The no config file found message is unclear for new users

[ThomasLaPiana]

Is your feature request related to a specific problem?

The CLI will no longer write out a fides.toml be default whenever it is run, this leads to users seeing the no config file found message every time they run the CLI without a clear idea of why that is the case.

Describe the solution you'd like

We should update the message to include mention of the fides init command that will write out the config file

Describe alternatives you've considered, if any

This would primarily be hit by people running fides deploy for the first time, maybe we could make it a default part of the fides deploy up codepath?

Additional context

This was introduced with Fides 2.4.0

EDIT January 14, 2023: We've decided that the execution plan is to remove the warning completely. More details in the comments

[rsilvery]

@NevilleS , @ThomasLaPiana can we switch back to the more user-friendly method of defaulting to generating this and providing a helpful error if they don't have write permissions?

[NevilleS]

Here's another option to consider: we don't need to "warn" the user at all, we can just remove the message.

With few exceptions, are we at the point now where most CLI commands can be run without a config file entirely? Exceptions would include fides webserver which does have some mandatory settings that we can't provide defaults for, but otherwise I feel the message itself may be completely unnecessary...

[NevilleS]

To summarize my understanding: the No config file found message appears on every CLI invocation, which we can solve by:

1. Switching back to the behaviour to create a config file by default
2. Changing the message to be more helpful (e.g. "Using default configuration values (run 'fides init' to create a fides.toml to change these!)")
3. Removing the warning message entirely (ie. silently use default configuration values)

Is that about right?

[rsilvery]

What are the CLI commands (or UI components) that can't be run without this file? Maybe it makes sense to generate these when those are used?

[NevilleS]

Actually I wasn't super precise about that: the file itself should never be required, even for fides webserver which (should be) the only command that needs config settings to run. You can provide those settings via environment variables instead.

I'd very much like to keep the behaviour of not writing the file out as a side-effect of running CLI commands, because it's behaviour that has caused some deployment pains a few times for us... so if option 2 or 3 is doable, that'd be my preference!

What do we think: is it reasonable to just remove the warning entirely? Do we really need to guide users to create a file if it's unnecessary for most usage?

[rsilvery]

I feel like I'm still missing something. Are there any cases where not having this file would block a user from doing anything in the UI or CLI? If not let's fix the right problem!

[ThomasLaPiana]

@rsilvery Nope, this file is never required. There are certain configuration values that are required to run the webserver, but those can be set via environment variables.

The simplest solution to me seems like removing that "warning" altogether. If a user tries to run the webserver without the necessary values we handle that separately and let the user know.

Currently I am not sure if the "warning" is actually serving much of a purpose other than letting the user know that they could be using a configuration file.

[rsilvery]

Yes, this makes sense to me. Thank you both for patiently explaining :)