request for moving the xprin testing framework to crossplane-contrib

[tampakrap]

At Elastic we have developed a testing framework for Crossplane called xprin. It leverages the crossplane render and crossplane beta validate commands. The tests are written in YAML, and its output is similar to the one from go test.

Furthermore, it supports:

• Patching the Inputs for extended coverage
• A custom assertion interface for the crossplane render output
• Chaining tests via exported artifacts, so that we can better emulate the
  reconciliation process.

This gist provides detailed information, and also examples of commands, testsuite files and test run outputs.

Additionally, two helper tools have been developed that xprin utilizes:

• xprin-helpers convert-claim-to-xr
• xprin-helpers patch-xr

Both helper tools can be used also as standalone tools, and hopefully in the future they could be used as Crossplane CLI plugins :)

We want to open source xprin (and the helper tools, they are in the same repo currently), and we would like to request to move it to crossplane-contrib.

I am following closely the sig-cli, thus I am aware about crossplane/crossplane#6810 and crossplane/crossplane#6840 which have overlap with xprin. I am committed though into contributing to any solution that ends up to the Crossplane CLI, even extracting features / ideas from xprin if desired.

Looking forward for your feedback, thank you!

[jbw976]

I think this would be a great contribution to the Crossplane ecosystem and we already have trust built up with @tampakrap and the rest of their team too through numerous interactions on the project for awhile now.

I can go ahead and create the repository and add you as a maintainer to get things going @tampakrap.

One question: what does xprin mean as a name? is there some meaning behind that in the context of your team where this work originated? should the name be updated to be more broadly applicable and understandable for the community?

[tampakrap]

xprin means "before crossplane" at least in my head, prin (πριν) is the greek word for before 😄 I tend to use the xp- prefix for crossplane-related internal tooling (also xprin-helpers convert-claim-to-xr was initially xp-convert-claim-to-xr) so in this case I tried to keep this pattern but a bit different.

I started developing it way before there were discussions about pluggable crossplane CLI or about an official crossplane test subcommand. I needed a short name so that it can be used also as suffix for the test files (they need to be named *_xprin.yaml), so that they can be for example in the same dir / next to a composition and an xrd yaml, and both a human and the tool would be able to separate them easily.

My personal opinion is that having it in crossplane-contrib is official enough. I wouldn't go for a more official name (eg something that starts with crossplane-*) since the SIG-CLI plans to create something official, and I'm fully committed on moving many/all of xprin's features there.

That's just my opinion though, I'm open to suggestions

[jbw976]

ah okay, thanks for explaining the meaning of the name a bit more! that's totally reasonable to keep that name, especially as you are open to collaboration to potentially merge features/work with a broader community effort down the line.

I'll go ahead and create the xprin repo now!

[jbw976]

The https://github.com/crossplane-contrib/xprin repo has been created and I have added @tampakrap as a maintainer.

let me know if there is more that I can directly help with! And also, please remember to follow all the policies described in the governance: https://github.com/crossplane/crossplane/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md#policies-for-community-extension-projects ✅