[Proposal 2: Run] Call and define benchmark tests as GitHub Action jobs & workflows

docs/proposals/proposal-002-run.md

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+# Proposal 002 - Run the CNCF project benchmark tests as part of the automated pipeline
+
+This is step 2 from the automated pipeline to evaluate the carbon emissions of a CNCF project: Run benchmarking tests of the project (probably created for this purpose). See also step 1: [Trigger and Deploy](./proposal-001-trigger-and-deploy.md).
+
+- Tracking issue: [#83](https://github.com/cncf-tags/green-reviews-tooling/issues/83)
+- Implementation issue: [#86](https://github.com/cncf-tags/green-reviews-tooling/issues/86)
+
+## Authors
+
+- @locomundo
+- @nikimanoledaki
+- @AntonioDiTuri
+
+## Status
+
+Approved
+
+## Table of Contents
+<!-- toc -->
+- [Proposal 002 - Run the CNCF project benchmark tests as part of the automated pipeline](#proposal-002---run-the-cncf-project-benchmark-tests-as-part-of-the-automated-pipeline)
+  - [Authors](#authors)
+  - [Status](#status)
+  - [Table of Contents](#table-of-contents)
+  - [Summary](#summary)
+  - [Motivation](#motivation)
+    - [Goals](#goals)
+    - [Non-Goals](#non-goals)
+  - [Proposal](#proposal)
+    - [User Stories](#user-stories)
+    - [Risks and Mitigations](#risks-and-mitigations)
+  - [Design Details](#design-details)
+    - [Definitions](#definitions)
+    - [Calling the benchmark workflow](#calling-the-benchmark-workflow)
+      - [Use Case 1: A GitHub Action job using a workflow defined in the _same_ repository (preferred)](#use-case-1-a-github-action-job-using-a-workflow-defined-in-the-same-repository-preferred)
+      - [Use Case 2: A GitHub Action job using a workflow defined in a _different_ repository](#use-case-2-a-github-action-job-using-a-workflow-defined-in-a-different-repository)
+    - [Benchmark jobs](#benchmark-jobs)
+    - [Authentication](#authentication)
+    - [Versioning](#versioning)
+  - [Drawbacks (Optional)](#drawbacks-optional)
+  - [Alternatives](#alternatives)
+  - [Infrastructure Needed (Optional)](#infrastructure-needed-optional)
+<!-- /toc -->
+
+## Summary
+
+<!--
+A good summary is at least a paragraph in length and should be written with a wide audience
+in mind.
+
+It should encompass the entire document, and serve as both future documentation
+and as a quick reference for people coming by to learn the proposal's purpose
+without reading the entire thing.
+
+Both in this section and below, follow the guidelines of the [documentation
+style guide]. In particular, wrap lines to a reasonable length, to make it
+easier for reviewers to cite specific portions, and to minimize diff churn on
+updates.
+
+[documentation style guide]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/guide/style-guide.md
+-->
+
+## Motivation
+
+<!--
+This section is for explicitly listing the motivation, goals and non-goals of
+this proposal. Describe why the change is important, how it fits into the project's
+goals and the benefits to users.
+
+It is helpful to frame this to answer the question: "What is the problem this proposal
+is trying to solve?"
+-->
+
+This proposal is part of the pipeline automation of the Green Reviews tooling for Falco (and new CNCF projects in the future). Currently, we are using Flux to watch the upstream Falco repository and run the benchmark workflow (See definition below) constantly. For example, [this benchmark job](https://github.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/blob/main/kustomize/falco-driver/ebpf/stress-ng.yaml#L27-L32) is set up as a Kubernetes Deployment that runs an endless loop of [`stress-ng`](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Reference/stress-ng), which applies stress to the kernel. Instead, this proposal aims to provide a solution for how to deploy the benchmark workflows only when they are needed.
+
+Secondly, automating the way we run benchmark workflows in this pipeline will help to make the process easier and faster. It will enable both the WG Green Reviews and CNCF project maintainers to come up with new benchmark jobs and run them to get feedback faster.
