Parameter.ssm.aws.upbound.io - want to observe value for use in composites

[patrickleet]

What happened?

https://marketplace.upbound.io/providers/upbound/provider-aws-ssm/v0.38.0/resources/ssm.aws.upbound.io/Parameter/v1beta1

I want to observe a value from the aws parameter store and use it in a composite.

My plan was to use managementPolicy with ObserveOnly, which is now managementPolicies with Observe.

However this did not work in a number of ways:

1. What I hoped would work:

apiVersion: ssm.aws.upbound.io/v1beta1
kind: Parameter
metadata:
  name: test-param
  annotations:
    crossplane.io/external-name: /infra/network/devops-xdp-vpc/VpcId
spec:
  managementPolicies:
    - Observe
  forProvider:
    region: us-east-1
    type: String

I was hoping with this atProvider would be filled in with insecureValue, but it does not have that value:

> kubectl get parameters.ssm.aws.upbound.io test-param -o yaml | yq .status.atProvider
allowedPattern: ""
arn: arn:aws:ssm:us-east-1:xxx:parameter/infra/network/devops-xdp-vpc/VpcId
dataType: text
description: String
id: /infra/network/devops-xdp-vpc/VpcId
keyId: ""
tags:
  crossplane-kind: parameter.ssm.aws.upbound.io
  crossplane-name: xdp-vpc-id
  crossplane-providerconfig: default
tagsAll:
  crossplane-kind: parameter.ssm.aws.upbound.io
  crossplane-name: xdp-vpc-id
  crossplane-providerconfig: default
tier: Standard
type: String
version: 2

I tried adding forProvider.insecureValue to anything to try to trick it to display that value but that did not work.

Next I tried just import via external name:

apiVersion: ssm.aws.upbound.io/v1beta1
kind: Parameter
metadata:
  name: test-param
  annotations:
    crossplane.io/external-name: /infra/network/devops-xdp-vpc/VpcId
spec:
  deletionPolicy: Orphan
  forProvider:
    region: us-east-1
    type: String

which results in

status:
  atProvider: {}
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2023-08-02T23:05:14Z"
    message: |-
      observe failed: cannot run refresh: refresh failed: Invalid combination of arguments: "insecure_value": one of `insecure_value,value` must be specified
      Invalid combination of arguments: "value": one of `insecure_value,value` must be specified
    reason: ReconcileError
    status: "False"
    type: Synced

If I set insecureValue and this point though it'll overwrite what I'm trying to read.

How can we reproduce it?

Try the configs I posted above to create Parameters that reference a path in AWS SSM Parameters Store as readonly to be able to access the value and use in composites.

What environment did it happen in?

• Crossplane Version: v1.12.2
• Provider Version: v0.38.0
• Kubernetes Version:

Client Version: v1.25.2
Kustomize Version: v4.5.7
Server Version: v1.26.3+k3s1

• Kubernetes Distribution: EKS

[patrickleet]

There was more conversation about this here https://crossplane.slack.com/archives/C01718T2476/p1691008466503949

[patrickleet]

Adding

    insecureValue: placeholder
    overwrite: false

seems to get the desired result but isn't intuitive

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