Keep Around Refs Working Group
The keep-around refs working group addresses the problem of unbounded keep around references
Attributes
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Date Created | July 8, 2024 |
| End Date | TBD |
| Slack | #wg_keep-around-refs (only accessible from within the company) |
| Google Doc | Working Group Agenda |
| Issue Board | Working Group Issue Board |
| Overview & Status | Main Epic |
Scope and Definitions
In the context of this working group:
- keep-around refs: Git references created through Gitaly to ensure certain Git data does not get pruned by Gitaly.
Exit criteria
- Rails tracks keep-around references it creates as well as the entities that depend on the Git objects it holds onto.
- Rails removes keep-around references when they are no longer needed by any entity.
- Rails prevents keep-around references from being created in an unbounded way.
Overarching Goals
- Git operations are performant even for large repositories with many merge requests, pipelines, etc.
Future goals
- A retention policy is set for keep around refs.
- Migrate existing and unneeded keep around refs on GitLab.com:
- Dependencies between existing keep-around references and the database entities are recorded and maintained.
- Existing unneeded keep-around references are removed.
Roles and Responsibilities
| Working Group Role | Person | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Executive Stakeholder | Tim Zallmann | Senior Director, ~“Department::Development” |
| Facilitator/DRI | James Fargher | Senior Backend Engineer, ~“group::gitaly” |
| Product DRI | Mark Wood | Product Manager, ~“group::gitaly” |
| Member | Sami Hiltunen | Staff Backend Engineer, ~“group::gitaly” |
| Member | John Cai | Engineering Manager, ~“group::gitaly” |
| Member | David Kim | Senior Backend Engineer, ~“group::code review” |
| Member | Kai Armstrong | Principal Product Manager, ~“group::code review” |
| Member | Hordur Freyr Yngvason | Senior Backend Engineer, ~“group::pipeline execution” |
| Member | Vasilii Iakliushin | Staff Backend Engineer, ~“group::source code” |
| Member | Furkan Ayhan | Senior Backend Engineer, ~“group::pipeline authoring” |
Last modified November 4, 2024: Split out "Gitaly Git" group into its own group (
a2af5381)
