Request for Consideration: Custom Properties Predicate

[south-mer]

What we are trying to achieve

We would like to be able to specify rules that apply if the repository's custom properties match certain conditions, which we use internally to store metadata regarding the repository and for the purpose of applying specific org-wide rulesets. For example, we have different security configurations for repositories based on their usage (production, experimental, etc).

While it is possible to generate the list of repositories and use it in the policy, implementing it directly in Policy Bot means that it will never get out of sync.

How we are currently achieving the goal

Corresponding code change: https://github.com/mercari/policy-bot/pull/4/files

We have added the CustomProperty predicate to support string (and technically boolean) custom properties.

[bluekeyes]

I like the idea of supporting custom properties in predicates and think this would be a good feature to add.

One area for discussion is the design of the predicate configuration. In your implementation, there's a single predicate with many subfields. The existing predicates in Policy Bot usually focus on one specific condition instead. I'm not sure we make the same choice if designing this again, but for consistency, it may make sense to have multiple custom property predicates, for instance:

• custom_property_is_null
• custom_property_is_not_null
• custom_property_matches_any_of
• custom_property_matches_none_of

While it requires a bit more code and makes policies more verbose, one advantage is that it is clearer how multiple conditions combine: they follow the existing AND logic for predicates and then you can use the rule level or if you need something different.

[south-mer]

Thank you for the suggestion. The feature has been re-implemented in the way suggested, in #1054. Please take a look when you get a chance.

[bluekeyes]

Implemented in #1054 and will be part of the next release. Thanks for contributing this feature!