autotick-bot

the actual bot in an actual place doing an actual thing

Table of Contents

• What has the bot done recently?
• Starting and Stopping the Worker
• User Documentation
• Developer Documentation

What has the bot done recently?

Check out the following pages for status information on the bot:

• PRs
• running jobs
• status page

Starting and Stopping the Worker

In order to start the worker, make a commit to main with the file please.go in the autotick-bot subdirectory.

If you want to stop the worker, rename the file to please.stop, and it will not restart itself on the next round.

User Documentation

WARNING: This section is not complete.

Configuring the Bot via the conda-forge.yml

The primary way to configure the bot for your feedstock is through the bot section in the conda-forge.yml file at the root level of your feedstock. Please refer to the conda-forge.yml documentation for more details.

Making Migrators

Bot migrations are used to update large parts of the conda-forge ecosystem in a coordinated way. These migrations automate complex maintenance tasks like add packages to new platforms, adding new versions of Python, R, etc., or updating the global ABI pinnings of key dependencies.

Unless you need to write a custom migrator, you should wait for the bot to generate the migration itself.

If you must write your own migration, try to use the CFEP-09 YAML Migrations in the conda-forge-pinning-feedstock before you write a custom class. See the example migration for more details.

Automated Generation of Migrations

The bot is able to automatically generate most ABI migrations on its own. It will make PRs against the conda-forge-pinning-feedstock repository with the migration YAML file to start the migration. The bot will also make a PR to close the migration once it is mostly complete. The exact conditions under which the bot will close the migration are still being refined and may change.

Migration YAML Files and CFEP-09

WARNING: This section is not complete.

Sometimes the bot won't be able to generate a migration on its own or the migration is too complex to be fully automated. In this case, you can write your own migration in the form of a YAML file. This YAML file should be placed in the recipe/migrations directory of the conda-forge-pinning-feedstock repository. From there, the bot will pick up the migration and start it once the PR is merged.

To get started, you can copy the recipe/migrations/example.exyaml example file and modify it. The migration_ts is the timestamp of the migration and can be created by copying the result of import time; print(time.time()) from a python interpreter.

Please see the CFEP-09 implementation information for the different kinds of migrations that are available. As of writing, deletion migrations are not yet implemented. There are additional migration types not in CFEP-09, but defined directly in conda-smithy. See the __migration.operation field and the source code in conda-smithy for more information.

Here is full example migration file with the various possible keys and their meanings:

# The timestamp of when the migration was made
# Can be obtained by copying the output of
# python -c "import time; print(f'{time.time():.0f}')"
migrator_ts: 1634025600

# The __migrator key is used to determine the type of migration, special behavior, etc.
__migrator:
  # The kind of of migrator. Only version is supported at the moment.
  kind: version

  # The operation key forces the migrator to do specific operations.
  # This key is mutually exclusive with the `kind` key.
  operation: key_add  # add the keys to the pinnings
  operation: key_remove  # remove the keys from the pinnings

  # The migration number denotes specific runs of the migration, like a
  # package build number. Changing it will cause the migration to start over.
  # Only change the migration_number if the bot messes up,
  migration_number: 1

  # `build_number` determines the increment to the build number when the
  # migration runs.
  # Change this to zero if the new pin only adds builds to the feedstock
  # and doesn't rebuild any existing packages.
  bump_number: 1

  # If `paused` is set to true, the bot will not run the migration. This key is
  # useful if we do not want to delete the migration file from the pinnings repo,
  # but we do not want to run the migration.
  paused: false

  # If a migration is marked as longterm, the status page will filter the migration
  # information up to the top. This is useful for migrations that will take a long
  # time (e.g., python) and so merit special attention.
  longterm: false

  # If `automerge` is set to true, the bot will automatically merge the PRs that pass.
  # This can be used in conjunction with the solver to checks to fully automate migrations.
  automerge: false

  # Set `exclude` to a list of feedstocks to exclude from the migration.
  exclude:
    - feedstock1
    - feedstock2

  # If `exclude_pinned_pkgs` is set to true, the bot will exclude feedstocks that
  # make the packages whose pins are being moved (i.e., the packages and versions listed below).
  # Usually this behavior is the correct default.
  exclude_pinned_pkgs: true

