How to work with ncrypto?

[panva]

How is the workflow of making changes to node:crypto or WebCryptoAPI supposed to work now?

I've had branches ready to go that are now invalid with ncrypto being in place (i'm revisiting some many months old work)

• How are updates to ncrypto propagated to nodejs/node?
• What is the release process like? Who controls it?
• Given I need to make changes to ncrypto as well as node's src & lib how am I to proceed?

[panva]

cc @jasnell @anonrig @codebytere as the currently only contributors in the commit list

[jasnell]

Within the next day or two I'll have a PR that switches the deps/ncrypto to the one that is in the repo along with integrating it into the update deps. Between now and then, opening PRs against the one in deps/ncrypto is fine and I'll open the corresponding PR ni the ncrypto repo.

Overall, however, I've been thinking we need a nodejs/ncrypto team to manage the longer term changes in ncrypto.

[panva]

I'm at a loss trying to reconcile with the added hurdle in having to work on different repos, waiting for deps PRs and only then working on node:crypto or node's WebCryptoAPI. I don't see many (if any) benefits for the nodejs project here. I understand the benefits of ncrypto for other runtimes tho, so wouldn't a process where nodejs/ncrypto is capturing snapshots of nodejs/node deps/ncrypto when node is released be more efficient?

[panva]

Not to mention that any changes made to ncrypto do not get tested with the massive crypto test suite and WPTs of nodejs/node until a deps update PR is opened. There's even no way to test work in progress in CI.

As such I think switching ncrypto to be a full blown dependency is still a long way off. Setting up a process where nodejs/node latest releases get pulled to and tagged in nodejs/ncrypto seems more appropriate to me given current state of affairs.

[jasnell]

As I suggested, making your edits in the deps/ncrypto directory under the node repo is appropriate for the time being.

[panva]

@jasnell It's exactly because your timeline is the next day or two that I raise my concerns. nodejs/ncrypto related workflows after said switch are not set up for healthy, welcoming, and hurdle-free contributions to the nodejs/node project.

[anonrig]

@panva I'm working on adding a GitHub workflow to ncrypto to run nodejs test suite on every pr to ncrypto.

[mhdawson]

@jasnell, just to confirm, I assume you are planning an updater in https://github.com/nodejs/node/tree/main/tools/dep_updaters like we have for all other dependencies to do the updates ?

[jasnell]

Yep

[ranisalt]

I'm curious why the choice for Bazel here, so far I'm finding it a massive pain to understand and use, and ncrypto is using workspaces which is an already deprecated, scheduled for removal feature, dead on arrival 😞

Could something like CMake+vcpkg or meson be used instead, with better support and more developers with experience to contribute?