WorkflowEventBinding passes raw go structs instead of json marshalled payload params

[nojvek]

Summary

What happened/what you expected to happen?
Creating a simple WorkflowEventBinding for github that triggers workflows based on certain labels in PR.

Doing payload.pull_request.labels gives me a full go struct rather than a json object. Go structs aren't very useful since the lingua franca of the web is json. I can't easily pipe this into a python container and do something with labels.

Diagnostics

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: WorkflowTemplate
metadata:
  annotations:
    owner: core
  labels: {}
  name: deploy-pr
  namespace: github
spec:
  arguments:
    artifacts: []
    parameters:
    - name: action
      value: ''
    - name: pr_author
      value: ''
    - name: pr_branch
      value: ''
    - name: pr_commit
      value: ''
    - name: pr_labels
      value: ''
    - name: pr_num
      value: ''
  entrypoint: deploy-pr
  templates:
  - container:
      args:
      - '{{workflow.parameters}}'
      command:
      - echo
      image: ubuntu:latest
      imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
    name: print
  - dag:
      tasks:
      - arguments:
          artifacts: []
          parameters: []
        name: trigger-workflow
        template: print
    name: deploy-pr
  volumes: []
  workflowMetadata:
    annotations:
      owner: core
    labels: {}
---
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: WorkflowEventBinding
metadata:
  annotations:
    owner: core
  labels: {}
  name: deploy-pr
  namespace: github
spec:
  event:
    selector: metadata["x-github-event"] == ["pull_request"] && any(payload.pull_request.labels,
      {.name == "stage-and-deploy"})
  submit:
    arguments:
      parameters:
      - name: action
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.action
      - name: pr_author
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.pull_request.user.login
      - name: pr_branch
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.pull_request.head.ref
      - name: pr_commit
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.pull_request.head.sha
      - name: pr_labels
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.pull_request.labels
      - name: pr_num
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.number
    workflowTemplateRef:
      name: deploy-pr

What version of Argo Workflows are you running? v2.11.5

The output is

[
  {
    "name": "action",
    "value": "labeled"
  },
  {
    "name": "pr_author",
    "value": "nojvek"
  },
  {
    "name": "pr_branch",
    "value": "nojvek-test"
  },
  {
    "name": "pr_commit",
    "value": "f2116e4139e9ef8827f65b76293890e594f0fdcb"
  },
  {
    "name": "pr_labels",
    "value": "[map[color:0052cc default:false description:Only deploy configmaps id:2.442548891e+09 name:configmaps-only node_id:MDU6TGFiZWwyNDQyNTQ4ODkx url:https://api.github.com/repos/mixpanel/analytics/labels/configmaps-only] map[color:1d76db default:false description:Don't wait for user QA, if staging workflow succeeds, deploy to prod id:2.514491821e+09 name:skip-qa-confirm node_id:MDU6TGFiZWwyNTE0NDkxODIx url:https://api.github.com/repos/mixpanel/analytics/labels/skip-qa-confirm] map[color:5319e7 default:false description:Stage to staging-1, then deploy to production id:2.442682022e+09 name:stage-and-deploy node_id:MDU6TGFiZWwyNDQyNjgyMDIy url:https://api.github.com/repos/mixpanel/analytics/labels/stage-and-deploy] map[color:0052cc default:false description: id:2.292237044e+09 name:webapp/nginx node_id:MDU6TGFiZWwyMjkyMjM3MDQ0 url:https://api.github.com/repos/mixpanel/analytics/labels/webapp/nginx]]"
  },
  {
    "name": "pr_num",
    "value": "33195"
  }
]

The core issue is I'd expect the payload.pull_request.labels to be json marshalled, rather than go debug output e.g [map[color:0052cc

---

Message from the maintainers:

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[nojvek]

I've done some debugging. It seems the issue is at this line.

https://github.com/argoproj/argo/blob/176d890c1cac25856f67fbed4cc39a396aa87a93/server/event/dispatch/operation.go#L116

Rather than having an AnyStringPtr, we should probably jsonMarshall if the value is non string

[alexec]

@nojvek can you please provide an example of the payload?

[alexec]

I've created an engineering build:

argoproj/argocli:whmap

This is based on master.

[nojvek]

@alexec thanks for looking into this. The payload is a github payload for pull_request. Looks like this https://developer.github.com/webhooks/event-payloads/#pull_request

{
  "action": "opened",
  "number": 2,
  "pull_request": {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Codertocat/Hello-World/pulls/2",
    "id": 279147437,
    "node_id": "MDExOlB1bGxSZXF1ZXN0Mjc5MTQ3NDM3",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/Codertocat/Hello-World/pull/2",
    "diff_url": "https://github.com/Codertocat/Hello-World/pull/2.diff",
    "patch_url": "https://github.com/Codertocat/Hello-World/pull/2.patch",
    "issue_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Codertocat/Hello-World/issues/2",
    "number": 2,
    "state": "open",
    "locked": false,
    "title": "Update the README with new information.",
    "user": {
      "login": "Codertocat",
      "id": 21031067,
      "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjIxMDMxMDY3",
      "avatar_url": "https://avatars1.githubusercontent.com/u/21031067?v=4",
      "gravatar_id": "",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/Codertocat",
      "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/followers",
      "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/following{/other_user}",
      "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/gists{/gist_id}",
      "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
      "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/subscriptions",
      "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/orgs",
      "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/repos",
      "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/events{/privacy}",
      "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Codertocat/received_events",
      "type": "User",
      "site_admin": false
    },
    "body": "This is a pretty simple change that we need to pull into master.",
    "created_at": "2019-05-15T15:20:33Z",
    "updated_at": "2019-05-15T15:20:33Z",
    "closed_at": null,
    "merged_at": null,
    "merge_commit_sha": null,
    "assignee": null,
    "assignees": [

    ],
    "requested_reviewers": [

    ],
    "requested_teams": [

    ],
    "labels": [
     {
          "id": 1362937026,
          "node_id": "MDU6TGFiZWwxMzYyOTM3MDI2",
          "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Codertocat/Hello-World/labels/:bug:%20Bugfix",
          "name": ":bug: Bugfix",
         "color": "cceeaa",
         "default": false,
         "description": "This bug needs fixing"
       }
    ],
...
}

My intent was to capture payload.pull_request.labels and have it sent to the workflow as a json param.

     - name: pr_labels
        valueFrom:
          event: payload.pull_request.labels

Actual: (go formatted struct)

    [map[color:cceeaa default:false description:This bug needs fixing id:1.342548891e+09 name::bug: Bugfix MDU6TGFiZWwxMzYyOTM3MDI2 url:https://api.github.com/repos/Codertocat/Hello-World/labels/:bug:%20Bugfix]]"

Expected: (json string)

[
     {
          "id": 1362937026,
          "node_id": "MDU6TGFiZWwxMzYyOTM3MDI2",
          "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Codertocat/Hello-World/labels/:bug:%20Bugfix",
          "name": ":bug: Bugfix",
         "color": "cceeaa",
         "default": false,
         "description": "This bug needs fixing"
       }
    ]

[alexec]

OK. Can you please test the engineer build mentioned in my comment has addressed this please?

[nojvek]

Hi @alexec, I don't manage our argo install so not sure how to test this. If it's working in your tests, that is good enough. We will update to next release of argo when it's out.

[alexec]

Merged into https://github.com/argoproj/argo/releases/tag/v2.12.0-rc4