fix(monitoring): alert when a Velero schedule has NEVER backed up, or is paused
VeleroNoRecentBackup could not fire for the failure mode that actually happened.
`(time() - velero_backup_last_successful_timestamp{schedule!=""}) > 24*3600` is the
right SHAPE — per-schedule, un-aggregated — but Velero only creates that series once
a backup for the schedule SUCCEEDS, and `time() - <absent series>` yields no series.
So it detects "backed up once, then stopped" and is structurally INERT on "never
backed up". Prod ran with `velero-daily` (the schedule carrying VOLUME DATA) paused
and never-successful: no volume backups at all, nothing alerted, and it was masked
because `velero-daily-resources-only` completed cleanly every 03:00, so every other
backup signal read green while only Kubernetes objects were protected.
A PromQL-only fix is impossible, verified rather than assumed: velero v1.18.1 exports
35 velero_* metric names and every one carrying a `schedule` label is created by a
backup ATTEMPT, not by the Schedule object. A throwaway `paused: true` Schedule on
prod produced ZERO velero_* series, and nothing exposes `spec.paused`. The fact is
not in the TSDB, so the Schedule CRs are exported via kube-state-metrics'
custom-resource-state collector — the path this repo already uses for
kube_node_labels — as kube_velero_schedule_{created,paused,protects_volume_data,info}.
Proven by running KSM v2.20.0 with this exact config against prod's API: the CRD
list/watch rule the chart adds is MANDATORY, not cosmetic — without it KSM emits the
CRS metrics as an empty set, silently.
Three rules, all keyed on PROPERTIES rather than schedule names:
* VeleroScheduleNeverBackedUp (critical) — a Schedule older than 36h with no
successful backup ever. The 36h grace comes from creationTimestamp so a newly
added schedule is not paged before its first run is even due.
* VeleroSchedulePaused (warning) — the direct root-cause signal; a paused backup
schedule must never be silently indefinite.
* VeleroNoVolumeDataBackup (critical) — THE ANTI-MASKING RULE. Fires unless some
schedule with spec.template.defaultVolumesToFsBackup=true succeeded in 36h, so a
healthy resources-only schedule can never make the platform look protected.
Reading the property that DEFINES volume protection (not a name list) matches
platform/velero/volume-policies.yaml and survives renames. `or vector(0)` is
load-bearing: `count(<empty>) == 0` returns no series and would be inert —
absence of the exporter is deliberately the alarm.
Adds the repo's first Prometheus rule-unit-test harness (platform/monitoring/tests/,
wired as the `prom-rules` gate stage). It flattens the COMMITTED PrometheusRule CRs —
never a copy — and pins every rule in the group both ways: quiet on today's healthy
prod state, firing on the reconstructed bad state, with `for:` durations asserted.
Two mutation checks confirm the tests are not vacuous: dropping `or vector(0)` and
breaking the `unless on (schedule)` join each turn the suite red. This is the tool
that makes both of this repo's recurring alert bugs — permanently-firing and
structurally inert — provable offline, which neither yamllint, Kyverno, nor a healthy
cluster can do.
Proof of the fix is by construction; the live metrics cannot show it any more, because
`velero-daily` was unpaused on 2026-09-12 and has since completed 2492/2492 items.
The throwaway probe Schedule and the probe KSM deployment were deleted and the
deletion confirmed; `velero-daily` remains unpaused.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
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@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ Individual stages:
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make -C ci lint # yaml/lint (no cluster; live now)
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make -C ci l0 # schema + Kyverno + L0 static conformance (no cluster; live now)
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make -C ci l1 # L1 rendering checks (no cluster; live now)
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make -C ci prom-rules # promtool rule-unit tests on alerts (no cluster; live now)
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make -C ci conformance # L2/L3 in-cluster Chainsaw Job (SKIPS unless CLUSTER_AVAILABLE=true)
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make -C ci test # unit tests for these scripts themselves (ci/tests/*.test.sh)
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```
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@@ -80,13 +81,16 @@ in that case — nothing goes untested — and says plainly that the *scoped* ch
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```
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ci/
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Makefile targets: lint · l0 · l1 · conformance · gate · touched · test · tools · versions
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Makefile targets: lint · l0 · l1 · prom-rules · conformance · gate · touched · test · tools · versions
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versions.env PINNED tool versions (R-TEST-02) — single source of truth
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lib.sh shared helpers: logging, tool checks, cluster detection, artifact paths
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yamllint.yaml lint config for the yaml/lint stage
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lint.sh Stage: yaml/lint
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l0.sh Stage: schema validation + Kyverno L0 gate + L0 static conformance
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l1.sh Stage: L1 rendering checks (Chainsaw L1 via the conformance runner)
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prom-rules.sh Stage: `promtool test rules` over platform/monitoring's PrometheusRules
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(harness: platform/monitoring/tests/). Catches the two alerting bugs no
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other stage can see — permanently-firing and structurally INERT rules.
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conformance.sh Stage: L2/L3 in-cluster Chainsaw Job (trigger + collect)
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touched-requirements.sh compute the R-* subset a change touches (drives the R-TEST-03 filter);
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exits 3 LOUDLY rather than guessing when the diff base is unreliable
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