  # If `include_noarch` is set to true, the bot will include noarch feedstocks in the migration.
  # The bot will skip noarch feedstocks by default.
  include_noarch: false

  # If `include_build` is set to true, the bot will include build requirements in the migration.
  # The bot will skip build requirements by default, which prevents compiler migrations.
  include_build: false

  # The pr_limit controls how many PRs that bot makes in a single run.
  # Typical values range from 5 (small/slow) to 30 (large/fast). If not given,
  # the bot will scale this limit automatically to make new migrations more responsive
  # and to ensure that migrations start slowly to prevent the negative impacts
  # of buggy migrations.
  pr_limit: 5

  # If `check_solvable` is set to true, the bot will check if the migrated feedstock
  # environments can be solved by the solver. If they cannot, the bot will not make a PR.
  # This feature is useful for migrations that use automerge and to prevent the bot
  # from issuing PRs that will fail to build.
  check_solvable: true

  # The max_solver_attempts controls how many times the bot will try to issue a PR (and
  # fail due to unsolvable environments) before it deprioritizes the migration of the feedstock.
  # Once all feedstocks without failed solver attempts have been tried, the bot will randomly
  # retry the failed feedstocks.
  max_solver_attempts: 3

  # The bot will forcibly make PRs for feedstocks that have failed the solver attempts after
  # this many tries.
  force_pr_after_solver_attempts: 100

  # If `override_cbc_keys` is set to a list, the bot will use this list of packages to
  # determine which feedstocks to migrate as opposed to the changed pins listed below.
  # You almost never need this option.
  override_cbc_keys:
    - package1
    - package2

  # If this key is set to dict, the conda-forge.yml will be modified by the migration
  # with the contents of this dict. This can be used to add keys to the conda-forge.yml
  # or to change them. You can replace subkeys by using a dot in the key name (e.g., `a.b.c`
  # will replace the value of `c`, but leave `a` and `b` untouched).
  conda_forge_yml_patches:
    blah.foo: false
    bar: 1

  # If this key is set to dict mapping a feedstock to a list of feedstocks, the bot will
  # ignore predecessors in the list for the feedstock in the key when determining if the
  # a feedstock is ready to be migrated. This can be used to force a specific feedstock to be
  # migrated even if not all of its predecessors have been migrated.
  ignored_deps_per_node:
    feedstock1:
      - feedstock2
      - feedstock3

  # The `ordering` field is used to determine where to insert keys for `key_add` migrations
  # or which keys to keep for version migrations where the versions are strings and so have no
  # natural version ordering. Each changed pin can be mapped to a list
  # that determines the ordering. The highest (e.g., item with highest list index)
  # version is kept for version migrations.
  oridering:
    pin1:
      - value1
      - value2
    pin2:
      - value3
      - value4

# The names of any packages/pins you wish to migrate go here. Convert any
# dashes to underscores. You can list more than one item here if things are
# coupled or if you need to change items in zip_keys via key_add or key_remove.
boost_cpp:
  - 1.71    # new version to build against

Custom Migration Classes

Sometimes, the CFEP9 YAML migrations won't precisely fit your needs. In these cases, you can write custom migration classes and submit them as a PR to the bot. Typically, these custom migrations are needed when you need to do tasks like

• Update the internals of the conda-forge system (e.g., change how we use compilers, adjust the conda-forge.yml schema, etc.)
• Recipe dependency changes that fall outside of CFEP-09 (e.g., renaming a package, swapping a dependency, etc.)

To add a custom migration, follow the following steps.

Write your Custom Migration Class

Your Migration class should inherit from conda_forge_tick.migrations.core.Migration. You should implement the migrate method and override any other methods in order to make a good-looking pull request with a correct change to the feedstock.

Add your Migration to auto_tick.py

To have the bot run the migration, we need to add the migrator to add it to the auto_tick module. Typically, this can be done by adding it to the migrators list in the initialize_migrators function directly. If your migrator needs special configuration, you should write a new factory function to generate it and add that to the initialize_migrators function.

