Allow deployed containers to have different release versions

[yoomlam]

Currently, all the container images have the same image tag (or release version) regardless of whether the container itself has changed or not, which doesn't follow the concept of semantic versioning. This also means when we want to release new version of a container, other containers will be redeployed. This coupling of container images imposes an unnecessary constraint that reduces options in the future.

AC

• We want a way to allow each container to have its own version, with no or minimal increases in manual maintenance or complexity overhead. We want to be able to deploy containers that have been updated. For example, The api-gateway container image doesn't change much. Another example: once domain-cc is stable, its version will remain unchanged, while we deploy new versions of a new domain-.... It doesn't make sense for domain-cc version number to change if it's features haven't changed.

Context

Involves understanding git tags, Gradle release plugin, image publishing to GHCR, inputs to SecRel, image tags in Helm charts, GitHub Action workflows, and our deployment process.

[yoomlam]

• Enable different versions of container images to be published; don't republished same versions of images
  • only publish images if the image tag doesn't already exist GHCR: Don't overwrite existing published images with same tag #1727. As a result, existing published images aren't sent to SecRel for rescanning.
• Enable different versions of images to be specified and deployed Decouple container image versions #1730
• Pin versions of unpinned images before a release DevOps: automatically pin and unpin image versions #1756
• Unpin images if it has changed DevOps: automatically pin and unpin image versions #1756
• Document on the wiki: https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/abd-vro/wiki/Container-Image-Versions

[yoomlam]

Yoom will be watching for errors during release creation and deploys.

[yoomlam]

Addressed some errors and made some improvements. It appears to be working.