The CNPG alert unit tests (324 lines, mutation-checked) were run by NOTHING. promtool was
not in the baked toolchain, no gate stage evaluated any *.promtool-test.yaml, and the only
runner `curl | tar -xz`'d a promtool release from GitHub at TEST-RUN time if one was
missing. Hours later a second, independent harness landed for the Velero rules
(platform/monitoring/tests/) with its own fallback — a `podman run` of
quay.io/prometheus/prometheus. So the repo had two harnesses, two acquisition paths, and
coverage that looked present and was enforced nowhere: the exact failure mode that had just
produced a permanently-firing CNPG alert and a structurally inert Velero alert.
PROMTOOL IS NOW PINNED LIKE EVERY OTHER TOOL. PROMTOOL_VERSION=3.14.0 in
infra/devcontainer/versions.env and ci/versions.env (the two stay in lockstep, per the
repo's rule), baked by the Containerfile from the prometheus release tarball (promtool ships
inside it), recorded in /etc/dev-toolchain-versions, passed by dev.sh, and installed for the
l0 stage by .gitea/workflows/scripts/install-tools.sh so the CI runner is not permanently
SKIPPED. The pin is not free-floating: promtool IS the rule engine, so it tracks the
Prometheus prod actually runs — verified against the live cluster, not assumed:
kubectl --context k3s-prod get prometheus -n monitoring -o jsonpath='{.items[*].spec.version}'
-> v3.14.0-distroless (image quay.io/prometheus/prometheus:v3.14.0-distroless)
ONE HARNESS. platform/cnpg/run-alert-tests.sh is folded into
platform/monitoring/tests/run.sh, which now covers every PrometheusRule in the repo that has
tests, via two conventions it discovers automatically: `<manifest>.promtool-test.yaml`
beside its manifest (cnpg), and `<component>/tests/*.test.yaml` over that component's
manifests (monitoring). It writes the flattened rules under whatever name each test file's
own `rule_files:` declares, so no test file needs to know the harness exists, and it
`promtool check rules` first — a rules file that does not parse would make every unit test
pass vacuously by finding no rules at all. The cnpg script's reasoning is preserved: why a
CR must be flattened (`.spec.groups`, never re-typed), and why generated files go to a temp
dir. Its `${BASE_DOMAIN}` substitution is dropped in favour of extract_rules.py's verbatim
placeholders, with the trade-off recorded there — the hazard it guarded against is addressed
by the temp dir, and verbatim leaves one transformation fewer between the shipped rule and
the rule under test.
NO ENGINE IS ACQUIRED AT RUN TIME any more — not the GitHub release, not the container
image. Not because a pinned download is unusual here (the Containerfile downloads every tool
it bakes) but because those two decided the version, the network and the machine SILENTLY,
at test time, on whatever host ran the tests; and each quietly turned "the toolchain has no
promtool" into a green run, which is how the toolchain stayed without one. Missing promtool
is exit 3 (UNWIRED, never green); a PROMTOOL= that does not resolve is exit 2.
ONE WIRING: conformance/tests/l0-static/alert-rules-unit-tested, NOT a gate stage. The
`prom-rules` stage (ci/prom-rules.sh + its Makefile target + ci/gate.sh entry) is deleted:
it is the bespoke-per-check pattern b9f8807 had just removed from ci/l0.sh, and the
declarative replacement gives what a hand-written stage cannot — selection by
`conformance.home.k3s/scope: "whole-repo"` (asserted: the test is selected even under a
requirement filter matching nothing), requirement-attributed JUnit/coverage/ledger evidence,
and run_l1_offline.py's rule that a SKIP of a scope-declaring check is the runner's rc 3.
The scope declaration is load-bearing here: touched-requirements.sh keys apps/* to nothing
and platform/monitoring/* to R-OBS-01/02, never R-OBS-04, so a new untested PrometheusRule
would otherwise be gated by nothing.
The check asserts the pins and their lockstep, that the image bakes and records promtool,
that the promtool IN USE reports exactly the pin (a FAILURE, not a skip: the wrong engine
still prints SUCCESS), that exactly ONE harness exists and none fetches an engine, that
every rule-unit test file passes, and — on every run — that the harness CAN fail, by putting
a synthetic rule through it twice with one expectation mutated.
