Using Konflux, we are bound to create an FBC application per OCP that we wish to update by releasing a Catalog container. Thus, releasing an Operator for six OCP versions would result in creating six FBC applications with one catalog container that may include all or part of rhwa-operator packages.

Currently, we support 6 FBC directories under catalogs when they share many empty or duplicated files.
To minimize the hassle of using generate-fbc.sh (inspired by https://github.com/openshift-cnv/cnv-fbc/blob/main/generate-fbc.sh) output and layout, we are grouping rhwa-operators packages under one catalog per OCP version.

Note: graph.yaml should be kept as it sums up the soon-to-be-created catalog in short manner. We aim here to reduce the amount of catalog files/directories.

In the past, we used the following commands to initiate the v4.18 directory

• (Run only for the first time) Run `./generate-fbc.sh --init-basic v4.18 yq`
• Run `./generate-fbc.sh --render v4.18` for OCP 4.18

Old layout:

catalogs/
|--v4.14/|
| |--graph.yaml|
| |--conatinerfile|
| |--v4.14/|
| | |.empty|
| |--catalog/|
| | |self-node-remediation/|
| | | |catalog.yaml|
|--v4.15/|
| |--graph.yaml|
| |--conatinerfile|
| |--v4.15/|
| | |.empty|
| |--catalog/|
| | |self-node-remediation/|
| | | |catalog.yaml
.
.
.

New layout:

catalogs/
|--v416/
|  |
|  |--self-node-remediation/
|  |  |-- catalog.yaml
|  |  |
|  |--node-healthcheck-operator/
|  |  |-- catalog.yaml
|  |
|  |-- graph.yaml
|  |
|--v417/
| |
| |--self-node-remediation/ 
| | |-- catalog.yaml
| | |
| |--node-healthcheck-operator/
| | |-- catalog.yaml
| |
| |-- graph.yaml
| |
|--Containerfile-v416
|
|--Containerfile-v417
|
|--Containerfile-v418
.
.
.

First attempt on implementation has been done at Reduce Catalogs files with unified-catalog MR

Relevant links:

• building-a-file-based-catalog - https://github.com/konflux-ci/olm-operator-konflux-sample/blob/main/docs/konflux-onboarding.md#building-a-file-based-catalog 
• File-based Catalogs by OLM - https://olm.operatorframework.io/docs/reference/file-based-catalogs/
• Related discussion - https://redhat-internal.slack.com/archives/C074JM28DTP/p1749534621380449