New or changed appDependencyProbingPaths.release_status

[jwikman]

I'm trying to wrap my head around how to work with the release_status of appDependencyProbingPaths...

We've got several AppSource apps that all have dependencies on two library apps. All apps are in separate repositories.

First, we update our library apps to a state that we want to ship, then we create a prerelease of them.

In the settings for the AppSource apps:

  "appDependencyProbingPaths": [
    {
      "repo": "https://github.com/org/LibraryApp1",
      "release_status": "prerelease"
    },
    {
      "repo": "https://github.com/org/LibraryApp2",
      "release_status": "prerelease"
    }
  ]

When both library apps are updated, we run CI/CD of the AppSource app. This will now include the prereleases of the library apps.
When submitting to AppSource, we create a prerelease of the app.

If we need to update something in the library app, we then create a new prerelease, run CI/CD for the AppSource app and create a new prerelease of the AppSource app and submit to AppSource again.

When the AppSource app is published, we remove the prerelease flag of the release. And if any of the library apps that was submitted at the same time, we also remove the prerelease flag of the library app release.

So, right after AppSource app is live on AppSource each repo, both for the library apps and the AppSource apps, has several releases and probably also some prereleases - that will never be released. The latest release is now a "regular release", ie. not prerelease and not draft.

Next time we need to publish any of the AppSource apps, we often do not need to update any of the library apps. So, we only build the AppSource app. BUT, if we don't update our settings (no, we do not like to update settings back and forth), we still try to use the latest prerelease of our library apps. And as AL-Go works today, it now selects only prereleases - even if there is a release that is newer than the prerelease!

This snippet shows how releases are filtered from the release_status settings:

switch ($dependency.release_status) {
    "release" { $release = $releases | Where-Object { -not ($_.prerelease -or $_.draft ) } | Select-Object -First 1 }
    "prerelease" { $release = $releases | Where-Object { ($_.prerelease ) } | Select-Object -First 1 }
    "draft" { $release = $releases | Where-Object { ($_.draft ) } | Select-Object -First 1 }
    Default { throw "Invalid release status '$($dependency.release_status)' is encountered." }
}

I think this is wrong, or at least quite un-useful if you're not into changing settings back and forth...
When having setting prerelease, the latest of both releases and prereleases should be used.
When having setting draft, the latest of all releases should be used - release/prerelease/draft.

I understand that a change of this behavior could be considered a breaking change, so instead of changing the behavior of the current release_status settings, we could add a couple of new ones:

• "any"- will include release, prerelease and draft (could also be used to solve Allow "release_status" value "any" in "appDependencyProbingPaths" #1912)
• "releaseOrPrerelease", "includePrerelease", or similar - will include release and prerelease. ("includePrerelease" is used by Nuget for similar behavior)

Thoughts?

[jwikman]

I can do a (small) PR with this, if you think it's a good idea.

[jwikman]

@mazhelez can I have your view on this?

If we can decide on naming of the new settings (if we do not want to change existing behavior?) this will be quite a small fix, that I can provide if you want?

My suggestion would be to not modify existing behavior (always scary), instead we add two new values for the release_status setting:

• any
• includePrerelease

Do you want a PR on this, and we can sort out details there?