Developer Documentation

Useful Environment Variables

• CF_TICK_GRAPH_DATA_BACKENDS: See LazyJson Data Structures and Backends below.
• CF_TICK_GRAPH_DATA_USE_FILE_CACHE: See LazyJson Data Structures and Backends below.
• MONGODB_CONNECTION_STRING: See LazyJson Data Structures and Backends below.
• CF_FEEDSTOCK_OPS_IN_CONTAINER: set to true to indicate that the bot is running in a container, prevents container in container issues
• TIMEOUT: set to the number of seconds to wait before timing out the bot
• RUN_URL: set to the URL of the CI build (now set to a GHA run URL)
• MEMORY_LIMIT_GB: set to the memory limit in GB for the bot
• BOT_TOKEN: a GitHub token for the bot user
• CF_FEEDSTOCK_OPS_CONTAINER_NAME: the name of the container to use in the bot, otherwise defaults to ghcr.io/regro/conda-forge-tick
• CF_FEEDSTOCK_OPS_CONTAINER_TAG: set this to override the default container tag used in production runs, otherwise the value of __version__ is used

Getting a Working Environment

The bot has an abstract set of requirements stored in the environment.yml file in this repo.

It's production environment is locked via conda-lock. The lockfile is stored in cf-scripts at https://github.com/regro/cf-scripts/blob/main/conda-lock.yml. The production environment is relocked regularly using a GitHub Actions job.

There are two ways to get a working environment:

1. Use the environment.yml file in the repo with conda env.

2. Download the lockfile and use conda-lock. The best way to download the lockfile is via wget or curl or similar:

   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/regro/cf-scripts/main/conda-lock.yml

Running Tests

The test suite relies on pytest and uses docker. To run the tests, use the following command:

pytest -v

If you want to test the container parts of the bot, you need to build the image first and use the test tag:

docker build -t conda-forge-tick:test .

The test suite will not run the container-based tests unless an image with this name and tag is present.

Debugging Locally

You can use the CLI of the bot to debug it locally. To do so, install the bot with the following command:

pip install -e .

Then you can use the CLI like this:

conda-forge-tick --help

For debugging, use the --debug flag. This enables debug logging and disables multiprocessing.

Note that the bot expects the conda-forge dependency graph to be present in the current working directory by default, unless the --online flag is used.

Tip

Use the --online flag when debugging the bot locally to avoid having to clone the whole dependency graph.

The local debugging functionality is still work in progress and might not work for all commands. Currently, the following commands are supported and tested:

• update-upstream-versions

Structure of the Bot's Jobs

History

The bot started mostly as a single script, in xonsh, that was run in a cron-like job that would do all tasks. Further, given the small size of the bot's metadata at the time, the initial bot code assumed that all data was present on disk locally, could be loaded into memory efficiently, and that all parts of the code could modify almost any part of the data. Given the small size of conda-forge at the time, this model was workable, had the advantage of simplicity, and had the advantage of ensuring strong consistency between the different parts of the bot's data.

As conda-forge grew, the "single job + global data access" model became increasingly unmanageable. Thus, over time, the bot has been split into separate jobs that run in parallel. This gradual refactoring has maintained the bot's performance despite conda-forge's extreme growth. The cost has been increased complexity, the need to more carefully manage data access/updates, and the loss of strong consistency between the different parts of the bot's data. As of 2024, the bot is a collection of cron jobs, run in parallel, combined with a carefully separated data model based on eventual consistency.

