feat: migrate experiments config from array to bools by mwbrooks · Pull Request #398 · slackapi/slack-cli

mwbrooks · 2026-03-14T05:58:28Z

Changelog

N/A

Summary

This pull request migrates the experiments config format from an array to a map of boolean values. It includes backwards-compatible JSON unmarshaling that will auto-migrate config.json files.

Example

Before:

{
  "experiments": ["sandboxes"],
  "manifest": {
    "source": "local"
  },
  "project_id": "..."
}

After:

{
  "experiments": {
    "sandboxes": true,
    "charm" :false
  },
  "manifest": {
    "source": "local"
  },
  "project_id": "..."
}

Motivation

Why on earth are you doing this? 👨🏻‍🎨 🎨 🚲 🏠

The motivation is to unblock adding a slack config command to get and set system-level and project-level config files.

The config command will use a dot-notation to get and set key values:

$ slack config get manifest.source       # Getter
$ slack config set manifest.source local # Setter

When the <value> is a simple type, it works well, such as string, number, or boolean

$ slack config set manifest.source "local"  # String
$ slack config set some.timeout 10000       # Number
$ slack config set some.toggle false        # Boolean

When the <value> is a complex type, it's not intuitive or simple, such as arrays

# Which format do we support? It will require regex parsing in most cases
$ slack config set experiments experiment1, experiment2, experiment3
$ slack config set experiments ["experiment1", "experiment2", "experiment3"]
$ slack config set experiments ['experiment1', 'experiment2', 'experiment3']

# Does this append experiment1 to the array or replace the array with experiment1?
$ slack config set experiments experiment1

In order for setting [value] to be simple and intuitive, we should restrict the config.json files to use simple value types that can be expressed on the command-line (e.g. string, number, and boolean). Arrays are complex and error-prone to express (["value1", "value2"] or value1, value2) and all elements must be included each time.

This is why this pull request migrates the experiments to an object of key: boolean pairs.

An added bonus is that the new format naturally supports disabling experiments from the config file. 🧠

Requirements

I've read and understood the Contributing Guidelines and have done my best effort to follow them.
I've read and agree to the Code of Conduct.

Change the experiments field in SystemConfig, ProjectConfig, and Config from []experiment.Experiment to map[string]bool. This enables dot-notation access for the upcoming config command and allows explicit enable/disable of experiments. Includes backwards-compatible JSON unmarshaling that auto-converts the old array format (["charm"]) to the new map format ({"charm": true}). Updates help output to show all available experiments with ENABLED/DISABLED status for better discoverability.

Reverts the EXPERIMENTS section changes from the experiments migration commit to keep PR #1 focused on the array-to-map refactor. Help menu improvements will be done in a separate PR.

codecov · 2026-03-14T06:01:24Z

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 85.29412% with 10 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
⚠️ Please upload report for BASE (main@e47334c). Learn more about missing BASE report.
⚠️ Report is 1 commits behind head on main.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
internal/config/experiments.go	90.32%	2 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️
internal/config/experiments_unmarshal.go	80.00%	2 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️
internal/config/project.go	81.81%	1 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️
internal/config/system.go	81.81%	1 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##             main     #398   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage        ?   67.91%           
=======================================
  Files           ?      219           
  Lines           ?    18103           
  Branches        ?        0           
=======================================
  Hits            ?    12294           
  Misses          ?     4649           
  Partials        ?     1160

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zimeg

@mwbrooks LGTM! This is an amazing change for improved configurations overall - too often I changed "bolt" to "bolts" for confident testing ⚡ 🏁

I'm leaving a few questions related to the order of detecting experiments as well as question about typings. I also don't think we should preserve backward compatibilities for experiments since that adds meaningful logic otherwise but no blockers 🎆

zimeg · 2026-03-16T19:11:41Z

internal/config/config.go


 	// Feature experiments
 	ExperimentsFlag []string
-	experiments     []experiment.Experiment


🪬 question: Can we continue to use strict types of experiment or is this not allowed as a key?

experiments map[experiment.Experiment]bool

@zimeg Great suggestion and I should have caught that myself. I think we can use map[experiment.Experiment]bool, so let me look into refactoring it 💻

zimeg · 2026-03-16T19:15:46Z

internal/config/experiments.go

 	// Load from flags
 	for _, flagValue := range c.ExperimentsFlag {
-		experiments = append(experiments, experiment.Experiment(flagValue))
+		experiments[flagValue] = true
 	}


👁️‍🗨️ thought: The order of experiment parsing might need to be reversed so that project and user configurations can be overridden with a flag if the lower settings use a "false" value?

