2024-05-13 BTR Meeting Minutes

 Date

May 13, 2024

 Participants

• @Adolfo Brandes

• @Chris Patti

• @Jenna Makowski

• @Dawoud Sheraz

• @Maksim Sokolskiy

• @Chelsea Rathbun

• @Moisés González

• @Peter Pinch

🎥 Recording

• Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

🤖 AI-Generated Meeting Summary (Unedited)

Quick recap

The team discussed enabling default flags and testing readiness in the sandbox environment, with considerations for timeline, potential delays, and manual interventions. They deliberated on testing processes for new features and plugins, coordinating announcements, and determining appropriate code branches. The team also considered including an experimental search feature as an optional, undocumented capability.

Next steps

• Adolfo will enable the flags manually for the sandbox and issue a PR to enable the flags by default.

• Syed and team will work on getting the remaining plugins (Forums, Credentials, Android) available for testing by tomorrow, and prepare the test plan to only test the available plugins.

• Jenna, Peter, and Dean will coordinate the announcement for starting early testing, ensuring it includes a visual indicator which plugins are ready for testing.

Summary

Sandbox Readiness and Testing Concerns

Adolfo opened the meeting with the announcement that Jorge and potentially others from Edge Linux were on holiday. The main topic of discussion was testing, and Adolfo indicated that there were some questions and concerns regarding the readiness of the sandbox for testing. He highlighted that while the sandbox was up, some default flags needed to be enabled before it could be tested.

Enabling Flags and Tutor Configuration Discussion

Adolfo and Jenna discussed the timeline and approach for enabling certain flags in their software by default. Adolfo suggested issuing a single pull request to the tutor repository and highlighted that most of the flags are already related to the reviewer and contributor for the tutor. They agreed on a worst-case scenario of manually enabling the flags and retesting them after the sandbox is rebuilt. The team also discussed the flexibility of potentially changing default configurations in the future.

Tutor Community Test Version Discussion

Adolfo announced that a community test version of the tutor would be available before the official release, with various aspects being tested. Chelsea and Daoud expressed their desire to host the tests on their own testing environment for ease of use. Syed confirmed that the process to install the aspects and additional plugins had already begun and planned to complete more by the end of the week. However, Adolfo raised concerns about the timeline and the readiness of the sandbox for testing all the plugins by next week.

Code Jail, and Sandbox Upgrades

The team discussed the status of the 'code jail' branches, with Syed confirming the former's readiness and the latter's need for an upgrade. Adolfo raised concerns about the community perspective and the potential delay in announcing the sandbox's unavailability. The team deliberated on various issues and possible solutions, ultimately deciding to proceed with early testing, despite some uncertainties. They identified the need for an installation command within the sandbox and considered the potential need for a new build. The team agreed to continue identifying which components were ready for testing.

Plugin Testing Process and Visibility

The team discussed the movement of a plugin to new apps and the testing process for these apps. Syed confirmed that the plugin was being tested on new apps, while Jenna suggested a phased testing process to prevent holding back all testing for features not yet available. Adolfo proposed to start testing immediately, but there was a debate about whether to hide or highlight tests that are not yet ready. Sarina recommended not hiding tests but visually indicating that they exist but are not yet complete. The team agreed to start testing tomorrow after enabling the flags.

Coordinating Announcement and Aspects Plugin Testing

Adolfo, Peter, Dean, Sarina, Syed, Jenna, and Chelse discussed the coordination of an upcoming announcement and the testing of new features. Peter and Dean were tasked with drafting the announcement, while Adolfo, Syed, Jenna, and Chelse prepared for testing the aspects plugin in the sandbox. Syed clarified that the aspects plugin would be ready by tomorrow morning, while the forums and credentials could take up to the end of the day. Adolfo also mentioned that he would enable certain flags manually and issue a PR to include Jenna's ticket updates in the rebuild.

Tutor Aspects Plugin Branch Discussion

The discussion centered on determining the correct branch of the tutor aspects plugin to use for the upcoming release. Syed initially asked about the branch, and Max suggested using the Redwood master branch. Moisés raised a concern that the aspects plugin follows a different release system, continuously releasing new versions. Adolfo confirmed with Brian Mezek that the Redwood branch should be used. However, Kyle proposed renaming the master branch to nightly, and renaming the Redwood master branch to master, to maintain consistency with other tutor plugins.

New Search Feature Debate

The team debated whether to include a new, experimental search feature in their product. Adolfo suggested not to add it to the official testing sandbox to avoid confusion, but instead to offer documentation for those who wish to test it. The feature, which is tied to course search, would be kept optional and not enabled by default. The team decided to frame this as an experimental feature in their release notes, with documentation on how to enable it. The feature will be tested internally, and any operational issues were noted for further consideration.

This summary captures the essence of the discussion, the participants involved, and the decisions made during the BTR meetup but does not intend to be as accurate as a transcript.

 Discussion topics

 Decisions