+
+### Goals
+
+<!--
+List the specific goals of the proposal. What is it trying to achieve? How will we
+know that this has succeeded?
+-->
+
+  - Describe the actions to take immediately after the trigger and deployment of the CNCF project defined in [Proposal 1](./proposal-001-trigger-and-deploy.md)
+  - Describe how the pipeline should _fetch_ the benchmark jobs either from this repository (`cncf-tags/green-reviews-tooling`) or from an upstream repository (e.g. Falco's [`falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing`](https://github.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing)).
+  - Describe how the pipeline should _run_ the benchmark workflows through GitHub Actions for a specific project e.g. Falco
+  - Communicate to CNCF Projects interested in a Green Review what is the structure they need to comply in the process of creating a new benchmark job
+  - Provide _modularity_ for the benchmark tests.
+
+### Non-Goals
+
+<!--
+What is out of scope for this proposal? Listing non-goals helps to focus discussion
+and make progress.
+
+It is important to remember that non-goals are still equally important things
+which will be dealt with one day but are not things which need to be dealt with immediately
+within the scope of this work. This helps make sure everyone is crystal clear on the outcomes.
+-->
+
+* Defining or designing the content of benchmark tests themselves, or assigning responsibility for who should write them.
+
+## Proposal
+
+<!--
+This is where we get down to the specifics of what the proposal actually is:
+outlining your solution to the problem described in the Motivation section.
+This should have enough detail that reviewers can understand exactly what
+you're proposing, but should not include things like API designs or
+implementation. The "Design Details" section below is for the real
+nitty-gritty.
+-->
+
+### User Stories
+
+<!--
+Detail the things that people will be able to do if this proposal is implemented.
+Include as much detail as possible so that people can understand the "how" of
+the system. The goal here is to make this feel real for users without getting
+bogged down.
+-->
+
+**CNCF project maintainer selects the right benchmark for their project**
+
+Since different CNCF projects need different benchmarks to reproduce the right metrics, as a project maintainer, I would like to select the benchmarks reproducing a k8s context as realistic as possible.
+
+**CNCF project maintainer creates a new benchmark for their project**
+
+If the available benchmarks are not enough to set a realistic context, I would like to create and run my own benchmark
+
+**Green Reviews maintainer helps to create a new benchmark test for a specific CNCF project**
+
+As a Green Reviews maintainer, I can help a CNCF project maintainers to define the Functional Unit of a project so that the project maintainers can create a benchmark test.
+
+**CNCF Project maintainer modifies or removes a benchmark test**
+
+As a project maintainer, I can edit or remove a benchmark test if it is in a repository owned by the CNCF project itself, or otherwise if it’s in the Green Reviews repository by making a pull request with the changes.
+
+### Risks and Mitigations
+
+<!--
+What are the risks of this proposal, and how do we mitigate?
+Think broadly.  For example, consider how this will impact or be impacted
+by scaling to support more CNCF Projects.
+
+How will this affect the benchmark tests, CNCF Project Maintainers, pipeline maintainers, etc?
+-->
+
+As with every design document, there are multiple risks:
+
+- Extensibility: At the moment Falco is the first and only project that requested a Green Review (very appreciated guinea pig 🙂). When other CNCF projects will request other Green Reviews, we will learn more and adapt the project as needed.
+
+- Scalability: Green Reviews contributors should empower and encourage CNCF project maintainers to create benchmark jobs. The right collaboration will enable Green Reviews maintainers to scale to multiple projects (cause they will not need to understand the deployment details of every project) while producing higher quality metrics (cause the project is set up by the experts).
+
+- Validity: this point is less trivial and also conflicting with the one above but worth mention. If every single project defines its own benchmarks how will it be possible to compare different Projects result? This needs [deeper investigation that will be discussed in a separate proposal](https://github.com/cncf-tags/green-reviews-tooling/issues/103.)
+
+
+## Design Details
+
+<!--
+This section should contain enough information that the specifics of your
+change are understandable. This may include manifests or workflow examples
+(though not always required) or even code snippets. If there's any ambiguity
+about HOW your proposal will be implemented, this is the place to discuss them.
