    
  3. Edit the change log:

    vi docs/source/release_notes.rst
    

    and insert the following section before the top-most section, and update the version to a draft version of the version that is being started:

    Version M.N.U-dev1
    ------------------
    
    This version contains all fixes up to version M.N-1.x.
    
    Released: not yet
    
    Availability: `AutomationHub`_, `Galaxy`_, `GitHub`_
    
    **Incompatible changes:**
    
    **Deprecations:**
    
    **Bug fixes:**
    
    **Enhancements:**
    
    **Cleanup:**
    
    **Known issues:**
    
    * See `list of open issues`_.
    
    .. _`list of open issues`: https://github.com/zhmcclient/zhmc-ansible-modules/issues
    
  4. Edit the Galaxy metadata file:

    vi galaxy.yml
    

    and update the version to a draft version of the version that is being started:

    version: M.N.U-dev1
    

    Note: The version must follow the rules for semantic versioning 2.0 including the description of development/alpha/etc suffixes, as described in https://semver.org/

  5. Commit your changes and push them to the remote repo:

    git status  # Double check the changed files
    git commit -asm "Start ${MNU}"
    git push --set-upstream origin start_${MNU}
    
  6. On GitHub, create a Pull Request for branch start_M.N.U.

    Important: When creating Pull Requests, GitHub by default targets the master branch. When starting a version based on a stable branch, you need to change the target branch of the Pull Request to stable_M.N.

  7. On GitHub, create a milestone for the new version M.N.U.

    You can create a milestone in GitHub via Issues -> Milestones -> New Milestone.

  8. On GitHub, go through all open issues and pull requests that still have milestones for previous releases set, and either set them to the new milestone, or to have no milestone.

  9. On GitHub, once the checks for the Pull Request for branch start_M.N.U have succeeded, merge the Pull Request (no review is needed). This automatically deletes the branch on GitHub.

  10. Update and clean up the local repo:

    git checkout ${BRANCH}
    git pull
    git branch -d start_${MNU}