Current Bot Jobs and Structure

Current GitHub Runner Allocation

In this section, we list the collection of jobs that comprise the bot. Each job touches a distinct part of the bot's data structure and is run in parallel with the other jobs. We have also specified the GitHub Actions workflow that runs each job. See those files for further details on which commands are run.

bot / bot-bot.yml: The main job that runs the bot, making PRs to feedstocks, etc. This job writes data on the PRs it makes to cf-graph-countyfair/pr_info and cf-graph-countyfair/version_pr_info. It also writes new PR JSON blobs to cf-graph-countyfair/pr_json for each PR to track their statuses on GitHub.

feedstocks / bot-feedstocks.yml: Updates the list of valid and archived feedstocks in conda-forge located at cf-graph-countyfair/all_feedstocks.json.

versions / bot-versions.yml: Fetches the latest version for each feedstock in conda-forge, writing the data to cf-graph-countyfair/versions/.

prs / bot-prs.yml: Fetches the latest PR statuses from GitHub for all of the PRs that bot has made, writing the data tocf-graph-countyfair/pr_json.

pypi-mapping / bot-pypi-mapping.yml: Builds a mapping of packages between PyPI and conda-forge, and a mapping of python imports to packages using the bot's metadata. The PyPI mapping is written to cf-graph-countyfair/mappings and the import mapping is written to cf-graph-countyfair/import_to_pkg_maps. This job also generates some internal data stored at cf-graph-countyfair/ranked_hubs_authorities.json.

make-graph / bot-make-graph.yml: Builds the conda-forge dependency graph from the feedstocks in cf-graph-countyfair/all_feedstocks.json. The graph is written to cf-graph-countyfair/graph.json and specific attributes for each node are written to cf-graph-countyfair/node_attrs. This job also performs some schema migrations and might add new files to cf-graph-countyfair/pr_info and cf-graph-countyfair/version_pr_info.

make-migrators / bot-make-migrators.yml: Builds the migrations the bot will run, writing them as JSON to cf-graph-countyfair/migrators.

update-status-page / bot-update-status-page.yml: Updates the status page at conda-forge.org/status with the latest migration information. The status data is written to cf-graph-countyfair/status.

[NOT CURRENTLY USED] cache / bot-cache.yml: Caches the data in cf-graph-countyfair to GitHub Actions.

keepalive / bot-keepalive.yml: This job runs every 15 minutes and ensures that the bot is still running. If the bot is not running, it will restart it.

Many of these jobs could be converted to a more event-driven model, especially the job that updates the status of PRs (prs) and the parts of the jobs that update attributes of the graph nodes (make-graph). However, there are some caveats. Even with event-driven updates, the bot would still need cron jobs for these tasks to ensure that data eventually gets updated if events are missed. Further, the main limit on the bot making PRs is the bot job itself. Making this job respond to events is a non-trivial task due to many reasons, including the fact that once a given a PR is merged on a feedstock, there is a few-hour delay before the next PR can be made.

Using the conda_forge_tick Module to Interact with the Bot Data

The next few sections provide information about how to use the conda_forge_tick package to interact with the cf-graph-countyfair repo.

You will need a copy of regro/cf-graph-countyfair and need to be at the root level of the cf-graph-countyfair repo for these code snippets to work properly. You can clone the repo with the following command:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/regro/cf-graph-countyfair.git

The cf-graph-countyfair repo also has a notebook with some code examples.

Loading the graph

To load the feedstock graph use the load_graph function

from conda_forge_tick.utils import load_graph
gx = load_graph()

Note that all nodes in the graph are backed by LazyJson objects associated with the payload key which allow for lazy loading of the node attributes.

print(dict(gx.node['python']['payload']))

Calculating migration impact

The number of feedstocks which would be migrated by a particular migration can be calculated:

from conda_forge_tick.make_migrators import initialize_migrators
migrators = initialize_migrators()
migrator = migrators[-1]
print(migrator.name)
graph = migrator.graph
# number of packages in the graph to be migrated
print(len(graph))

This is an important number to know when proposing a migration

conda-forge-tick Container Image and Dockerfile

The bot relies on a container image to run certain tasks. The image is built from the Dockerfile in the root of this repository and hosted via ghcr.io. The __version__ tag is used for production jobs and updated automatically when PRs are merged. The container is typically run via

docker run --rm -t conda-forge-tick:<__version__> python /opt/autotick-bot/docker/run_bot_task.py <task> <args>

See the run_bot_task.py script for more information.

Data Model

The bot uses the conda-forge dependency graph to remember metadata about feedstocks, their versions, and their dependencies. Some of the information (e.g. the contents of recipe/meta.yaml file of the corresponding feedstock) is redundant but stored in the graph for performance reasons. In an attempt to document the data model, we have created a Pydantic model in conda_forge_tick/models. Refer to the README in that directory for more information.

