Limit conflicts with EE when developing on CE

This guide contains best-practices for avoiding conflicts between CE and EE.

Daily CE Upstream merge

GitLab Community Edition is merged daily into the Enterprise Edition (look for the CE Upstream merge requests). The daily merge is currently done manually by four individuals.

If a developer pings you in a CE Upstream merge request for help with resolving conflicts, please help them because it means that you didn't do your job to reduce the conflicts nor to ease their resolution in the first place!

To avoid the conflicts beforehand when working on CE, there are a few tools and techniques that can help you:

• know what are the usual types of conflicts and how to prevent them
• the CI rake ee_compat_check job tells you if you need to open an EE-version of your CE merge request

Check the status of the CI rake ee_compat_check job

For each commit (except on master), the rake ee_compat_check CI job tries to detect if the current branch's changes will conflict during the CE->EE merge.

The job reports what files are conflicting and how to setup a merge request against EE. Here is roughly how it works:

1. Generates the diff between your branch and current CE master
2. Tries to apply it to current EE master
3. If it applies cleanly, the job succeeds, otherwise...
4. Detects a branch with the -ee suffix in EE
5. If it exists, generate the diff between this branch and current EE master
6. Tries to apply it to current EE master
7. If it applies cleanly, the job succeeds

In the case where the job fails, it means you should create a <ce_branch>-ee branch, push it to EE and open a merge request against EE master. At this point if you retry the failing job in your CE merge request, it should now pass.

Notes:

• This task is not a silver-bullet, its current goal is to bring awareness to developers that their work needs to be ported to EE.
• Community contributors shouldn't submit merge requests against EE, but reviewers should take actions by either creating such EE merge request or asking a GitLab developer to do it once the merge request is merged.
• If you branch is more than 500 commits behind master, the job will fail and you should rebase your branch upon latest master.
• Code reviews for merge requests often consist of multiple iterations of feedback and fixes. There is no need to update your EE MR after each iteration. Instead, create an EE MR as soon as you see the rake ee_compat_check job failing. After you receive the final acceptance from a Maintainer (but before the CE MR is merged) update the EE MR. This helps to identify significant conflicts sooner, but also reduces the number of times you have to resolve conflicts.
• You can use git rerere to avoid resolving the same conflicts multiple times.

Possible type of conflicts

Controllers

List or arrays are augmented in EE

In controllers, the most common type of conflict is with before_action that has a list of actions in CE but EE adds some actions to that list.

The same problem often occurs for params.require / params.permit calls.

Mitigations

Separate CE and EE actions/keywords. For instance for params.require in ProjectsController:

def project_params
  params.require(:project).permit(project_params_ce)
  # On EE, this is always:
  # params.require(:project).permit(project_params_ce << project_params_ee)
end

# Always returns an array of symbols, created however best fits the use case.
# It _should_ be sorted alphabetically.
def project_params_ce
  %i[
    description
    name
    path
  ]
end

# (On EE)
def project_params_ee
  %i[
    approvals_before_merge
    approver_group_ids
    approver_ids
    ...
  ]
end

Additional condition(s) in EE

For instance for LDAP:

    def destroy
      @key = current_user.keys.find(params[:id])
 -    @key.destroy
 +    @key.destroy unless @key.is_a? LDAPKey

      respond_to do |format|

Or for Geo:

def after_sign_out_path_for(resource)
-    current_application_settings.after_sign_out_path.presence || new_user_session_path
+    if Gitlab::Geo.secondary?
+      Gitlab::Geo.primary_node.oauth_logout_url(@geo_logout_state)
+    else
+      current_application_settings.after_sign_out_path.presence || new_user_session_path
+    end
end

Or even for audit log:

def approve_access_request
-    Members::ApproveAccessRequestService.new(membershipable, current_user, params).execute
+    member = Members::ApproveAccessRequestService.new(membershipable, current_user, params).execute
+
+    log_audit_event(member, action: :create)

  redirect_to polymorphic_url([membershipable, :members])
end

Views

Additional view code in EE

A block of code added in CE conflicts because there is already another block at the same place in EE

Mitigations

Blocks of code that are EE-specific should be moved to partials as much as possible to avoid conflicts with big chunks of HAML code that that are not fun to resolve when you add the indentation to the equation.