MISSING TESTS ARE A RATCHET, deliberately, and the reasoning is in the check's header. 51 of
58 alert rules have no unit test. Failing on all of them makes the gate red until ~51 tests
exist, so it gets disabled and protects nothing; merely reporting is exactly how the CNPG
tests came to be enforced by nothing. So the gap is DECLARED in the check as a shrink-only
register, printed with counts every run (13 alert files nothing tests at all; 35 named
alerts inside covered files that nothing asserts on), and it cannot grow: a new
PrometheusRule, or a new alert in an already-covered file, FAILS without a test, and a stale
entry FAILS too. A missing test is never an exit-3 skip — SKIPPED is reserved for the one
genuine environment gap, promtool being absent.
PROVEN, in the rebuilt image (promtool 3.14.0):
* both suites pass through the single harness: cnpg 6 rules, monitoring 36 rules, SUCCESS.
* the check passes: 95 assertions, 7/58 alert rules unit-tested, 13 declared gap files.
* NOT VACUOUS, twice over. Shortening CNPGPrimariesCoLocated's `for: 30m` to 5m turns it
red (pending expected at 25m/29m, got firing), reverted. Adding an untested
PrometheusRule (platform/kubevirt/probe-alerts.yaml) turns it red on the ratchet,
removed. The harness's own mutation self-test runs on every invocation.
* the scope mechanism selects it: `run.sh --layer l0 --requirements r-nosuchreq-99
--include-scope whole-repo --print-selection` lists alert-rules-unit-tested.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
HAND-OFF 2 (L2/L3 conformance wiring) — DEFERRED with a concrete plan, per the
hand-off's escape hatch (too risky to wire live cluster access from CI autonomously;
do NOT hand CI a broad kubeconfig).
The intended seam (in-cluster Chainsaw Job under its own scoped SA; CI holds only a
narrow trigger credential) is mostly scaffolded but not safe to finish autonomously:
- ci/conformance.sh still runs run.sh locally rather than triggering the in-cluster Job.
- conformance/incluster/chainsaw-job.yaml has no repo-clone init-container and the stock
chainsaw image lacks bash/python3/kubectl/git that run.sh needs.
- No trigger SA/RBAC/credential exists, and the core blocker is a privilege-escalation
design question: any `create jobs` credential in the conformance namespace can create a
Job running as the privileged conformance-runner SA. This needs an admission constraint
(recommended: narrow trigger SA + a Kyverno policy pinning the admissible Job shape), or
a GitOps-native zero-credential trigger — an operator decision.
- conformance/incluster/ isn't wired into Flux; Gitea vars/secrets aren't provisioned.
docs/plans/l2-l3-conformance-ci-wiring.md captures current state, the security analysis,
the functional gaps, a file-by-file step sequence, validation/rollback, and the open
decisions. gate.yml's conformance placeholder now points to it (still if:false, honest).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
HAND-OFF 1 (make -C ci gate parity).
touched-requirements.sh gained a third scoping rule: after stripping the diff
marker, whole-line YAML/shell `#` comments are dropped BEFORE the R-ID grep. A
requirement cited only in a code-file comment is prose (a REFERENCE), not a
declaration -- the same logic rule 2 already applies to `*.md`. This unblocks the
self-referential trap where editing gate.yml's header (which cites R-TEST-06, a
known-uncovered ID enforced by the spec-immutability STAGE, not a Chainsaw test)
re-attributed R-TEST-06 so the coverage `--require` check false-blocked the merge.
Conservative: only whole-line comments are dropped; an R-ID on a real code/spec
line is still detected, and authoritative declarations never live in a bare comment.
gate.yml now invokes the aggregate `make -C ci gate` (ci/gate.sh) instead of the
individual stage scripts, so CI runs byte-for-byte the same gate a human runs in the
devcontainer (R-TEST-02) and applies the R-TEST-03 decision. A BLOCKED gate exits
non-zero and fails the job. The cluster-gated L2/L3 stage SKIPS honestly (no
CLUSTER_AVAILABLE). spec-immutability is retained as an explicit early UI step.
Adds ci/tests/touched-requirements.test.sh (+ `make -C ci test`) asserting rule 3:
comment-only R-IDs (added or removed) are not attributed while real-line R-IDs are.
ci/lib.sh REPO_ROOT is now env-overridable so tests can run the real script against a
throwaway git repo (default unchanged).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
The committed apps/ goldens were a MIX of two render flag sets: 8 services
were rendered with `--no-image-automation` (no image CRs) while gitea and
nextcloud carried stale ImageRepository/ImagePolicy CRs from a render WITHOUT
the flag. Neither single command reproduced all goldens, and the gate did not
catch it.