The Pydantic model is not used by the bot code itself (yet) but there is an CI job (test-models) that periodically validates the model against the actual data in the graph.

LazyJson Data Structures and Backends

The bot relies on a lazily-loaded JSON class called LazyJson to store and manipulate its data. This data structure has a backend abstraction that allows the bot to store its data in a variety of places. This system is home-grown and certainly not ideal.

The backend(s) can be set by using the CF_TICK_GRAPH_DATA_BACKENDS environment variable to a colon-separated list of backends (e.g., export CF_TICK_GRAPH_DATA_BACKENDS=file:mongodb). The possible backends are:

• file (default): Use the local file system to store data. In order to properly use this backend, you must clone the regro/cf-graph-countyfair repository and run the bot from regro/cf-graph-countyfair's root directory. You can use the deploy command from the bot CLI to commit any changes and push them to the remote repository.
• mongodb: Use a MongoDB database to store data. In order to use this backend, you need to set the MONGODB_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable to the connection string of the MongoDB database you want to use. WARNING: The bot will typically read almost all of its data in the backend during its runs, so be careful when using this backend without a pre-cached local copy of the data.
• github: Read-only backend that uses the regro/cf-graph-countyfair repository as a data source. This backend reads data on-the-fly using GitHub's "raw" URLs (e.g, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/regro/cf-graph-countyfair/master/all_feedstocks.json). This backend is ideal for debugging when you only want to touch a fraction of the data.

The bot uses the first backend in the list as the primary backend and syncs any changed data to the other backends as needed. The bot will also cache data to disk upon first use to speed up subsequent reads. To turn off this caching, set the CF_TICK_GRAPH_DATA_USE_FILE_CACHE environment variable to false.

Notes on the Version Migrator

The Version migrator uses a custom YAML parsing class for conda recipes in order to parse the recipe into a form that can be algorithmically migrated without extensively using regex to change the recipe text directly. This approach allows us to migrate more complicated recipes.

YAML Parsing with Jinja2

We use ruamel.yaml and ruamel.yaml.jinja2 to parse the recipe. These packages ensure that comments (which can contain conda selectors) are kept. They also ensure that any jinja2 syntax is parsed correctly. Further, for duplicate keys in the YAML, but with different conda selectors, we collapse the selector into the key. Finally, we use the jinja2 AST to find all simple jinja2 set statements. These are parsed into a dictionary for later use.

You can access the parser and parsed recipe via

from conda_forge_tick.recipe_parser import CondaMetaYAML

cmeta = CondaMetaYAML(meta_yaml_as_string)

# get the jinja2 vars
for key, v in cmeta.jinja2_vars.items():
    print(key, v)

# print a section of the recipe
print(cmeta.meta["extra"])

Note that due to conda selectors and our need to deduplicate keys, any keys with selectors will look like "source__###conda-selector###__win or osx". You can access the middle token for selectors at conda_forge_tick.recipe_parser.CONDA_SELECTOR.

It is useful to write generators if you want all keys possibly with selectors

def _gen_key_selector(dct: MutableMapping, key: str):
    for k in dct:
        if (
            k == key
            or (
                CONDA_SELECTOR in k and
                k.split(CONDA_SELECTOR)[0] == key
            )
        ):
            yield k

for key in _gen_key_selector(cmeta.meta, "source"):
    print(cmeta.meta[key])

Version Migration Algorithm

Given the parser above, we migrate recipes via the following algorithm.

1. We compile all selectors in the recipe by recursively traversing the meta.yaml. We also insert None into this set to represent no selector.
2. For each selector, we pull out all url, hash-type key, and all jinja2 variables with the selector. If none with the selector are found, we default to any ones without a selector.
3. For each of the sets of items in step 2 above, we then try and update the version and get a new hash for the url. We also try common variations in the url at this stage.
4. Finally, if we can find new hashes for all of the urls for each selector, we call the migration successful and submit a PR. Otherwise, no PR is submitted.