Detect Dynamic Config on Project Setup Workflow
P
Peter Darton
When setting up a new project, offer the option to enable Dynamic Configuration, or auto-detect a setup a setup workflow upon checking for
config.yml
and offer the option to enable at that time.This would particularly be useful when setting up a forked project where the upstream project already uses Dynamic Configuration.
P
Peter Darton
It's actually when setting up _any_ project where you're using Dynamic Configuration from the outset. e.g. orbs.
The usecase is when you've got a fully-populated repo ready for its first build, you add the project to CircleCI using the "fastest" option (as there's a config.yml file already there) ... and the build immediately fails (because it needs dynamic config which isn't enabled).
Worse, after you've had this happen then can't "rerun the failed build" because it failed before CircleCI had even worked out what the workflow(s) were (you have to keep going back "up" until the "trigger pipeline" option is offered).
There is a "reasonable expectation" from users that, if the user isn't given a choice, the system that's choosing for them needs to get it right.
i.e. if there's no chance to mess with the project settings before they're used, the automatically-applied settings must be 100% correct from the outset.
So EITHER the user should be given a chance to edit the project settings before CircleCI starts running it, OR circleci is going to have to intelligently parse the config.yml and inspect it to figure out how it ought to be configured, all automatically and correctly (e.g. does it need environment variables or SSH keys?).
TL;DR: Let the user edit the project settings before it goes "live".