av stack submit incorrectly picks base branch

[abatilo]

I have a repo whose base branch is main instead of master and when I try to submit I get the following output:

⇒  av stack submit
Creating pull request for branch main:
  - pushing to origin/main
error: failed to determine commits to include in PR: git rev-list: exit status 128

Which, when I enable debug logging, appears to be because av is calling git rev-list --reverse master..HEAD instead of main..HEAD

⇒  av stack submit --debug
DEBU[0000] enabled debug logging                         av_version=v0.0.11
DEBU[0000] git [rev-parse --git-dir]                     duration=19.341208ms repo=ops
DEBU[0000] loaded Git repo                               git_dir=.git
DEBU[0000] no configuration found
DEBU[0000] loaded repository metadata: {ID:MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcnk1OTI0MzM3Mw== Owner:color Name:ops}
DEBU[0000] git [for-each-ref --format %(refname)%00%(objecttype)%00%(objectname)%00%(upstream)%00%(upstream:track) refs/av/branch-metadata/**]  duration=21.988209ms repo=ops
DEBU[0000] found branch metadata refs                    refs="[{refs/av/branch-metadata/Import-datadog-namespace blob 3ea795847987533e9f34513c14d5dd67b2f0cd81  } {refs/av/branch-metadata/main blob ce210334cfe0357c59e73f869dd9d60fe6449269  }]"
DEBU[0000] git [cat-file --batch]                        repo=ops
DEBU[0000] parsed branch metadata: {"parent":{"name":"main","head":"6909b238020139f5f811262c1ffbd3a41352d757"}} => meta.data{BranchAlias:meta.BranchAlias{Name:"Import-datadog-namespace", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"", Trunk:false, Head:""}, Children:[]string(nil), PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}, Parent:json.RawMessage{0x7b, 0x22, 0x6e, 0x61, 0x6d, 0x65, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x22, 0x6d, 0x61, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x22, 0x2c, 0x22, 0x68, 0x65, 0x61, 0x64, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x22, 0x36, 0x39, 0x30, 0x39, 0x62, 0x32, 0x33, 0x38, 0x30, 0x32, 0x30, 0x31, 0x33, 0x39, 0x66, 0x35, 0x66, 0x38, 0x31, 0x31, 0x32, 0x36, 0x32, 0x63, 0x31, 0x66, 0x66, 0x62, 0x64, 0x33, 0x61, 0x34, 0x31, 0x33, 0x35, 0x32, 0x64, 0x37, 0x35, 0x37, 0x22, 0x7d}} &meta.Branch{Name:"Import-datadog-namespace", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"main", Trunk:false, Head:"6909b238020139f5f811262c1ffbd3a41352d757"}, Children:[]string(nil), PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}
DEBU[0000] parsed branch metadata: {"parent":{"name":"master","trunk":true},"children":["Import-datadog-namespace"]} => meta.data{BranchAlias:meta.BranchAlias{Name:"main", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"", Trunk:false, Head:""}, Children:[]string{"Import-datadog-namespace"}, PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}, Parent:json.RawMessage{0x7b, 0x22, 0x6e, 0x61, 0x6d, 0x65, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x22, 0x6d, 0x61, 0x73, 0x74, 0x65, 0x72, 0x22, 0x2c, 0x22, 0x74, 0x72, 0x75, 0x6e, 0x6b, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x74, 0x72, 0x75, 0x65, 0x7d}} &meta.Branch{Name:"main", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"master", Trunk:true, Head:""}, Children:[]string{"Import-datadog-namespace"}, PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}
DEBU[0000] git [symbolic-ref --short HEAD]               duration=20.74175ms repo=ops
DEBU[0000] finding subsequent branches for "Import-datadog-namespace"
Creating pull request for branch main:
DEBU[0000] git [rev-parse --symbolic-full-name main@{u}]  duration=19.571708ms repo=ops
DEBU[0000] pushing latest changes                        upstream=origin/main
  - pushing to origin/main
DEBU[0001] git [push --force-with-lease]                 duration=1.205279583s repo=ops
DEBU[0001] git [cat-file blob refs/av/branch-metadata/main]  duration=22.642417ms repo=ops
DEBU[0001] parsed branch metadata: {"parent":{"name":"master","trunk":true},"children":["Import-datadog-namespace"]} => meta.data{BranchAlias:meta.BranchAlias{Name:"main", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"", Trunk:false, Head:""}, Children:[]string{"Import-datadog-namespace"}, PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}, Parent:json.RawMessage{0x7b, 0x22, 0x6e, 0x61, 0x6d, 0x65, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x22, 0x6d, 0x61, 0x73, 0x74, 0x65, 0x72, 0x22, 0x2c, 0x22, 0x74, 0x72, 0x75, 0x6e, 0x6b, 0x22, 0x3a, 0x74, 0x72, 0x75, 0x65, 0x7d}} &meta.Branch{Name:"main", Parent:meta.BranchState{Name:"master", Trunk:true, Head:""}, Children:[]string{"Import-datadog-namespace"}, PullRequest:(*meta.PullRequest)(nil), MergeCommit:""}
DEBU[0001] base branch is a trunk branch                 base=master
DEBU[0001] git [rev-list --reverse master..HEAD] failed: exit status 128: fatal: ambiguous argument 'master..HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'  duration=20.581042ms repo=ops
DEBU[0001] command exited                                duration=1.381650834s
DEBU[0001] fetched latest released version               latest=v0.0.11
error: failed to determine commits to include in PR: git rev-list: exit status 128
        exit status 128
        git rev-list
        github.com/aviator-co/av/internal/git.(*Repo).Git
                /home/runner/work/av/av/internal/git/git.go:68
        github.com/aviator-co/av/internal/actions.CreatePullRequest
                /home/runner/work/av/av/internal/actions/pr.go:161
        main.glob..func10
                /home/runner/work/av/av/cmd/av/stack_submit.go:57
        github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).execute
                /home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.5.0/command.go:872
        github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).ExecuteC
                /home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.5.0/command.go:990
        github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).Execute
                /home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.5.0/command.go:918
        main.main
                /home/runner/work/av/av/cmd/av/main.go:115
        runtime.main
                /opt/hostedtoolcache/go/1.18.10/x64/src/runtime/proc.go:250
        runtime.goexit
                /opt/hostedtoolcache/go/1.18.10/x64/src/runtime/asm_arm64.s:1270
        failed to determine commits to include in PR

