Feature request: Don't report updates when no module is altered

[leetrout]

Similar to #241 we also have a repo layout where we only care about the modules directory (but are OK with the tag name unlike the PR). However we would love for the tool to not report on a PR whenever there is not a module change present.

And / or it would be great to disable reporting on old modules when delete-legacy-tags: false. It's very noisy for us.

├── atlantis.yaml
├── environments
├── global
├── mise.toml
└── modules

[virgofx]

Thanks for the report @leetrout

I believe I have an immediate solution for your first concern. Specifically, the noise issue with delete-legacy-tags: false should be fixed in the pre-release v1.7.0. The noise on non-terraform PRs should be much smaller now. Can you give it a try first?

Regarding the not reporting on a PR - just to clarify - Are you asking to have no comment at all on the PR when there are zero module changes, correct? If that's the case, we can definitely make that happen as an enhancement. The downside, we would also need to check for deleting legacy tags. Meaning, there's a use case where we tag cleanup can occur (when enabled) and still no changed modules -- so that's usually reported in the UI of the PR comment to help give more notice. Just want to make sure that's what you're asking.

Either way - Can you test v1.7.0 first and let me know how the updated PR looks.

[leetrout]

@virgofx Thanks for the quick response!

I upgraded to 1.7 and the output is much better however it does want to release a new version of one of our modules that didn't change and only has a manual release as modules/media/v1.

[virgofx]

@leetrout From the logs there, it appears that that module wasn't ever released (no matching tags/releases) so it was detected it as having Terraform and not managed via the module, so I believe that's the intended behavior.

Able to deduce that from the updated release details column - Initial Release

Are you saying this module you manage completely outside and don't want Terraform Module Releaser to manage it?
--> If SO, great news, we can just exclude that module and you're all set: module-path-ignore: modules/media

Otherwise, I might need some more information to understand the expected result here for this module.

---

Edit: I think I see the issue - It was manually done as modules/media/v1 which doesn't match the expected modules/media/v1.X.Y format. So, this manually created tag/release is not being detected as associated with this module; therefore, the module detection/parsing is saying, hey, we need to release this -- it's not there. More context to understand if you require using that exact tag name, or, can you remove it and simply use the v1.0.0 full version with a one-time initial release as shown in any PR against the repo like the one above. Then, you're 100% working with Terraform Modules and you wouldn't see this "initial release" subsequently any more. Alternatively, if you plan to not use / bump this ever in the future, you could simply exclude it from Terraform Module Releaser via the parameter specified above. So -- a couple of options here. Let me know your thoughts/context.

[leetrout]

@virgofx Sure, all that makes sense 👍

I'm more curious if there was something that made it decide to do this release now with the bump to 1.7. The module has been in the repo as-is since we adopted this action a few weeks ago but there had not been any code changes to that directory so there had not been any planned releases.

Just want to make sure that it doesn't surprise you that an upgrade suddenly wants to ensure all modules have releases even without file changes 👍

[virgofx]

@leetrout So, one of the core refactors in addition to the new features in 1.7.0 was a rewrite of the module parsing. This was done in preparation for some more advanced module detection (parent/child relationships) and future customization needs that have been tossed around. The first iteration was somewhat primitive, so it missed it. There's a lot more thoroughness now in the codebase (specifically the terraform-module.ts) file to handle all this parsing now. I believe the previous version was checking for a simple starting prefix (e.g. modules/media/v) so it matched the previous manual tag in your case. Now, with additional of optional v prefix along-with well-defined regular expressions, it did not detect this. So, intended behavior.

Let me know after you get the above referenced PR merged, if you're okay with the "smaller" comment footprint and we can either close this specific issue; or, we can turn this into a feature request for a comment suppression option for no changes / no tags to delete. Happy to do either, I do see potential value on a comment suppression in repositories that have a lot of other non-terraform module stuff too (hybrid approach- not how we're using it internally over here but I could see the use case). Let me know.

[leetrout]

Yes, let's close this as the current version creating a less chatty comment is an improvement addressing the core of the issue.

Understood on internal vs external needs. If you do decide to make a change in that direction we like how Atlantis handles this - when the checks run and there are no file changes that would trigger a plan or apply it just reports success on the check without commenting.

Thanks for the fixes and for sharing this action with the community - works really well so far!