consider prompting for region with picklist

[susanev]

overview

when the region is not yet set in the config, can we prompt for it with a picklist? e.g., when following this tutorial https://www.pulumi.com/registry/packages/aws/how-to-guides/s3-website/ they have to use the config command and know the appropriate values that are possible, can we make this better?

questions

when should we detect that this is not yet set?

[Frassle]

@AaronFriel this would be a good use case for typed provider configs

[susanev]

notes from Zaid:

• consider a default value, then ask folks if they want to change it
• this could be extended to other config options with restricted options to select from (will need to figure out which ones)

[susanev]

notes from Pat

• we do know that its not set
• harder to find out the values possible

[pgavlin]

+1 to what @Frassle said

[mikhailshilkov]

Related to https://github.com/pulumi/pulumi/issues/2307

[lukehoban]

And perhaps even moreso related to https://github.com/pulumi/pulumi/issues/1052 and specifically https://github.com/pulumi/pulumi/issues/1052#issuecomment-374255486.

[t0yv0]

I've looked here briefly, it feels good to wait on https://github.com/pulumi/home/issues/2216 typed config design to settle first, then revisit. What we need primarily is indeed knowing that the type of "aws:region" is "aws:index/Region:Region". If we knew that we could look up possible values from the schema and display them to the user, check, or auto-complete.

Possible values indexed by type info:

$ jq .types["aws:index/Region:Region"] pulumi-aws-v4.37.3.json

{
  "description": "A Region represents any valid Amazon region that may be targeted with deployments.",
  "type": "string",
  "enum": [
    {
      "name": "AFSouth1",
      "value": "af-south-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "APEast1",
      "value": "ap-east-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "APNortheast1",
      "value": "ap-northeast-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "APNortheast2",
      "value": "ap-northeast-2"
    },
    {
      "name": "APSouth1",
      "value": "ap-south-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "APSoutheast2",
      "value": "ap-southeast-2"
    },
    {
      "name": "APSoutheast1",
      "value": "ap-southeast-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "CACentral",
      "value": "ca-central-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "CNNorth1",
      "value": "cn-north-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "CNNorthwest1",
      "value": "cn-northwest-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUCentral1",
      "value": "eu-central-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUNorth1",
      "value": "eu-north-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUWest1",
      "value": "eu-west-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUWest2",
      "value": "eu-west-2"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUWest3",
      "value": "eu-west-3"
    },
    {
      "name": "EUSouth1",
      "value": "eu-south-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "MESouth1",
      "value": "me-south-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "SAEast1",
      "value": "sa-east-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "USGovEast1",
      "value": "us-gov-east-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "USGovWest1",
      "value": "us-gov-west-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "USEast1",
      "value": "us-east-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "USEast2",
      "value": "us-east-2"
    },
    {
      "name": "USWest1",
      "value": "us-west-1"
    },
    {
      "name": "USWest2",
      "value": "us-west-2"
    }
  ]
}

Ideally this typing of "aws:region" as "aws:index/Region:Region" would be simply written in Pulumi.yaml based on typed config work, but if not, perhaps there's other ways we can recover or special-case magically for "aws:region".

Here's another possible source of type information:

jq '.config.variables.region' pulumi-aws-v4.37.3.json                                                                                       ~/schemas
{
  "type": "string",
  "$ref": "#/types/aws:index/region:Region",
  "description": "The region where AWS operations will take place. Examples are us-east-1, us-west-2, etc.\n",
  "defaultInfo": {
    "environment": [
      "AWS_REGION",
      "AWS_DEFAULT_REGION"
    ]
  }
}

But I'm not sure we can assume that a Pulumi config value called "aws:region" refers to the "region" variable from the "aws" provider schema, or can we? If we can make this connection, we can already lookup the type of "aws:region".

I've also found something curious not covered by Config tickets. Looks like here: https://github.com/pulumi/templates/blob/master/aws-typescript/Pulumi.yaml#L8 - we support Config section in templates also, but this gets expanded out at "pulumi new". So actually pulumi new prompts for the value. Similarly if we could know the type there, and if this is an enum type we could improve how we prompt for this value at "pulumi new".

We also seem to be prompting for a value when doing "pulumi set aws:region", so this is another place where a pick list could go. We could also reject invalid values and print valid ones if the user does "pulumi set aws:region bad".

@dixler regarding the UI - do we have the capability to display a pick list already?

[t0yv0]

In iteration planning today, we decided to drop this until structured config lands, and not to add an extra assumption in code that pulumi config set aws:region refers to a configuration property from .config.variables.region in the schema, or generally that:

pulumi config set aws:X <-> .config.variables.X

It seems to be accidental and not by-design.

So hopefully with structured/typed config we will have a cleaner way to look up type information for "aws:region" that will make it easy.

[rulatir]

While at it, consider picking all relevant values from the current AWS config (i.e. ~/.aws/config or wherever AWS_CONFIG_FILE points), or at least offering them as defaults in the prompts. ESPECIALLY for those situations where the values can't be supplied with pulumi config without pulumi config sending you back to square one ("choose a stack").