Steps start time and end time

[pritidesai]

A taskRun is declared failure when a step exits with non zero exit code. The taskRun status contains the list of the steps of that task with reason set to Error for the failed step and all the subsequent steps. Setting the reason to error is meaningful and helpful in communicating the status of the step:

kubectl get tr test-taskrun-tl894 -o json | jq .status.steps

[
  {
    "container": "step-step0",
    "imageID": "docker-pullable://alpine@sha256:234cb88d3020898631af0ccbbcca9a66ae7306ecd30c9720690858c1b007d2a0",
    "name": "step0",
    "terminated": {
      "containerID": "docker://15612f3b24d8c3956cebc23f85fd4975268d2633c22d903bc7b78012694e5d85",
      "exitCode": 11,
      "finishedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z",
      "reason": "Error",
      "startedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z"
    }
  },
  {
    "container": "step-step1",
    "imageID": "docker-pullable://alpine@sha256:234cb88d3020898631af0ccbbcca9a66ae7306ecd30c9720690858c1b007d2a0",
    "name": "step1",
    "terminated": {
      "containerID": "docker://cc0e768e35ccc62b1f547562fd9c30bc8d3f73bb4db76441fad20be64b880138",
      "exitCode": 1,
      "finishedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z",
      "reason": "Error",
      "startedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z"
    }
  },
  {
    "container": "step-step2",
    "imageID": "docker-pullable://alpine@sha256:234cb88d3020898631af0ccbbcca9a66ae7306ecd30c9720690858c1b007d2a0",
    "name": "step2",
    "terminated": {
      "containerID": "docker://4e88e8a596a5e180a720b2a900accddb79498b96523b4b68e80ebbb1bcffed37",
      "exitCode": 1,
      "finishedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z",
      "reason": "Error",
      "startedAt": "2021-07-22T18:53:37Z"
    }
  }
]

But notice the startedAt and finishedAt for the steps 1 and 2 are set to the same time. This is misleading as those steps were never executed. I think we could avoid setting the start and finish time for the steps which were not executed. What do other folks think?

[souleb]

I agree with you. But then we should also have a more explicit reason for those unexecuted steps. Something like errorFailedTr.

[pritidesai]

yeah definitely a reason could be something more specific instead of generic Error