Periodical feature health check workflow tools(aka Canary)

This README describes how to set up Cadence canary, different types of canary test cases, and how to start the canary.

Setup

Cadence server

Canary test suite is running against a Cadence server/cluster. See documentation for Cadence server cluster setup.

Note that some tests require features like Advanced Visibility and History Archival.

For local server env you can run it through:

• Docker: Instructions for running Cadence server through docker can be found in docker/README.md. Either docker-compose-es-v7.yml or docker-compose-es.yml can be used to start the server.
• Build from source: Please check CONTRIBUTING for how to build and run Cadence server from source. Please also make sure Kafka and ElasticSearch are running before starting the server with ./cadence-server --zone es start. If ElasticSearch v7 is used, change the value for --zone flag to es_v7.

Start canary

⚠️ NOTE: By default, starting this canary worker will not automatically start a canary test. Next two sections will cover how to start and configure it.

Different ways of start the canary workers:

1. Use docker image ubercadence/cadence-canary:master

For now, this image has no release versions for simplified the release process. Always use master tag for the image.

Similar to server/CLI images, the canary image will be built and published automatically by Github on every commit onto the master branch.

You can pre-built docker-compose file to run against local server In the docker/ directory, run:

docker-compose -f docker-compose-canary.yml up

You can modify the canary worker config to run against a prod server cluster.

2. Build & Run the worker/canary

In the project root, build cadence canary binary:

make cadence-canary

Then start canary worker:

./cadence-canary start

This is essentially the same as

 ./cadence-canary start -mode worker

By default, it will load the configuration in config/canary/development.yaml. Run ./cadence-canary -h for details to understand the start options of how to change the loading directory if needed. This will only start the workers.

Configurations

Canary workers configuration contains two parts:

• Canary: this part controls which domains canary workers are responsible for what tests the sanity workflow will exclude.

canary:
  domains: ["cadence-canary"] # it will start workers on all those domains(also try to register if not exists) 
  excludes: ["workflow.searchAttributes", "workflow.batch", "workflow.archival.visibility"] # it will exclude the three test cases
  cron: 
    cronSchedule: #the schedule of cron canary, default to "@every 30s"
    cronExecutionTimeout: #the timeout of each run of the cron execution, default to 18 minutes
    startJobTimeout: #the timeout of each run of the sanity test suite, default to 9 minutes

An exception here is HistoryArchival and VisibilityArchival test cases will always use canary-archival-domain domain.

• Cadence: this control how canary worker should talk to Cadence server, which includes the server's service name and address.

cadence:
  service: "cadence-frontend" # frontend service name
  host: "127.0.0.1:7933" # frontend address

• Metrics: metrics configuration. Similar to server metric emitter, only M3/Statsd/Prometheus is supported.
• Log: logging configuration. Similar to server logging configuration.

Canary Test Cases

Cron Canary: periodically running Sanity test suite

The Cron workflow is not a test case. It's a top-level workflow to kick off the Sanity suite(described below) periodically.
To start the cron canary:

 ./cadence-canary start -mode cronCanary

For local development, you can also start the cron canary workflows along with the worker:

 ./cadence-canary start -m all

The Cron Schedule is from the Configuration. However, changing the schedule requires you manually terminate the existing cron workflow to take into effect. It can be improved in the future.

The workflowID is fixed: "cadence.canary.cron"

Test case starter & Sanity suite

The sanity workflow is test suite workflow. It will kick off a bunch of childWorkflows for all the test to verify that Cadence server is operating correctly.

An error result of the sanity workflow indicates at least one of the test case fails.

You can start the sanity workflow as one-off run:

cadence --do <the domain you configured> workflow start --tl canary-task-queue --et 1200 --wt workflow.sanity -i 0

Note:

• tasklist(tl) is fixed to canary-task-queue
• execution timeout(et) is recommended to 20 minutes(1200 seconds) but you can adjust it
• the only required input is the scheduled unix timestamp, and 0 will uses the workflow starting time

Or using a cron job(e.g. every minute):

cadence --do <the domain you configured> workflow start --tl canary-task-queue --et 1200 --wt workflow.sanity -i 0 --cron "* * * * *"

This is the list of the test cases that it will start all supported test cases by default if no excludes are configured. You can find the workflow names of the tests cases in this file if you want to manually start certain test cases.
For example, manually start an Echo test case:

cadence --do <> workflow start --tl canary-task-queue --et 10 --wt workflow.echo

Once you start the test cases, you can observe the progress:

cadence --do cadence-canary workflow ob -w <...workflowID form the start command output>

Echo

Echo workflow tests the very basic workflow functionality. It executes an activity to return some output and verifies it as the workflow result.

Signal

Signal workflow tests the signal feature.

Visibility

Visibility workflow tests the basic visibility feature. No advanced visibility needed, but advanced visibility should also support it.

SearchAttributes

SearchAttributes workflow tests the advanced visibility feature. Make sure advanced visibility feature is configured on the server. Otherwise, it should be excluded from the sanity test suite/case.

ConcurrentExec

ConcurrentExec workflow tests executing activities concurrently.

Query

Query workflow tests the Query feature.

Timeout

Timeout workflow make sure the activity timeout is enforced.

LocalActivity

LocalActivity workflow tests the local activity feature.

Cancellation

Cancellation workflowt tests cancellation feature.

Retry

Retry workflow tests activity retry policy.

Reset

Reset workflow tests reset feature.

HistoryArchival

HistoryArchival tests history archival feature. Make sure history archival feature is configured on the server. Otherwise, it should be excluded from the sanity test suite/case. This test case always uses canary-archival-domain domain.

VisibilityArchival

VisibilityArchival tests visibility archival feature. Make sure visibility feature is configured on the server. Otherwise, it should be excluded from the sanity test suite/case.

Batch

Batch workflow tests the batch job feature. Make sure advanced visibility feature is configured on the server. Otherwise, it should be excluded from the sanity test suite/case.