pct update

[cdenneen]

There needs to be a way to keep modules, control repositories, etc in sync with a template.

At some point people will create "artifacts" from these PCT's but as things evolve the goal will be to update the "upstream" template and then have the "artifacts" sync back those updates, if they choose.

This comes with some challenges in this current model:

• If there is a complete template you are syncing from this might be easier but still needs to be doable.
• If you created the components from different templates (public, private, etc) this needs to be tracked I would guess in some sort of pdk/pct configuration to allow to "update"/"sync" from their individual upstream sources.
  - So you could have now created a custom template (or repo, or module) that is a combination of different upstream sources. You might want to keep those in sync. Base template, maybe a gitlab-ci template, GH Actions template, etc.

You could have pct update all that goes through all the upstream pieces and creates an update_report.txt.
You could do pct update puppetlabs/editorconfig.
You could do combination of pct update puppetlabs/puppet-control-repo, pct update puppetlabs/editorconfig, pct update thirdparty/puppet-fact factname, pct update thirdparty/bolt-plan planname.

[michaeltlombardi]

@cdenneen when we were doing the design for PCT, at least for the early stages, we wanted to be less prescriptive about managing/maintaining code files for the longer lifecycle; we scoped PCT towards laying files and folders down. One of the reasons for this was the incompatibility introduced between the PDK and modulesync, necessitating a rework of how people managed their code bases.

Our thought was that by not defining an update procedure in PCT - especially as individual values and configurations get exponentially complex - we could leave that functionality to a tool built only to handle it (ie modulesync).

Does modulesync not meet these needs for you? Or would documenting the use of modulesync with PCT resolve this concern?

[cdenneen]

I think documenting modulesync with PCT might resolve 99% of these concerns... not sure if I'm missing any edge cases though.

[michaeltlombardi]

Perfect, I'll turn this into a docs ticket. If there's any edge cases modulesync can't support, we can look to contribute upstream so the community benefits regardless of if they're using PCT or not.