command line is awkward

[pitluga]

force down application
force down application -d

That doesn't make sense. Think about a better api

[phinze]

I'm glad I saw this, I was just about to force up to undo a force down

[ahayworth]

I agree, the CLI is awkward. I'm not sure what a better one really looks like though... we'd be open to suggestions (and PRs). Maybe something like litmusctl --service foo --health bar and just get rid of the (-d|force|health|up|down) options?

If we did that, I think we'd want to rework the HTTP API, though.

[ssgelm]

I think the best proposal I have seen was in the last comment of #16: force down and unforce down.

[ahayworth]

I had a thought yesterday:

litmusctl --service foo --health 0 --reason bar

We could deprecate the force (health|up|down) [-d] system and remove it in a future release. It'd definitely simplify the interaction model - all up/down/health really does is force a specific return value...

[ssgelm]

That's not entirely true though - force up != force health 100. I think you raise a valid point but I'm not 100% sure it actually ends up producing a less confusing UI.

[lollipopman]

Another option might be:

litmustctl add force-down -s foo -r bar
litmustctl rm force-down -s foo

I am not a huge fan of unforce, as it is an awkward English word

[pitluga]

How about this

litmusctl force-up --service foo --reason bar
litmusctl force-down --service foo --reason bar
litmusctl monitor --service foo # removes any existing forces

[lollipopman]

@pitluga I like monitor, though I would prefer to keep the short options, but that is mainly a preference for less typing.

[ssgelm]

What about litmusctl reset?

[tcsalameh]

I think the problem with commands that remove all existing forces is that there are cases where we we need more granularity, like removing a force down but not a force health.

Having a hard time coming up with an elegant interface that retains full functionality, but going off of @ssgelm suggestion something like this might work:

litmusctl force-down -s foo -r bar
litmusctl force-up -s foo -r bar
litmusctl force-health -s foo -r bar
litmusctl reset force-down -s foo
litmusctl reset force-up -s foo
litmusctl reset force-health -s foo

[pitluga]

The confusing thing about litmusctl to me was always that ability to layer forces. If you only can have one force in place for a service, you should be able to cover all cases.

litmus-ctl force-down -s foo # forces the service down with health <actual>
litmus-ctl force-heath 10 -s foo # makes the service up with health 10
litmus-ctl force-heath 0 -s foo # makes the service down with health 0
litmus-ctl reset -s foo # makes the service's up|down status respect <actual> health
litmus-ctl force-up -s foo # forces service up with health <acutal>

By removing the side-effects of needing to know the current status of the service, you make the commands more predictable.