2024-05-28 Aries Cloud Agent - Python Users Group Community Meeting

Summary:

Recording: 

Call Time: 8:00 Pacific / 17:00 Central Europe

Recordings From the Call:  

Welcome, Introductions and Announcements

Attendees

• @Stephen Curran (Cloud Compass Computing Inc.) <swcurran@cloudcompass.ca>

• @Daniel Bluhm (Indicio PBC) <daniel@indicio.tech>

• @Wade Barnes   (Neoteric Technologies Inc / BC Gov) <wade@neoterictech.ca>

• @Emiliano Suñé  (Quartech / BC Gov) <emiliano.sune@quartech.com>

• @Patrick St-Louis (Digital Trust Laboratory of Canada / Open Security and Identity) <patrick.st-louis@opsecid.ca>

Documentation:

• ACA-Py documentation: https://aca-py.org

Agenda

• Code Coverage – an update

• Dependabot PRs – actions

  • Last ACA-Pug's presentation on GHA Action for dependencies has been merged and we have PRs.

  • Now we do something about them.

    • Steps:

      • Close any that don't make sense for ACA-Py – e.g. upgrading from Python 3.9 to 3.12 based on a dependabot PR.

      • For the rest – create a new PR and manually apply each dependabot PR to that PR, and submit it.

        • Once it is merged, dependabot will close all of its PRs that are no longer necessary. 

      • Could do this in two or three steps, depending on the number of PRs to process:

        • All Dependabot ACA-Py dependency PRs that pass the tests.

        • The rest of the Dependabot ACA-Py dependency PRs, with a focus on testing what gets broken by the dependency updates.

        • The Dependabot Docker PRs for demos, and the like – those not related to ACA-Py dependencies.

    • Document the process in a "handlingDependabotPRs.md" file

• --no-transport  start up option PR 2990 

• Discussion: Considering dropping BBS Signature support for now?

  • Issue: The current BBS Library does not have an Arm artifact, so we can support Mac M1 (etc.) devices natively.

    • Request for help in upgrading from BBS Library supplier (MattrGlobal) has not been answered.  

    • Impact – almost unusable on a Mac right now.

  • Options:

    • Create Docker images that don't have BBS SIgnatures Signatures included, and provide guidance on install time changes needed to add it.

      • Kind of like a plugin – deployers must explicitly add BBS vs. expecting to be there. 

      • Variation: Multiple tags – e.g. one with a different tag for "with BBS" and "without BBS".

        • What goes in the current tag, what goes in the version with the new tag?

    • Switch to another implementation?

      • Multiple, non-interoperable implementations.  It's not clear which one to switch to.

    • **THE "CORRECT" OPTION – BUT MORE WORK** Move current implementation to a plugin

      • Allows those using it (is there anyone?) to use the plugin.

      • This is the pattern we are moving to – removing from core.

      • Allows for other implementations in the same pattern.

    • Drop the support for now.

      • The "next gen" BBS signatures implementations are coming – wait for them and add back then.

  • Comments from chat:

    • 08:50:41     From Daniel Bluhm : I have the same question as Patrick; if it's not getting used or is pretty far out of spec, is it worth going through the effort of keeping it going?

    • 08:50:51     From Colton Wolkins : #4 drops it completely, instead of allowing it as an option (from my understanding)

    • 08:52:45     From Daniel Bluhm : Plugin-ifying would probably require the most development effort to execute

    • 08:53:07     From Daniel Bluhm : There are some hacky spots to support BBS keys that would need to be addressed

    • 08:56:43     From Daniel Bluhm : We've been able to work around it for our development focus for those on my team using M*, though it is a frequent headache still. Just not blocking.

    • 08:57:53     From Colton Wolkins : Isn't it by running the containers in amd64 mode or something like that?

    • 08:57:54     From Emiliano Suñé : "We've been able to work around it for our development focus for those on my team using M*, though it is a frequent headache still. Just not blocking". Do you have tips/recommendations we may want to include in the docs in the meantime for this? I usually happen to switch to using arm64 right after I forgot what I did the time before to get it working...

    • 08:58:46     From Emiliano Suñé : If you are running the image you can specify the platform, but if you are developing (i.e.: devcontainer) it will complain about the architecture when installing dependencies in the first place since the proper binaries are not available

    • 09:00:07     From Colton Wolkins : I don't have a Mac, so I can't 100% vouch for this, but I'm seeing this export internally @Emiliano Suñé : export DOCKER_DEFAULT_PLATFORM=linux/amd64

    • 09:00:08     From Colton Wolkins : [This is an encrypted message]

    • 09:00:14     From Daniel Bluhm : We haven't gotten into the habit of using devcontainers (yet) at least but yeah, it's that platform flag that we use, specifying linux/amd64

• Official Releases

  • Pradeep to put in a PR with his suggestion for LTS handling.

• AnonCreds Rust Revocation Issue in ACA-Py – status - Anoncreds Revoking one credential of many of the same type fails proof

• Open Discussion

Upcoming Meeting Topics:

Future Topics

• Formal test plan

  • We go through a process of release candidates but we often still end up discovering bugs after releases are out

  • Daniel to create an issue to start a discussion

Action items