1. Proposed title of this feature request
Changing desired version and channel at the same time via GitOps should be accepted by CVO

2. What is the nature and description of the request?
In OCP versions 4.8 and older, using a GitOps workflow during a y-stream upgrade does not function correctly if you update your channel and desired version at the same time. For example, if I am on 4.7.22 and desire to get to 4.8.x, I need to:

Change channel from fast-4.7 to fast-4.8
Change desired version from 4.7.22 to 4.8.3 after I have verified this is a valid path

The CVO apparently doesn't recognize the channel change for a period of time, but will attempt the version check sooner, which leads to an error because the desired version isn't in the available version list:

The cluster version is invalid: spec.desiredUpdate.version: Invalid
value: "4.8.3": when image is empty the update must be a previous
version or an available update

You can work around this by also setting the desiredImage field, but this is typically not required during z-streams (or any update). You hit this bug because the channel is being changed at the same time.

3. Why does the customer need this? (List the business requirements here)

• specifying the desired image name should never be required in most cases
• changing the channel should trigger an update immediately
• the common path using GitOps for a y-stream is to change the channel and version at the same time

4. List any affected packages or components.
CVO.