github workflows: updatecli

[samuelbernardolip]

Jenkins infra follows almost the same git flow strategy as we are adopting for JePL:
https://github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins-infra#branching-model

We use jenkins/* for the same purpose as they are using staging branch.
In the workflow they use updatecli action to manage the staging branch:
https://github.com/updatecli/updatecli

motto: Automatically open a PR on your GitOps repository when a third service publishes an updates

A job is triggered periodically with a predefined cron. The goal is to check for differences and then apply the required changes to run the required Jenkins pipelines.

This is an interesting approach, since updatecli templates allows to look to the external repository/branch, as an overview:

sources:
... dynamic association to release we want
conditions:
... what should happen to run the targets
targets:
... do PR if file changes happens

The cons of using updatecli:

• more complex implementation using github actions, that will require much more work to do the same when using other git management platforms like Gitlab
• the control goes around files placed in the repository
• also need additional actions on github workflow to checkout the required code before calling updatecli

So I think our approach continues to be the best, since is more simple, using the minimum work that needs to be done in git management platform, before calling the webhook for Jenkins job. We should try always to keep as much as possible the pipeline code in Jenkins side.