Lockifest manifests generate errors when `--no-generation` set

[maxrake]

Lockifest manifests generate errors when `--no-generation` set

[cd-work]

I'd argue this is expected behavior. You're telling the lockfile generator to parse a file and saying that no lockfile generation should be performed. So if the file is a valid lockfile but the contents aren't a valid lockfile, shouldn't we error out?

Like what do you suggest should happen if the manifest's content is actually invalid and it's a lockfile? How are we to detect that it failed because it is a manifest, when we have no way to determine it is one?

[maxrake]

I'd argue this is expected behavior. You're telling the lockfile generator to parse a file and saying that no lockfile generation should be performed. So if the file is a valid lockfile but the contents aren't a valid lockfile, shouldn't we error out?

Having --no-generation specified does not automatically mean the dependency file is a known lockfile. It could still be a manifest. Erroring out is still expected...but with a specific error code (20) and a message that explains what happened instead of a parsing stack trace.

Like what do you suggest should happen if the manifest's content is actually invalid and it's a lockfile? How are we to detect that it failed because it is a manifest, when we have no way to determine it is one?

The current lockfile generation documentation for lockifests states:

Phylum handles these files by first attempting to analyze them as a lockfile. If anything in the file is not fully specified, this will fail, and Phylum will silence the error and proceed to lockfile generation.

The suggestion here for what should happen is a modification to say:

Phylum handles these files by first attempting to analyze them as a lockfile. If anything in the file is not fully specified, this will fail, and Phylum will silence the error and proceed to lockfile generation unless lockfile generation is suppressed (e.g., via --no-generation option). In that case, error code 20 will be returned along with a message explaining how the lockifest could not be parsed as a lockfile and requires lockfile generation to parse as a manifest, but lockfile generation was disabled through the CLI.

That is likely too wordy to use in the final documentation update, but the intent is hopefully more clear.

[maxrake]

Just to clarify, your complaint here is simply about the error code, correct?

Yes...the error code and the inscrutable output.

[cd-work]

That is likely too wordy to use in the final documentation update, but the intent is hopefully more clear.

Yeah at that point reading the documentation just becomes a chore.

I also do not believe we should return error code 20 in this case. It doesn't make any sense when we cannot determine the cause of the failure.