When DevWorkspace is enabled and Che is upgraded to a new version, existing workspaces should pick the new editors

[l0rd]

Is your enhancement related to a problem? Please describe.

When Che uses DevWorkspace engine, everytime a user creates a workspace a DevWorkspaceTemplate object is created. The DWT has the description of the workspace editor and plugins extracted from Che plugin registry.

When Che is updated to a new version and the plugin registry contains updated descriptions of editors and plugins but the existing workspace will never be updated with the new editor~~/plugin~~ definition.

Describe the solution you'd like

At workspace re-start the client (Che UD) should check if there is the editor~~/plugins~~ described in the DWT has to be updated.

[l0rd]

If the editor of a workspace is Che default one, then Che should manage it and updated it if the default changes.
If the user has specified a custom editor we should not update it, even if it's outdated.

That said, to specify that the editor has been inferred by Che, we can use 3 labels and one annotation in the DevWorkspaceTemplate:

apiVersion: workspace.devfile.io/v1alpha2
kind: DevWorkspaceTemplate
metadata:
  annotations:
    che.eclipse.org/components-update-policy: managed
    che.eclipse.org/plugin-registry-url: https://che-plugin-registry.com/plugins/v3
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: che-theia-editor
    app.kubernetes.io/version: latest
    app.kubernetes.io/created-by: eclipse-che
    (...)

If label app.kubernetes.io/created-by: eclipse-che and annotation che.eclipse.org/components-update-policy: managed are there Che should automatically update the component if there is a new version.

[l0rd]

@benoitf @sleshchenko please review

[sleshchenko]

@l0rd that's a good explanation on how editor update should work.
There are some minor stuff we can discover during implementing it, like probably we also should put plugin registry URL somewhere, like for DevSandbox where they have theia from CRW and theia from upstream.

Then Che should manage it and updated it if the default changes.

Could you clarify if it's about Che Dashboard/Che Editor (like Theia) both?

The DWT has the description of the workspace editor and plugins extracted from Che plugin registry.

With sidecar policy - use dev container, that's not true anymore. Plugin is merged with user's devfile and we don't have the ability to update it, at least good way from Dashboard side.
But maybe we should reconsider that policy, and to simplify stuff deny it from Milestone 3.
Or we may declare that we don't update plugins but I'm not sure about corner cases, and use dev container currently only make stuff more difficult to understand and trace.

[sleshchenko]

Dropped the plugin from here since Dashboard knows nothing about plugins, and they are not in DWT, but merged into user's devfile

[max-cx]

Hi, a question to the assignee of this issue:

Will the outcome require any changes to the relevant content of the Installation Guide or Administration Guide or End-user Guide?

Yes/No?

[olexii4]

@max-cx
Yes. It requires some updates in the End-user Guide about a possible editor update If the editor is a default one.