+-->
+
+The Green Reviews automated pipeline relies on putting together different reusable GitHub Action workflows to modularise the different moving parts. It would be helpful to familiarise oneself with the following documentation:
+- [GitHub Action workflows](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/about-workflows) - in summary, a workflow runs one or more jobs, and each job runs one or more actions.
+- [Reusing workflows](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows)
+- [Calling reusable workflows](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows#calling-a-reusable-workflow)
+
+### Definitions
+
+There are different components defined here and shown in the following diagram.
+
+![Green Reviews pipeline components](diagrams/green-reviews-pipeline-components.png "Green Reviews pipeline components")
+
+Let's recap some of the components defined in [Proposal 1](proposal-001-trigger-and-deploy.md):
+1. **Green Reviews pipeline**: the Continuous Integration pipeline which deploys a CNCF project to a test cluster, runs a set of benchmarks while measuring carbon emissions and stores the results. It is implemented by the workflows listed below.
+2. **Cron workflow**: This refers to the initial GitHub Action workflow (described in proposal 1) and which dispatches a project workflow (see next definition), as well as a delete workflow to clean up the resources created by the project workflow.
+3. **Project workflow**: The project workflow is dispatched by the Cron workflow. A project workflow can be, for example, a Falco workflow. A project workflow deploys the project and calls the benchmark workflow (see below). A project workflow can be dispatched more than once if there are multiple project variants/setups. In addition, a Project workflow, which is also just another GitHub Action workflow, contains a list of GitHub Action Jobs.
+4. **Delete/cleanup workflow**: This is the one to make sure that the resources created by the project workflow are deleted so the environments go back to the initial state.
+
+This proposal adds the following components:
+5. **[new] Benchmark workflow**: A list of benchmark jobs that needs to be run in parallel. A benchmark workflow has a `1:many` relationship with benchmark jobs.
+6. **[new] Benchmark job**: A list of benchmark instructions that are executed on the cluster. A benchmark job is an instance of a GitHub Action Job. Which benchmark test to run is defined by inputs in the calling workflow: a CNCF project and a variant.
+
+### Calling the benchmark workflow
+
+When the project workflow starts, it deploys the project on the test environment and then runs the test job. For modularity and/or clarity, the benchmark job could be defined in two different ways:
+
+As a job that calls another GitHub Action workflow (yes, yet another workflow 🙂) that contains the instructions. The workflow can be either:
+  1. Internal: In the Green Reviews WG repository (**preferred**)
+  2. External: In a separate repository, such as an upstream CNCF project repository
+The two use cases for defining a benchmark workflow are illustrated below.
+
+![Calling the benchmark job](diagrams/calling-benchmark-job.png "Calling the benchmark job")
+
+This section defines _benchmark workflow_ and _benchmark job_. It describes how to run them from the _project workflow_. It dives deeper into the following:
+
+* How a benchmark workflow should be called from the project workflow
+* What a benchmark workflow must contain in order to run on the cluster
+
+At a bare minimum, the benchmark workflow must contain a benchmark job with steps of what should run in the Kubernetes cluster. For example, the Falco project maintainers have identified that one way to test the Falco project is through a test that runs `stress-ng` for a given period of time. The steps are contained in a Deployment manifest which can be directly applied to the community cluster using `kubectl`
+
+The benchmark workflows will be stored in the same JSON file as the other parameters for CNCF projects as defined in [Proposal 1](./proposal-001-trigger-and-deploy.md). It can be added as an additional input.
+
+```yaml
+# .github/workflows/benchmark-pipeline.yaml
+jobs:
+  # first, must authenticate to the Kubernetes cluster
+  # this is a benchmark job
+  benchmark-job:
+    # benchmark job calls on benchmark workflow
+    uses: ${{ inputs.benchmark_path }} # refers to benchmark workflow path
+```
+
+This will fetch the workflow using the `jobs.<job_id>.uses` syntax defined [here](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_iduses).
+
+Below are two use cases: the benchmark workflow may be defined in the Green Reviews repository or in a separate repository.
