The nightly upgrade chain detected 1.36, the preflight compat-gate refused it,
and that produced a Failed preflight Job + a K8sUpgradeBlocked alert EVERY
night — even though the block is unactionable (no kyverno/ESO release supports
1.36 yet, and gpu-operator is pinned to its current version because bumping it
needs a newer NVIDIA driver image + Ubuntu/kernel we're not ready for). Viktor
asked to teach the checker to tell 'we can fix this' apart from 'nothing to do
but wait', and stop the nightly Failed-Job + alert noise for the latter.
compat-gate.py now classifies each blocker:
- ACTIONABLE: a newer addon version in addon-compat.json supports the target
-> exit 2, k8s_upgrade_blocked=1 -> K8sUpgradeBlocked alert (reasons in the
nightly report).
- WAITING-on-upstream: no released version supports the target yet -> held.
- PINNED: addon marked pinned in the matrix (gpu-operator) -> held.
Held wins on a mix -> exit 4, k8s_upgrade_held=1 (NEW gauge), NO alert.
Tidy the block path (Viktor's scope choice): deliberate gate decisions now make
the preflight Job Complete cleanly (HALT_CHAIN stops chain progression without a
non-zero exit), so they no longer create Failed Jobs. Dropped the now-obsolete
'unless k8s_upgrade_blocked==1' suppression from K8sUpgradeChainJobFailed. Gauge
is pushed definitively once per run (no 1->0->1 flap that re-notifies). The
detector re-spawns a refused-but-Complete preflight nightly (silently) so a
standing hold still re-evaluates, and only announces genuine new/Failed spawns.
nightly-report gains a quiet '⏸️ HELD' headline with reasons grouped by class.
gpu-operator pinned in addon-compat.json (unpin = delete pinned + pin_reason).
Net effect on 1.36: HELD + quiet (waiting on kyverno/ESO, gpu-operator pinned;
Calico the lone actionable piece) — no nightly Failed Job, no alert, just the
morning report's HELD line. Design: docs/plans/2026-06-28-k8s-upgrade-gate-held-classification.md
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The nightly upgrade chain fails a preflight Job and raises K8sUpgradeBlocked
every night for the 1.36 target, even though the block is unactionable: no
kyverno/ESO release supports 1.36 yet and gpu-operator is deliberately pinned
(NVIDIA driver/Ubuntu coupling). Viktor asked to teach the checker to tell
'we can fix this' apart from 'nothing to do but wait', and stop the nightly
Failed-Job + alert noise for the latter.
This documents the design: classify each blocker as actionable / waiting-
upstream / pinned, keep the alert only for actionable, quiet the held case to
the nightly report, and make deliberate gate decisions Complete cleanly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