zimeg · 2026-03-16T19:17:52Z

internal/config/experiments_test.go

-		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf("{\"last_update_checked_at\":\"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00\",\"experiments\":[\"%s\"]}", validExperiment))
+		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf(`{"last_update_checked_at":"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00","experiments":{"%s":true}}`, validExperiment))


⭐ praise: Thanks for improving both the string formatting and experiments formatting here!

zimeg · 2026-03-16T19:18:52Z

internal/config/experiments_test.go

+	t.Run("Correctly finds experiments from old array format in config.json", func(t *testing.T) {
+		// Setup
+		ctx, fs, _, config, pathToConfigJSON, teardown := setup(t)
+		defer teardown(t)
+		_, mockPrintDebug := setupMockPrintDebug()
+
+		// Write old array format
+		jsonContents := []byte(
+			fmt.Sprintf(
+				`{"last_update_checked_at":"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00","experiments":["%s"]}`,
+				validExperiment,
+			),
+		)
+		_ = afero.WriteFile(fs, pathToConfigJSON, jsonContents, 0600)
+
+		config.LoadExperiments(ctx, mockPrintDebug)
+		experimentOn := config.WithExperimentOn(validExperiment)
+		assert.Equal(t, true, experimentOn)
+	})
+


Suggested change

t.Run("Correctly finds experiments from old array format in config.json", func(t *testing.T) {

// Setup

ctx, fs, _, config, pathToConfigJSON, teardown := setup(t)

defer teardown(t)

_, mockPrintDebug := setupMockPrintDebug()

// Write old array format

jsonContents := []byte(

fmt.Sprintf(

`{"last_update_checked_at":"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00","experiments":["%s"]}`,

validExperiment,

),

)

_ = afero.WriteFile(fs, pathToConfigJSON, jsonContents, 0600)

config.LoadExperiments(ctx, mockPrintDebug)

experimentOn := config.WithExperimentOn(validExperiment)

assert.Equal(t, true, experimentOn)

})

🪓 quibble(non-blocking): We might not fear breaking experimental configuration setups since this can become burdensome to keep in mind ongoing?

mwbrooks

Whoops, like a dummy I forgot to publish my comments for the reviewers 🤦🏻

mwbrooks · 2026-03-16T17:21:07Z

internal/config/experiments_test.go


 		// Write our test script to the memory file system used by the mock
-		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf("{\"last_update_checked_at\":\"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00\",\"experiments\":[\"%s\"]}", validExperiment))
+		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf(`{"last_update_checked_at":"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00","experiments":{"%s":true}}`, validExperiment))


note: Just updating the formatting to make the tests more readable with literals and no escapes.

mwbrooks · 2026-03-16T18:29:18Z

internal/config/experiments_test.go

 		assert.Contains(t, mockOutput.String(), "active project experiments: []")
 		assert.Contains(t, mockOutput.String(), fmt.Sprintf("active permanently enabled experiments: [%s]", experiment.Placeholder))
-		assert.Equal(t, []experiment.Experiment{experiment.Placeholder}, config.experiments)
+		assert.ElementsMatch(t, []experiment.Experiment{experiment.Placeholder}, config.GetExperiments())


note: Ordering now varies because it's a map instead of slice.

mwbrooks added 2 commits March 13, 2026 21:23

revert: remove help menu experiment display changes

95d3cd1

Reverts the EXPERIMENTS section changes from the experiments migration commit to keep PR #1 focused on the array-to-map refactor. Help menu improvements will be done in a separate PR.

mwbrooks added this to the Next Release milestone Mar 14, 2026

mwbrooks self-assigned this Mar 14, 2026

mwbrooks added enhancement M-T: A feature request for new functionality experiment Experimental feature accessed behind the --experiment flag or toggle semver:patch Use on pull requests to describe the release version increment labels Mar 14, 2026

mwbrooks changed the title ~~feat: migrate experiments config from array to map~~ feat: migrate experiments config from array to bools Mar 14, 2026

mwbrooks added 3 commits March 16, 2026 11:33

test: tighten up the tests

f01e37f

test: tighten up the tests

b288fb4

Merge branch 'main' into mwbrooks-config-experiments-type

47f6207

mwbrooks marked this pull request as ready for review March 16, 2026 18:43

mwbrooks requested a review from a team as a code owner March 16, 2026 18:43

zimeg approved these changes Mar 16, 2026

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mwbrooks commented Mar 17, 2026

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feat: migrate experiments config from array to bools#398

feat: migrate experiments config from array to bools#398
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		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf("{\"last_update_checked_at\":\"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00\",\"experiments\":[\"%s\"]}", validExperiment))
		jsonContents := []byte(fmt.Sprintf(`{"last_update_checked_at":"2023-05-11T15:41:07.799619-07:00","experiments":{"%s":true}}`, validExperiment))

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mwbrooks commented Mar 14, 2026 •

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