Story (Required)

As a user of Argo CD trying to use image updater I want my image updates written back to the source manifest

Background (Required)

Image Updater supports 2 write back methods : "argocd" (psuedo-persistent) and "git" (persistent). When Image Updater is merged into Argo CD, it may be merged either as a separate controller, or integrated into the application controller. There are also considerations to be made such as - if it is a separate controller should it write to the application resource directly?  

Currently proposed approach is:

1. For "argocd" method : Image Updater needs to write changes into the application manifest in app-controller memory so that changes are then applied to the cluster by app-controller in a non-persistent way. Same process could be followed to write image update status updates to the application status field

2. For "git" method: Workflow stays the same as present. Image updater should check status for last successful update to determine if a write back operation is necessary. write back should contain status updates as well

Out of scope

pull request support

Approach (Required)

Image Updater must be able to communicate with Git to create commits to the designated branch/repo of the source application. Code to do this already exists in image updater repo today, this code needs to be adapted to fit into Argo CD using existing methods to avoid code redundancy. Previous implementation draft PR (https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/pull/10446) can be used for reference  

Dependencies

Updated Application API and image updater controller logic to watch for new application fields

Acceptance Criteria (Mandatory)

• Image Updater write back is performed as accepted by community in proposal
• unit/e2e tests

INVEST Checklist

Dependencies identified

Blockers noted and expected delivery timelines set

Design is implementable

Acceptance criteria agreed upon

Story estimated

Legend

Unknown

Verified

Unsatisfied

Done Checklist

• Code is completed, reviewed, documented and checked in
• Acceptance criteria are met