spiffe/spire

Migrate from HCL1 to HCL2

Open

#4,042 opened on Apr 3, 2023

View on GitHub
 (11 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Go (631 forks)auto 404
help wantedpriority/backlog

Repository metrics

Stars
 (2,443 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (PR metrics pending)

Description

HCL1 has been deprecated and unmaintained for quite some time. Further, there are bugs and non-deterministic behavior that has caused us issue from time to time. We could benefit from moving from hcl1 to hcl2. Unfortunately the syntax is not fully backwards compatible. We need a solid plan to migrate folks from hcl1 to hcl2.

Acceptance criteria:

  • Configuration syntax changes as minimal as possible
  • Deterministically detect if someone is configuring via hcl1 or hcl2
  • Provide a way to emit hcl2 from hcl1 to aid in auto-migration
  • Eventual deprecation plan for hcl1 support (we can and should probably continue to support hcl1 for some time)

Contributor guide

Research direction
Familiarize yourself with the existing HCL1 configuration parsing in the codebase. Design a method to detect whether a configuration is in HCL1 or HCL2 syntax (e.g., by file extension or a version header). Implement a conversion tool that reads HCL1 and outputs equivalent HCL2. Test with various configuration files to ensure correctness. Plan for a deprecation period where both are supported.
Tech stack
go
Domain
infrastructure
Issue type
Refactor
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
3-5 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
GoGit
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40