From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-alma10-1.taild15c8.ts.net [100.103.45.18]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9F3383FD13F for ; Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:02:35 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1781791358; cv=none; b=V9Q9ehu5JCUuX2ghTUo7uE6nYN8J6WYn/B8rsAKazCiDGpQpRFCcmnoTDHUJSkU0YTEQ3O8oZ6xp3KgQ2k0NT3t/Dj2syKWNsEoqLxXFPlXQpuOii1X6v3NTba/qUhX/kBM0f8Y05pIVEGxnKByxNcqRDeWPt1hXtDtaPplP2y0= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1781791358; c=relaxed/simple; bh=i4mlfea/LxqSlPU4xS3YhB9oHPLSqpG/dKvkOSGZVaA=; h=Message-ID:Subject:From:To:Cc:Date:In-Reply-To:References: Content-Type:MIME-Version; b=VTcnB7U1sakV6Q2h3RYbk8rrvCvkRS9iATinNFsVac5Gc/0uXuWyvXJRU2A/KNS18PXryT8r/aRhXxx8Fp8vQakOecYE9r5mu5WqA6jbi6jd8YFiQYKER+2cJfpf3pv5akRMga2F17KMzwyyGY2FgLhlvqnRqP3H8aiFtdWEXn8= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=YlG6T5wv; arc=none smtp.client-ip=100.103.45.18 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="YlG6T5wv" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) id 4937A1F00ACF; Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:02:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C71B11F000E9; Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:02:33 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=kernel.org; s=k20260515; t=1781791355; bh=R4a3nRqyHaAokEuU1+a1J6U3jWh5Bg6cPBNcxGVzz0s=; h=Subject:From:To:Cc:Date:In-Reply-To:References; b=YlG6T5wvyt/4eQgqZOag4+0Le50j86f+vyQRfz1n8+gbuYehcu4lKa//IY2cPiWLF QzOKrV6BXthCqt7/+5VVzjsiEYGmED6IaXEzOTY/aHlY8UcMxLyU9Q+7EkMHgdxHQm 6UmQEjCN2t/C5MCdI10OwHuQv6tuSkKoHmS1+o8a/Ck1bWWU8VuMaeRW/0Y/ZgCnCa +EQo6ELjz2lSdM2a3MQ7d92HKAP5uBTOXZjlWFJm3K+JJ3ExjsV31dDTGhvGVtEp8o r+pBz1wHwmj/NVgef7u4MYZJ6GlLRCKoUbnHGgCt4bDuajhGn4XmVThkB2eblAtMMm pr+KYorj3BUrQ== Message-ID: <6d1db9869a4dfb7f0c5fa82b93211e2768a1ce51.camel@kernel.org> Subject: Re: kdevops-ng: graduating kdevops beyond Ansible From: Jeff Layton To: Chuck Lever , Daniel Gomez , Luis Chamberlain Cc: kdevops@lists.linux.dev, tools@kernel.org, GOST , Josef Bacik , Amir Goldstein , Carlos Maiolino , Chandan Babu R , David Sterba , Song Liu , Scott Mayhew , Shin'ichiro Kawasaki , Konstantin Ryabitsev Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:02:31 -0400 In-Reply-To: <244ce59c-c2ad-46a6-9753-488a48063a74@app.fastmail.com> References: <9f64bee9-ecc3-4587-9645-2190223cbc4e@kernel.org> <244ce59c-c2ad-46a6-9753-488a48063a74@app.fastmail.com> Autocrypt: addr=jlayton@kernel.org; prefer-encrypt=mutual; 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text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable User-Agent: Evolution 3.60.2 (3.60.2-1.fc44) Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: tools@linux.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 On Thu, 2026-06-18 at 09:22 -0400, Chuck Lever wrote: > On Thu, Jun 18, 2026, at 5:30 AM, Daniel Gomez wrote: > > kdevops is a framework for Linux kernel development and test automation= . > > Its core features, namely workflow reproducibility, variability, and > > scalability, are delivered through Kconfig, the variability language, > > and Ansible, which provides host and guest idempotency along with > > workflow orchestration at scale, whether on baremetal, local VMs, or > > the cloud. > >=20 > > kdevops supports rolling distributions such as Debian testing, Fedora, > > and openSUSE. Recently we extended Nix support, which raised the > > question: how do we drive Nix's declarative language from Ansible? We > > answered by wiring Nix in under Ansible and its templates, as one more > > way to declare host and guest environments. But that was the wrong > > framing: we had bolted Nix onto today's toolkit instead of rethinking > > it. Reproducibility and idempotency now come from Nix by construction, > > so I think Ansible's original reason for being in kdevops falls away. > > The better question is: how do we keep kdevops's core principles, lean > > on Nix, and drop Ansible? > >=20 > > What remains once you do is not the configuration management plane. It > > is development workflow orchestration: build QEMU, build the kernel, > > build a guest rootfs/closure, boot it, run a test, collect results, > > diff against a baseline. That work is imperative and sequenced, work > > for a workflow engine, which is where tools like Windmill [1] come in. > > Windmill calls itself as "the fastest workflow engine" and an > > "open-source developer platform to power your entire infra and