[Gitpod] Please help keep AWS CDK prebuilds running

[jankeromnes]

Hello AWS CDK developers! 👋

We've noticed that https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk is very popular on Gitpod, but also that it's still using an old Prebuilds mechanism that we're about to deprecate: gitpod-io/gitpod#9898

If we don't do anything about this, AWS CDK prebuilds will stop working, and workspaces will take longer to start up for AWS CDK core developers & community, which would be a shame.

We at Gitpod would love to continue supporting AWS CDK with prebuilds and extra resources, but we need your help. Could a repo maintainer please follow these steps?

1. Create a Team in Gitpod for AWS CDK core developers
2. Add https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk as a new Project under this Team

This would ensure that AWS CDK prebuilds continue to work well for everyone. I'm happy to help with this or answer any questions you may have!

Cc @skinny85 @pahud

[pahud]

@jankeromnes thank you for the heads up. I will bring this internally to the team.

[pahud]

Hi @jankeromnes we have completed the 2 steps above. Please let me know if there's anything missing. Thanks.

[jankeromnes]

Awesome, many thanks @pahud! I can confirm that everything looks good now from our side. ✅

Prebuilds for https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk are now using the new system, so they'll:

• continue running even after we deprecate the old system (Epic: Require a Gitpod project for prebuilds  gitpod-io/gitpod#9898)
• and (as a bonus) in your new team UI, you'll now be able to see all AWS CDK prebuilds; whether they've succeeded or failed; how long they took; etc (this can be useful in case you want to investigate what your prebuilds are doing)

[pahud]

This is AWESOME! Thank you so much!!

[neilkuan]

thank @jankeromnes

[mrgrain]

Hm @jankeromnes I've just seen a message on our account that prebuilds have been disabled due to 7 days inactivity.

Am I interpreting this information correctly that no one would have used our GitPods in the 7 days prior it being disabled?
Also, would there be a way to disable this behavior?

[jankeromnes]

Hi @mrgrain! Thank you for reporting this.

In theory, yes this would mean that the https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk repository would not have been opened in Gitpod at all in the last 7 days. However, looking into Gitpod's stats, I can see that this is not the case: https://github.com/aws/aws-cdk generally sees at least a couple workspaces every day, especially on week days. 🤔

So the other theory could be that Gitpod's project-activity detection doesn't work reliably, or maybe that it's thrown off by the fact that aws-cdk recently migrated from the old prebuilds mechanism over to the new one?

• A simple work-around to resume prebuilds for aws-cdk is to manually trigger a new prebuild, e.g. by clicking on a Run Prebuild button in Gitpod's dashboard.

• Meanwhile, I'll investigate why aws-cdk's project-activity isn't being detected, and try to get it working again.

• Also, in general I agree that it would be nice if this "project inactivity" feature could be disabled entirely. I've opened a feature request for this: Allow disabling the "prebuilds paused due to inactivity" feature in Project Settings gitpod-io/gitpod#15215

[mrgrain]

Thanks for looking into this @jankeromnes ! I had already re-enabled it, the notification offered me button. Unfortunately forgot to take a screenshot 😅

An other vital feature on pausing prebuilds would be to get an email notification.

[github-actions[bot]]

Hello! Reopening this discussion to make it searchable.