[draftcode]

I can see there are two things that went wrong:

• Looking at line parsed branch metadata, it seems that the parent of a topic branch is set to master instead of main. I'm not sure how this was set. Simple grepping the source code apparently doesn't have a hard coded master in the repository. I have no idea on this.
• Looking at line pushing to origin/main, it seems that av-cli tries to push to main, which is wrong. https://github.com/aviator-co/av/blob/9b993bb53f138f6fe1af37605dacbbabd4f90ae7/internal/actions/pr.go#L107 suggests that the CLI assumes that "the upstream is where the branch should be pushed to", but probably this is not the case. Per git-core's documentation, https://git-scm.com/docs/git-branch/2.13.7#Documentation/git-branch.txt---track sets the upstream to where it's branching off e.g. main, so it's more consistent to use the upstream tracking branch as "the target branch that a PR should be merged to". This behavior is also consistent to git pull, which does merge the tracking branches into the local branch https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config.txt-branchltnamegtmerge.
  • Additional note on this: av-cli's behavior that "pushing to the remote tracking branch" is the strategy you would get when you use push.default = upstream option as described at https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push#Documentation/git-push.txt-pushdefault. As you can see, the Git default option is simple, which does "pushing to the same name branch on the remote". Assuming that most of Git users wouldn't even know this option exist, following the default behavior would be safer option.

[draftcode]

Actually, I feel like the repository has master and main branches at the same time. Can you check that?

[abatilo]

Actually, I feel like the repository has master and main branches at the same time. Can you check that?

@draftcode sorry for the delay. It does not appear that this is the case:

⇒  git branch -a | rg "(main|master)"
  main
  remotes/origin/ecr-describeimages-pipeline-master
  remotes/origin/main
  remotes/origin/ryanking/tf-run-all-on-master

This was a repo that USED to have master as the default branch but we switched it. Could that be causing a problem?

[abatilo]

Ohhhhh interesting. @draftcode. Look at the output of:

⇒  av stack tree
master
    main
        Import-datadog-namespace
            Reference-namespace-resource-for-pg-secret

For some reason, master is still in the av tree? I don't know how this is possible when there isn't a master branch at all.

[abatilo]

I tracked the problem down to this line: https://github.com/aviator-co/av/blob/9b993bb53f138f6fe1af37605dacbbabd4f90ae7/internal/git/git.go#L41

If you have a repo that had a previous default branch name. Like in my case our repo used to have a default branch named master, and then you switch to main, the output of the command git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD will still point to the original branch name.

If I run the below command:

⇒  git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD refs/remotes/origin/main
⇒  git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
refs/remotes/origin/main

Then you can see that my symbolic-ref has been updated correctly also.

Maybe this should have a check for this error case? Thanks!