fix(mgmt): fail loud on missing federation kubeconfig; rename federation client#120
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scotwells merged 1 commit intoMay 29, 2026
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…Client Management controllers (WorkloadDeploymentFederator, InstanceProjector) now refuse to start when --enable-management-controllers is set but --federation-kubeconfig is omitted, logging a clear error and exiting 1. Previously the controllers were silently skipped — the same fail-open-silent class as the quota P1 issue — leaving federation and instance projection broken with no operator-visible signal. Alongside the fail-loud guard, rename the Karmada/federation client identifiers to a neutral "federation" framing (FederationClient, federationRestConfig, --federation-kubeconfig / FEDERATION_KUBECONFIG) across all three controllers, cmd/main.go, and the kustomize base manifests. The previous --upstream-kubeconfig flag is removed; deployments must migrate to --federation-kubeconfig. Update all comments to match. Coordination note: once this artifact is deployed, management-plane and edge/lab deployments must set FEDERATION_KUBECONFIG (infra PRs in parallel). Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
Management controllers now fail fast at startup — with a clear error and immediate exit — when
--enable-management-controllersis set but--federation-kubeconfigis not. Previously,WorkloadDeploymentFederatorandInstanceProjectorwere silently skipped, so federation and instance-status projection were invisibly broken: workloads appeared to schedule but never actually federated to edge cells, with no log signal and no alert. This is the same fail-open-silent pattern as the quota P1 (fixed in #118).Why it matters
An operator who sets
--enable-management-controllers=truebut mis-wires the federation kubeconfig env var gets a hard failure at pod startup — visible in pod logs, surfaced immediately in a rollout — rather than a degraded system that silently does nothing for hours or until a workload is traced end-to-end.What changed
Fail-loud guard (
cmd/main.go): immediately after kubeconfig loading, if--enable-management-controllersis true and--federation-kubeconfigwas not provided, the process logs"management controllers enabled but no federation kubeconfig configured"withhint: set --federation-kubeconfigand exits 1. The guard fires before any manager or controller setup, so the failure is instant and unambiguous. The--enable-cell-controllerspath is unaffected.Federation client rename: the Karmada client was named
UpstreamClient/--upstream-kubeconfig/UPSTREAM_KUBECONFIG— all directional names that only make sense from one vantage point. These are renamed toFederationClient/--federation-kubeconfig/FEDERATION_KUBECONFIGacrosscmd/main.go, the three controller structs (WorkloadDeploymentFederator,InstanceProjector,InstanceReconciler), their tests, and the kustomize base manifests. ThesetupManagementControllershelper introduced in #118 is updated in place. All comments describing the Karmada plane as the "downstream control plane" are corrected.Deployment coordination required: once this image is deployed, management-plane and edge/lab deployments must supply
FEDERATION_KUBECONFIG(notUPSTREAM_KUBECONFIG). Paired with infra #2622 (management plane) and #2623 (edge/lab), which already setFEDERATION_KUBECONFIG.Test plan
go build ./...— cleango vet ./...— cleanmake test— all tests pass (controller, config, validation, stateful instancecontrol)make lint(golangci-lint v2.12.2) — 0 issuesc1c6261(post-fix(quota): Enforce and harden project quota for edge-cell Instances #118);staticcheckandgocycloissues from the original base are resolved--enable-management-controllersand no--federation-kubeconfig→ expect immediate exit 1 with clear error in logs🤖 Generated with Claude Code