developer_workflow_bug_fix_older_package_version.md

Developer workflow: release a bug fix for supporting older package version

In some cases, when we drop the support for an older version of the stack and later on find out needing to add a bug fix to the some old package version, we have to make some manual changes to release the bug fix to users. For example: in this PR (AWS package version 1.23.4), support for Kibana version 7.x was dropped and bumped the AWS package version from 1.19.5 to 1.20.0. But we found a bug in the EC2 dashboard that needs to be fixed with Kibana version 7.x. So instead of adding a new AWS package version 1.23.5, we need to fix it between 1.19.5 and 1.20.0.

Follow these detailed steps to release a fix for a given package version:

1. Find git commit (package version) that needs to be fixed

   In the example above, the commit to be fixed is the one right before this PR updating package aws:

   • Using the web:

     • Look for the merge commit of the PR
       • https://github.com/elastic/integrations/commit/aa63e1f6a61d2a017e1f88af2735db129cc68e0c
       • It can be found as one of the last messages in the PR
     • And then show the previous commits for that changeset inside the package folder (e.g. packages/aws):
       • https://github.com/elastic/integrations/commits/aa63e1f6a61d2a017e1f88af2735db129cc68e0c/packages/aws/

   • Using the command line:

     cd packages/<package_name>
     git log --grep "#<pr_id>" .
     git log -n 1 <merge_commit>^ .
     
     # following the example
     $ cd packages/aws
     $ git log --grep "#3688"
     commit aa63e1f6a61d2a017e1f88af2735db129cc68e0c
     Author: Joe Reuter <email@johannes-reuter.de>
     Date:   Mon Aug 8 17:14:55 2022 +0200
     
         Inline all aws dashboards (#3688)
         
         * inline all aws dashboards
         
         * format
         
         * apply the right format
         
         * inline again
         
         * format
     $ git log -n 1 aa63e1f6a61d2a017e1f88af2735db129cc68e0c^ .
     commit 8cb321075afb9b77ea965e1373a03a603d9c9796
     Author: Mario Castro <mariocaster@gmail.com>
     Date:   Thu Aug 4 16:52:06 2022 +0200
     
         Move lightweight manifest to integration for EBS data stream (#3856)

2. Create a branch

   Create a branch out of the commit from the previous step (8cb321075afb9b77ea965e1373a03a603d9c9796) and name it following this pattern: backport-<package_name>-<package_major_version>.<package_minor_version>. For example: backport-aws-1.19.

   This branch must be pushed to the upstream repository https://github.com/elastic/integrations.git in order to run the required CI pipelines.

3. Create a PR for the bug fix

   Create a new branch in your own remote (it is advised not using a branch name starting with backport-), and apply bugfixes there. Remember to update the version in the package manifest (update patch version like 1.19.<x+1>) and add a new changelog entry for this patch version.

   Once ready, open a PR selecting as a base branch the one created above: backport-<package_name>-<package_major_version>.<package_minor_version> (e.g. backport-aws-1.19).

   Once this PR is merged, this new version of the package is going to be published automatically following the usual CI/CD jobs.

   If it is needed to release a new fix for that version, there is no need to create a new branch. Just create a new PR to merge a new branch onto the same backport branch created previously.