GitGitGadget on git/git, was Re: Should we auto-close PRs on git/git?

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 18, 2019, 18:37 UTC
Message-ID: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1911181930290.46@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>
In-Reply-To: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.1911142354290.46@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>

Hi Peff,

On Fri, 15 Nov 2019, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

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> On Thu, 14 Nov 2019, Jeff King wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 01:04:35PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> >
> > > > We talked a while ago about having GitGitGadget operate on git/git,
> > > > rather than on a separate mirror. That would automatically help at least
> > > > one class of PR-opener: people who want their patches to reach the list
> > > > but didn't realize they should be using gitgitgadget/git.
> > > >
> > > > I don't remember what the technical blockers are for getting that set
> > > > up, but it seems like a strictly nicer outcome than auto-closing their
> > > > PR.
> > >
> > > Okay, here are a couple of technical challenges, off the top of my head:
> > > [...]
> > > Not an easy, nor a small project, I am afraid.
> >
> > Yow. That's a lot more involved than I was hoping for.

Yeah, it wasn't easy. But then, who does not like a little challenge, especially the challenge to test things outside of production? So here is a PR: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/gitgitgadget/pull/148

I trust everybody with even rudimentary Javascript skills to be able to provide useful feedback on that PR.

To build some confidence in my patches (as you probably know, I do not trust reviews as much as I trust real-life testing, although I do prefer to have both) I "kind of" activated it on my fork, limited to act only on comments _I_ made on PRs (and sending only to me instead of the list), and it seems to work all right, so far. I cannot say for sure whether it handles the PR labels correctly, but I guess time will tell, and I will fix bugs as quickly as I can.

Question is: should I turn this thing on? I.e. install that GitGitGadget-Git App on https://github.com/git/git? This would allow GitHub users to `/submit` directly from PRs opened in that repository. I am sure that there are a few kinks to work out, but I do think that it should not take long to stabilize.

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> > Thanks for writing it up. Some of the points raised were interesting. I
> > do think we'd want git/git (the repository) to remain read-only if
> > possible.
>
> I guess you're right.
>
> We should probably try to restrict the permissions as much as possible,
> not only deny write access to the repository.
>
> For example, one thing GitGitGadget does is to add these "Checks" to the
> commits of the PRs which contain links to the corresponding commits in
> gitster/git (if any). Those can actually not be removed, there is not
> even any API for that. So it would probably make sense to avoid that in
> git/git.
>
> This would mean that the git/git part of GitGitGadget does not install
> those commit mappings. I guess that's okay, they _are_ kinda hard to
> use.

I made it so. The GitGitGadget-Git App only requires write permission to add PR comments and labels, which I think should be okay. It specifically has _no_ permission to push to git/git.

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> > If GitHub's permissions model is a limiting factor here, let me know
> > and I can try to bring it to the attention of the right people.
>
> I actually don't think that my use case fits any sane permission model
> ;-) After all, I want the GitHub App to _span_ repositories (even orgs),
> and that's not really the idea of Apps.
>
> After sleeping over it, I don't actually think that it is such a bad
> idea to add a second GitHub App with a more limited permission set.

The name _was_ bad, but I did settle for GitGitGadget-Git in the end. Not the most elegant name, but hey, it works so far.

Ciao, Dscho