Part A — canonical render:
python3 catalog/render.py --all catalog -o apps --wave-layout --no-image-automation
`--no-image-automation` is canonical: image automation is authored-but-DISABLED
(DECISIONS-LOG; image-reflector/-automation controllers not installed), and
every app was onboarded via this flag. Re-render drops the ImageRepository +
ImagePolicy objects from gitea + nextcloud only (52 line deletions, purely the
trailing image-automation blocks). No functional content changed — the
nextcloud postStart hardening and gitea OIDC hook are untouched.
Part B — enforcement:
ci/render-golden.sh renders every onboarded catalog service with the canonical
command into a temp dir and FAILS on ANY diff vs committed apps/ (missing
golden or content drift), across all 10 services (not just the 3 L1 spot-checks).
Not-onboarded catalog entries (keycloak, vm-demo) are excluded per DESIGN-waves.
Wired as a required no-cluster stage in ci/gate.sh, ci/Makefile, and both the
live (.gitea/workflows/gate.yml) and dormant (merge-gate.yaml) pipelines.
Proof: tampering a golden makes the stage exit 1 (blocks merge); reverting
restores exit 0. `make -C ci gate` green in the devcontainer.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
The static gate passes (lint + Kyverno L0 + L1 render) but the trailing
actions/upload-artifact@v4 step fails with "not supported on GHES" — Gitea Actions
does not implement the artifact-v2 backend — and its always() failure sank the whole
job. Remove the step; JUnit/coverage remain in the job workspace. Re-add via the
@v3 action or Gitea's artifact backend later if retention is needed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
`make -C ci spec-immutability || [ $? -eq 3 ]` fails on the honest skip: GNU make
exits 2 when the recipe exits 3, so the guard never matches. Invoke the script
directly so the exit-3 skip (spec repo not checked out in CI) is tolerated while a
real spec drift (exit 1) still blocks.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
- install-tools.sh: the kyverno CLI release tarball is named _linux_x86_64, not
_linux_amd64 (mirrors infra/devcontainer/Containerfile). The gate job's kyverno
install 404'd on amd64; map amd64 -> x86_64 for kyverno only.
- act-runner: wait for /certs/client/ca.pem (published by the DinD sidecar) before
exec-ing the entrypoint, eliminating the startup crash-loop race.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
STEP 1 — enable Gitea Actions: pin GITEA__actions__ENABLED=true and
DEFAULT_ACTIONS_URL=github in the gitea bootstrap patch (was implicit upstream
default; make it a declared property).
STEP 2 — deploy + register an act_runner in a dedicated non-app namespace
(gitea-actions) so the privileged DinD executor sidecar is admitted without a
Kyverno policy exception (restrict-host-namespaces scopes to app namespaces only).
Docker executor + DinD sidecar over a shared TLS-cert emptyDir; runner state on a
Longhorn PVC (registers once). Registration token delivered as a SOPS-encrypted
Secret decrypted by Flux. Runner mounts no ServiceAccount token (R-SEC-02).
STEP 3 — author .gitea/workflows/gate.yml: the live enforced merge gate running
the STATIC layers (spec-immutability best-effort, lint, Kyverno L0, L1 render) via
`make -C ci lint l0 l1` with the pinned toolchain installed at job start. L2/L3
conformance is an if:false placeholder (needs a toolchain image + scoped cluster
creds — a design decision, not wired). merge-gate.yaml reduced to workflow_dispatch
(dormant full-pipeline blueprint). install-tools.sh gains check-jsonschema so the
schema stage validates in CI instead of skipping.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Adopt the spec's Phase-0 clarifications (spec now at pin a7fc19f) into the impl:
- schema v1.1: enforce exposure:public => auth.mode!=none (positive+negative tested).
- Kyverno: add longhorn=>size and longhorn=>NOT-reacquirable invariants (R-STATE-02/03).
- Ratify the homelab.keithjackson.dev/* label-key convention (now in spec docs/03).
- R-TEST-06 spec-immutability gate: ci/SPEC_PIN + ci/spec-immutability.sh + gate.sh
stage + Makefile target + a Gitea job (checks spec repo clean & at pin).
- touched-requirements.sh: conformance tags are the authoritative source.
Reconcile 3 CI seams the CI worker flagged (gate was RED, now GREEN):
- create schemas/validate.sh (SCHEMA_VALIDATE_CMD entrypoint) — L0 schema gate runs.
- fix l1.sh/conformance.sh to run.sh's real interface (fixed _artifacts/ paths; no
--junit/--coverage) and collect artifacts.
- exec bits on new scripts.
make -C ci gate => PASS (l0 skips locally w/o kyverno binary; green in CI).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Phase 0 foundation shell (read-only spec at ../home-network-k3s). Top-level
tree + rules; workstream agents fill their subtrees on feature branches.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
jakman85andClaude Opus 5