+
+#### Use Case 1: A GitHub Action job using a workflow defined in the _same_ repository (preferred)
+
+If the benchmark workflow is located in the Green Reviews repository, `benchmark_path` would refer to, for example, `cncf-tags/green-reviews-tooling/.github/workflows/falco-benchmark-workflow.yml@v1`.
+
+In terms of the directory structure, in the `green-reviews-tooling` repository, we could create a subfolder such as `./github/workflows/benchmark-workflows` to contain the benchmark workflows.
+
+#### Use Case 2: A GitHub Action job using a workflow defined in a _different_ repository
+
+We want to accommodate different methods of setting up the tests depending on the CNCF project. Given this, the benchmark workflow containing the benchmark job could be defined in a different repository. In this case, the `benchmark_path` would be, for example, `falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/.github/workflows/workflow.yml@v1`.
+
+![Pipeline run](diagrams/pipeline-run.png "An example pipeline run")
+
+### Benchmark jobs
+
+The benchmark workflow which contains the benchmark jobs and their test steps may look like the following:
+
+```yaml
+# .github/workflows/tests/falco-benchmark-workflow.yaml
+jobs:
+  stress-ng-test:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - run: |
+          # the action to take here depends on the Functional Unit of the CNCF project. wait for amount of time, for resources
+          kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/main/kustomize/falco-driver/ebpf/stress-ng.yaml
+          # the one above is a workflow with a single benchmark job, but if your workflow needs multiple benchmark job, it is enough to define additional steps:
+          # e.g. for redis-test: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/blob/main/kustomize/falco-driver/ebpf/redis.yaml
+          # for event-generator-test -> kubectl apply -f https://github.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/blob/main/kustomize/falco-driver/ebpf/falco-event-generator.yaml
+          wait 15m
+      - delete: |
+         kubectl delete -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/falcosecurity/cncf-green-review-testing/main/kustomize/falco-driver/ebpf/stress-ng.yaml  # other Falco tests:
+```
+
+The benchmark job has some test instructions/steps. In this case, it applies an upstream Kubernetes manifest. This manifest contains a `while` loop that runs `stress-ng`. The manifest already defines where the test should run in the cluster i.e. in which namespace. The functional unit test is time-bound in this case and scoped to 15 minutes. Therefore, we deploy this test, wait for 15 minutes, then delete the manifest to end the loop. The test steps depend on the functional unit of each CNCF project.
+
+In the example above, the Kubernetes manifest that is applied to the cluster is located in a different repository: this is the case of an externally defined benchmark
+
+Each workflow should ensure that any artefacts that were deployed as part of the benchmark job should be deleted at the end of the test run.
+
+### Authentication
+
+Before the benchmark workflow is called on, we assume that the workflow already contains a secret with a kubeconfig to authenticate with the test cluster and Falco has already been deployed to it. It is required that the pipeline authenticates with the Kubernetes cluster before running the job with the test.
+
+### Versioning
+
+For versioning, this syntax can be configured to use `@main` or `@another-branch` which would be nice for versioning and testing specific releases.
+
+## Drawbacks (Optional)
+
+<!--
+What other approaches did you consider, and why did you rule them out? These do
+not need to be as detailed as the proposal, but should include enough
+information to express the idea and why it was not acceptable.
+-->
+
+## Alternatives
+
+Here a list of the alternatives we considered:
+
+- **mapping between workflows and CNCF projects**: we have decided for a 1:1 relationship, every project will only have one workflow, again for simplicity. We could add support for 1:many in the future
+
+- **mapping between workflows and jobs**: we have decided a 1:Many relationship, 1 workflow and many jobs, but a different option we evaluated was a 1:1 relationship. We choose for the first option cause it is simpler and gives a clear overview about what jobs are needed for a project workflow
+
+## Infrastructure Needed (Optional)
+
+<!--
+Use this section if you need things from the project/SIG. Examples include a
+new subproject, repos requested, or GitHub details. Listing these here allows a
+SIG to get the process for these resources started right away.
+-->
+
+<!-- TODO:
+* Creating a template for how to "register" a benchmark test with everything that is needed and clear instructions on how to add a new one. Audience is primarily CNCF project maintainers. -->