Make conda doctor pluggable

[ForgottenProgramme]

Checklist

• I added a descriptive title
• I searched open requests and couldn't find a duplicate

What is the idea?

Presently conda doctor is a subcommand plugin. The idea is to convert it into a plugin hook, so that users can write their own customized "health checks" (specific to their needs) and run them via conda doctor. This will allow users to create health checks for their unique cases.

• Update (Nov 8, 2023)

  Per further brainstorming and discussions the following design decisions were made:
  • conda doctor remains a CondaSubcommand plugin.
  • A new plugin hook called CondaHealthCheck is created. All plugins created using this hook run everytime conda doctor is run.
  • All existing healthchecks shipped with conda doctor originally are now converted into seperateCondaHealthCheck plugins.

Why is this needed?

This is needed so that the conda engineers are no longer a bottleneck in the development of newer health checks and community innovation is encouraged.

What should happen?

conda doctor is converted into a plugin hook.

• Update (Nov 8, 2023)

  • As described above, conda doctor should remain a CondaSubcommand plugin and a new plugin hook called CondaHealthCheck is to be created to make conda doctor pluggable.

Note:
I will be using the comment section here to note down my thoughts as I brainstorm ways to make this plugin to plugin-hook transition happen.

[ForgottenProgramme]

One way to go about this is to convert conda doctor into a project of its own in the conda-incubator repository.
The pros of this would be:

1. As conda-doctor becomes a separate project, it becomes easy to maintain and to invite community contributions.
2. All new health check plugins can live inside the conda doctor repo inside conda incubator.

But why would conda doctor be inside conda-incubator, which is a place for new projects that eventually mature and are moved to conda itself, when conda doctor was first developed inside conda itself? Maybe this point is not so important. I'm not sure.

[ForgottenProgramme]

The other option could be that conda doctor is converted to a plugin hook and it continues to live inside conda. A directory called health-check-plugins is created where all the existing conda-doctor health checks are placed. So now conda comes with the conda doctor plugin hook and a small set of health-checks.
We create a new project inside conda-incubator called conda-doctor-plugins, where community members can submit their health-checks plugins.
I like this idea better.

[travishathaway]

@ForgottenProgramme,

I like the second idea you proposed (creating a health check plugin and keep conda doctor inside of conda). For the conda incubator project, we could consider calling it something like, "conda-doctor-extras" to imply that it's not part of the core health checks already bundled with conda.