Feat: Make "No changes" stand out more + add summary of number of (un)changed projects

[syphernl]

We frequently plan multiple "projects" at the same time. Scanning trough the text looking for ~10-15 "No changes" is rather annoying and could be overlooked easily. Could this somehow stand out more?
E.g. by adding an emoji or making the text bold?

It would also be nice if Atlantis could be more verbose in regards to the number of failed, unchanged projects e.g.:

Ran Plan for 4 projects: 1 will be changed, 2 will be unchanged, 1 has failed (locked)

[dohnto]

I have a similar scenario but different view - we often have so many "No changes" modules, that the ones which actually changed are easy to overlook. I would prefer to hide the "No changes" entirely or just a have small summary instead.

[syphernl]

I would prefer to hide the "No changes" entirely or just a have small summary instead.

That might actually be better 👍🏻

[inkel]

It seems we are all facing the same issue, which is why I was looking at Atlantis' code last week that renders this plans and there are no current ways of doing it.

The only solution I can think of is forking Atlantis and making the necessary changes. Then we could run our fork with all the things we like, and eventually contribute the changes upstream.

[inkel]

And given we're taking about this: don't you also find it annoying that sometimes when there are no changes the result is something like:

7. terraform/clusters/dev-us-central-0

Just a few lines of Terraform output saying that there were no changes.

And other times is:

7. terraform/clusters/dev-us-central-0

Show output

Some lines with Terraform drift.

Just a few lines of Terraform output saying that there were no changes.

I've found why it is inconsistent like this, and it is because of how many lines of output it has. If it's over 11 (I think) then it uses a <details> block. This is another thing I find annoying.

[frimik]

Please nest the folding (<details>) blocks to give a top-level one like @syphernl suggest but include everything you know in the summary.

1. The project summary as suggested
2. The summarized total of all projects (add, change, destroy):

Here's the most exaggerated (but still very useful) target ... maybe a compromise is in order.

Could we perhaps even template this so operators can choose a layout that suits them?

This would help immensely as we sometimes have 50-100 plans in case some central lib or module changed.

Overview

Ran Plan for 9 projects

🔧	✔️	⚠️	🔒
3	4	1	1
Summary:	59 to add, 24 to change, 18 to destroy.

1. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/buildfarm workspace: default
2. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/prod workspace: default
3. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/corp-stuff workspace: default
4. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/int/test-things workspace: default
5. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/int/ecr-repositories workspace: default
6. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/int/tools-in-there workspace: default
7. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/prd/prod-2-widgets workspace: default
8. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/prd/prod-rest workspace: default
9. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/prd/toolshed workspace: default

Details

59 to add, 24 to change, 18 to destroy.

---

3. dir: terraform/infra/foo-infra/crp/foobars workspace: default

Show Output

Terraform used the selected providers to generate the following execution
plan. Resource actions are indicated with the following symbols:
+ create
! update in-place

Terraform will perform the following actions:

Plan: 3 to add, 1 to change, 0 to destroy.
Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments...

• ▶️ To apply this plan, comment:
  • atlantis apply -d terraform/infra/foo-infra/prd/prodstuff
• 🔁 To plan this project again, comment:
  • atlantis plan -d terraform/infra/foo-infra/prd/prodstuff

Note: Objects have changed outside of Terraform
Plan: 3 to add, 1 to change, 0 to destroy.

---

8. dir: terraform/infra/dice-infra/prd/prodfluff workspace: default

Show Output

```diff

Terraform used the selected providers to generate the following execution
plan. Resource actions are indicated with the following symbols:

• create
  ! update in-place

Terraform will perform the following actions:

module.eks.module.efs_csi_irsa_role.aws_iam_policy.efs_csi[0] will be created

• resource "aws_iam_policy" "efs_csi" {

•   arn         = (known after apply)
  

•   description = "Provides permissions to manage EFS volumes via the container storage interface driver"
  

•   id          = (known after apply)
  

•   name        = (known after apply)
  

•   name_prefix = "AmazonEKS_EFS_CSI_Policy-"
  

•   path        = "/"
  

•   policy      = jsonencode(
        {
  

•           Statement = [
  

•               {
  

•                   Action   = [
  

•                       "elasticfilesystem:DescribeMountTargets",
  

•                       "elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems",
  

</details>
</details>
</details>

[nitrocode]

We recently merged in custom templating that could be used here to test out different templates like the ones suggested.

IMHO the Github App ChecksAPI would be even better to implement so each project would get it's own page (see #936).

[frimik]

We recently merged in custom templating that could be used here to test out different templates like the ones suggested.

IMHO the Github App ChecksAPI would be even better to implement so each project would get it's own page (see #936).

Splendid.. will check it out. (We're on GitLab so am trying to abuse what's available in formatting there...).

[samlaf]

@nitrocode I think you're referring to #1026?
Is there any doc anywhere giving examples for how to use this custom templating functionality to remove output from plans with no changes? Haven't found anything from googling.

[nitrocode]

See #3158

https://www.runatlantis.io/docs/server-configuration.html#hide-unchanged-plan-comments

[inkel]

@frimik that idea that you proposed is actually something I had in mind for a while. I've been working on a branch for a while that should at the very least provide plan stats to the Markdown template renderer, which combined with overriding the templates would allow for people to do something similar to what you mention. I'll try and make it a PR soon.