Cyclic dependency when creating terraform code that creates a project and some related repositories.

[ricardf]

Describe the bug
Using both providers, terraform-provider-project and terraform-provider-artifactory, I create the project, with all the information needed with the attribute "repos" empty. Then, the repositories are created with reference to that project. Repositories are created inside the project.

After a second update, "repos" field will update from having some repositories to having none, as repos are empty. To solve this I need to add the list of repositories created... but I only can add them afterward as there is a dependency between the project and the repositories and the other way around.

Expected behavior
If repos field is not set, it should not be forced to be empty, or in some way, I need to be able to retrieve the repositories associated with the project to add them to that list.

[OSapozhnikov]

Hello @ricardf !
Like a workaround for this I use lifecycle condition:

lifecycle {
    ignore_changes = [
      repos
    ]
  }

In any case linking repos with project not trivially issue

[alexhung]

@ricardf The use of lifecycle.ignore_changes suggested by @OSapozhnikov is one workaround.

The way the provider is implemented currently (and the way Terraform state works) means you have to choose which provider you define the project-repo relationship. The simplest and recommended way is to define the list of repo keys in the project provider's repos attribute.

I understand that using the project_key attribute in the Artifactory provider is convenient as well as intuitive. However, the project_key support in the Artifactory API is incomplete. It only supports during repo creation time, and does not support modification so you can't update the project_key on an existing repo (either assign it to or unassign it from a project).

We will update the documentation and include more explanation and recommendation.

[oallauddin]

@alexhung
I currently use the approach of creating the repositories in one module and then assigning them to the project in a different module. The project module depends on the repositories module. When I assign the repositories to the project it modifies the project environment and project key of the repositories behind the scenes. I ignore these changes so I don't see the state changes. Not sure if you want to mention/document this somewhere.

resource "artifactory_local_maven_repository" "ext_maven_snapshots" {
  key                  = "ext-maven-snapshots"
  max_unique_snapshots = 10
  handle_releases      = false
  handle_snapshots     = true
  description          = "EXT Local Repository for Maven Snapshots"
  xray_index           = true

  lifecycle {
    prevent_destroy = true
    ignore_changes = [
      project_environments,
      project_key
    ]
  }
}

resource "artifactory_local_maven_repository" "ext_maven_releases" {
  key              = "ext-maven-releases"
  handle_releases  = true
  handle_snapshots = false
  description      = "EXT Local Repository for Maven Releases"
  xray_index       = true

  lifecycle {
    prevent_destroy = true
    ignore_changes = [
      project_environments,
      project_key
    ]
  }
}

[alexhung]

@oallauddin Great suggestion. I'll schedule this addition.