turn > > scripts into webhooks, workflows and UIs." Choosing to move kdevops > > onto Windmill would keep what made kdevops kdevops, namely workflows, > > quick bring-ups, baselines, and A/B regression detection, while trading > > Kconfig, Make, Ansible, and host-distro provisioning for typed > > run-forms, flows as code, and a worker queue. Nix supplies the > > environment, much like a container or venv/poetry, along with the guest > > OS system closure: declarative and portable. Windmill orchestrates the > > whole pipeline end to end, graduating kdevops into a fully reproducible= , > > scalable, and configurable kernel-development framework, with both a UI > > and a CLI, that runs locally or in the cloud. Defined as code and drive= n > > by schedules and triggers, the same flows also make it a continuous > > integration pipeline. Because steps can be written in any language > > Windmill supports, including Ansible, Bash, Go, Python, and Rust, > > developers can not only use kdevops but extend it with their own > > scripts, turning it into a workflow hub. Note that choosing this path > > does not mean NixOS is required on the controller node; Nix is simply a > > runtime dependency that can be installed alongside your distro of > > choice. > >=20 > > It'd be good to know what folks think about the possibility of evolving > > kdevops in this direction, deprecating Ansible along with Kconfig and > > Makefiles in favor of the new approach. To that end, I suggest a demo > > day where I can show why I think this is the next step worth taking, an= d > > whether it's a tradeoff users and maintainers are willing to make. > >=20 > > If this is of interest and you'd like a look, I've ported equivalents o= f > > bootlinux (direct boot), qemu-build, and the systemd/QEMU bringup (QSU)= , > > plus an fstests run for XFS in the proof-of-concept demo project [2]. > > You can also find some screenshots in [3]. > >=20 > > A note on licensing. Windmill's engine is AGPLv3; its OpenFlow flow > > format and client libraries are Apache-2.0. kdevops-ng runs Windmill > > unmodified and self-hosted as a separate service, and the flows and > > scripts are kdevops-ng's own copyleft-next-0.3.1 code, executed by > > Windmill rather than derived from it, so there shouldn't be any > > licensing concerns. > >=20 > > [1] https://windmill.dev > > [2] https://github.com/dagomez137/kdevops-ng > > [3] https://github.com/dagomez137/kdevops-ng/tree/main/screenshots >=20 > Agreed that Ansible is evolving faster than is convenient for us > and kdevops' use of it seems to be laden with technical debt. >=20 > I don't object at all to creative forward thinking, and I am not > outright objecting to the proposal, but my concerns are: >=20 > + How much development effort is this? I have nearly zero time to > work on kdevops these days. Even with AI assistance, this seems > like an enormous task. >=20 Ditto. I'm mostly a user of kdevops these days and don't have as much time to work on it. > + Also as a user of kdevops, this means I would have to spend a > lot of time I don't have learning the new configuration shapes > and figuring out how to migrate my current CI to them. That's > not inviting. >=20 > + What would cloud support look like in a post-Ansible world? I > don't think Nix has impact on the cloud aspect of kdevops, and this > proposal seems to shift Nix into the role of the primary kdevops > virtualization method. Should we simply split kdevops into an "all > local virtualization" project and an "all cloud virtualization" > project that go their separate ways? Tying cloud and local together > seems to be a frequent source of chafing. >=20 It does. OTOH, some parts of kdevops (the test running bits, in particular) are mostly agnostic to the backend where it's being run. I don't think we want to have to replicate that part. Maybe we need to split the whole thing into two -- one part that does the bringup and setup, and one part that does the test running? > + I'd rather see a focus on addressing the technical debt of > continuing to support distributions that no one uses any more, > and moving away from requiring root to run local virtualization > by installing kdevops from a package. Those are narrower work > items that offer a bigger bang-for-buck. (You might argue that > Nix solves the latter problem already). I already don't run as root for local virtualization. I thought everyone did? Some of the initial setup requires root, but that's sort of a separate problem. --=20 Jeff Layton