For instance this kind of thing:

.form-group.detail-page-description
  = form.label :description, 'Description', class: 'control-label'
  .col-sm-10
    = render layout: 'projects/md_preview', locals: { preview_class: "md-preview", referenced_users: true } do
      = render 'projects/zen', f: form, attr: :description,
                               classes: 'note-textarea',
                               placeholder: "Write a comment or drag your files here...",
                               supports_quick_actions: !issuable.persisted?
      = render 'projects/notes/hints', supports_quick_actions: !issuable.persisted?
      .clearfix
      .error-alert
- if issuable.is_a?(Issue)
  .form-group
    .col-sm-offset-2.col-sm-10
      .checkbox
        = form.label :confidential do
          = form.check_box :confidential
          This issue is confidential and should only be visible to team members with at least Reporter access.
- if can?(current_user, :"admin_#{issuable.to_ability_name}", issuable.project)
  - has_due_date = issuable.has_attribute?(:due_date)
  %hr
  .row
    %div{ class: (has_due_date ? "col-lg-6" : "col-sm-12") }
      .form-group.issue-assignee
        = form.label :assignee_id, "Assignee", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
        .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
          .issuable-form-select-holder
            - if issuable.assignee_id
              = form.hidden_field :assignee_id
            = dropdown_tag(user_dropdown_label(issuable.assignee_id, "Assignee"), options: { toggle_class: "js-dropdown-keep-input js-user-search js-issuable-form-dropdown js-assignee-search", title: "Select assignee", filter: true, dropdown_class: "dropdown-menu-user dropdown-menu-selectable dropdown-menu-assignee js-filter-submit",
              placeholder: "Search assignee", data: { first_user: current_user.try(:username), null_user: true, current_user: true, project_id: project.try(:id), selected: issuable.assignee_id, field_name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[assignee_id]", default_label: "Assignee"} })
      .form-group.issue-milestone
        = form.label :milestone_id, "Milestone", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
        .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
          .issuable-form-select-holder
            = render "shared/issuable/milestone_dropdown", selected: issuable.milestone, name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[milestone_id]", show_any: false, show_upcoming: false, extra_class: "js-issuable-form-dropdown js-dropdown-keep-input", dropdown_title: "Select milestone"
      .form-group
        - has_labels = @labels && @labels.any?
        = form.label :label_ids, "Labels", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
        = form.hidden_field :label_ids, multiple: true, value: ''
        .col-sm-10{ class: "#{"col-lg-8" if has_due_date} #{'issuable-form-padding-top' if !has_labels}" }
          .issuable-form-select-holder
            = render "shared/issuable/label_dropdown", classes: ["js-issuable-form-dropdown"], selected: issuable.labels, data_options: { field_name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[label_ids][]", show_any: false }, dropdown_title: "Select label"
      - if issuable.respond_to?(:weight)
        - weight_options = Issue.weight_options
        - weight_options.delete(Issue::WEIGHT_ALL)
        - weight_options.delete(Issue::WEIGHT_ANY)
        .form-group
          = form.label :label_ids, class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}" do
            Weight
          .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
            .issuable-form-select-holder
              - if issuable.weight
                = form.hidden_field :weight
              = dropdown_tag(issuable.weight || "Weight", options: { title: "Select weight", toggle_class: 'js-weight-select js-issuable-form-weight', dropdown_class: "dropdown-menu-selectable dropdown-menu-weight",
                placeholder: "Search weight", data: { field_name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[weight]" , default_label: "Weight" } }) do
                %ul
                  - weight_options.each do |weight|
                    %li
                      %a{href: "#", data: { id: weight, none: weight === Issue::WEIGHT_NONE }, class: ("is-active" if issuable.weight == weight)}
                        = weight
    - if has_due_date
      .col-lg-6
        .form-group
          = form.label :due_date, "Due date", class: "control-label"
          .col-sm-10
            .issuable-form-select-holder
              = form.text_field :due_date, id: "issuable-due-date", class: "datepicker form-control", placeholder: "Select due date"

could be simplified by using partials:

= render 'shared/issuable/form/description', issuable: issuable, form: form

- if issuable.respond_to?(:confidential)
  .form-group
    .col-sm-offset-2.col-sm-10
      .checkbox
        = form.label :confidential do
          = form.check_box :confidential
          This issue is confidential and should only be visible to team members with at least Reporter access.

