wiki: GerritBot vs gopherbot

[abitrolly]

https://go.dev/wiki/GerritBot vs https://go.dev/wiki/gopherbot

I see that only GerritBot is said to sync PRs, but real comments about PR being synced are made by @gopherbot (#73314 (comment)). If they too work together, it would be nice to document how, ideally with mermaid diagram. And if GerritBot is not commenting at all, why is it called *Bot in the first place?

[prattmic]

The name GerritBot is used for two things:

• A program, x/build/cmd/gerritbot responsible for syncing PRs to Gerrit.
• A Gerrit account that owns the synchronized Gerrit CLs. For example, https://go.dev/cl/664956 is owned by GerritBot.

The name gopherbot is used for two things:

• A program, x/build/cmd/gopherbot which performs a variety of automated actions. Most of the interactive ones are documented on https://go.dev/wiki/gopherbot.
• A GitHub account that posts automated issues/issue comments on GitHub.

When the gerritbot program posts comments on GitHub it uses the gopherbot GitHub account rather than having a dedicated GitHub. Note that a third program, x/build/cmd/watchflakes also posts using the gopherbot GitHub account.

I agree that this is confusing. Why is it this way? I don't know the history, but in practice I don't think there is a practical reason that the three programs need to use different GitHub accounts. In fact, there is no reason that cmd/gerritbot and cmd/watchflakes couldn't be part of cmd/gopherbot, it is simply an implementation detail.

In the immediate term, I agree that https://go.dev/wiki/GerritBot should mention that it comments on GitHub as gopherbot. In the longer term, in my opinion we shouldn't expose the implementation details of where the automation happens. i.e., IMO https://go.dev/wiki/GerritBot should simply be titled something like "GitHub Pull Requests".

[abitrolly]

Thanks for the explanation. It really clarifies the state of things.

we shouldn't expose the implementation details of where the automation happens. i.e., IMO https://go.dev/wiki/GerritBot should simply be titled something like "GitHub Pull Requests".

The idea was is that folks at GerritHub could reuse the workflow, which would help issues like nfs-ganesha/nfs-ganesha#1264

[prattmic]

cmd/gerritbot has a fair amount of Go-specific parts, but it could probably be a starting point for a more general solution other projects could use.

[abitrolly]

@prattmic does it make sense to try send patches that decouple Go parts upstream?

[prattmic]

Tools in x/build are intended for use outside of the Go project, and certainly don't have any compatibility guarantee. So my initial thought is that a pure fork would be better, but if the required changes are truly trivial then we can consider them.

[shashank-priyadarshi]

@prattmic I can take this up!
So far as I understood, this is just a documentation update for the GerritBot?

[prattmic]

Yes