= render 'shared/issuable/form/metadata', issuable: issuable, form: form

and then the app/views/shared/issuable/form/_metadata.html.haml could be as follows:

- issuable = local_assigns.fetch(:issuable)

- return unless can?(current_user, :"admin_#{issuable.to_ability_name}", issuable.project)

- has_due_date = issuable.has_attribute?(:due_date)
- has_labels = @labels && @labels.any?
- form = local_assigns.fetch(:form)

%hr
.row
  %div{ class: (has_due_date ? "col-lg-6" : "col-sm-12") }
    .form-group.issue-assignee
      = form.label :assignee_id, "Assignee", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
      .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
        .issuable-form-select-holder
          - if issuable.assignee_id
            = form.hidden_field :assignee_id
          = dropdown_tag(user_dropdown_label(issuable.assignee_id, "Assignee"), options: { toggle_class: "js-dropdown-keep-input js-user-search js-issuable-form-dropdown js-assignee-search", title: "Select assignee", filter: true, dropdown_class: "dropdown-menu-user dropdown-menu-selectable dropdown-menu-assignee js-filter-submit",
            placeholder: "Search assignee", data: { first_user: current_user.try(:username), null_user: true, current_user: true, project_id: issuable.project.try(:id), selected: issuable.assignee_id, field_name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[assignee_id]", default_label: "Assignee"} })
    .form-group.issue-milestone
      = form.label :milestone_id, "Milestone", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
      .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
        .issuable-form-select-holder
          = render "shared/issuable/milestone_dropdown", selected: issuable.milestone, name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[milestone_id]", show_any: false, show_upcoming: false, extra_class: "js-issuable-form-dropdown js-dropdown-keep-input", dropdown_title: "Select milestone"
    .form-group
      - has_labels = @labels && @labels.any?
      = form.label :label_ids, "Labels", class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}"
      = form.hidden_field :label_ids, multiple: true, value: ''
      .col-sm-10{ class: "#{"col-lg-8" if has_due_date} #{'issuable-form-padding-top' if !has_labels}" }
        .issuable-form-select-holder
          = render "shared/issuable/label_dropdown", classes: ["js-issuable-form-dropdown"], selected: issuable.labels, data_options: { field_name: "#{issuable.class.model_name.param_key}[label_ids][]", show_any: false }, dropdown_title: "Select label"

    = render "shared/issuable/form/weight", issuable: issuable, form: form

  - if has_due_date
    .col-lg-6
      .form-group
        = form.label :due_date, "Due date", class: "control-label"
        .col-sm-10
          .issuable-form-select-holder
            = form.text_field :due_date, id: "issuable-due-date", class: "datepicker form-control", placeholder: "Select due date"

and then the app/views/shared/issuable/form/_weight.html.haml could be as follows:

- issuable = local_assigns.fetch(:issuable)

- return unless issuable.respond_to?(:weight)

- has_due_date = issuable.has_attribute?(:due_date)
- form = local_assigns.fetch(:form)

.form-group
  = form.label :label_ids, class: "control-label #{"col-lg-4" if has_due_date}" do
    Weight
  .col-sm-10{ class: ("col-lg-8" if has_due_date) }
    .issuable-form-select-holder
      - if issuable.weight
        = form.hidden_field :weight

      = weight_dropdown_tag(issuable, toggle_class: 'js-issuable-form-weight') do
        %ul
          - Issue.weight_options.each do |weight|
            %li
              %a{ href: '#', data: { id: weight, none: weight === Issue::WEIGHT_NONE }, class: ("is-active" if issuable.weight == weight) }
                = weight

Note:

• The safeguards at the top allow to get rid of an unneccessary indentation level
• Here we only moved the 'Weight' code to a partial since this is the only EE-specific code in that view, so it's the most likely to conflict, but you are encouraged to use partials even for code that's in CE to logically split big views into several smaller files.

Indentation issue

Sometimes a code block is indented more or less in EE because there's an additional condition.

Mitigations

Blocks of code that are EE-specific should be moved to partials as much as possible to avoid conflicts with big chunks of HAML code that that are not fun to resolve when you add the indentation in the equation.

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