Artifacts in DISABLED state are not viewable?

[ajborley]

When an artifact is set to DISABLED state it disappears from all API calls aside from the GET /api/artifacts listing. All other API calls return 404 or do not include the artifact in search results, etc.

For me it makes sense that the calls that GET /api/artifacts/{artifactId}, GET /api/artifacts/{artifactId}/versions/{versionId} and GET /api/ids/{globalId} return a 404 code for a disabled artifact, so that clients cannot use the schema. Can I ask why disabled artifact metadata is also not viewable and why disabled artifacts don't appear in search results?

AFAIUI the DISABLED state is basically a pre-deletion state, stopping clients from using the artifact, but allowing the schema to be re-enabled if required. From an administrator point-of-view the resource still exists and can be administered but clients cannot use it.

In the ibmcompat API, it is expected that a DISABLED schema is still viewable via API calls but the serdes client will throw exceptions if the schema is used for serialization/deserialization. I'd like to ensure the ibmcompat API behaviour is correct, but want to check my understanding of the artifacts API before I make changes. Thanks!

[EricWittmann]

I think you've raised good points here. I think I agree that disabled artifacts should show up in listings and you should be able to fetch the meta-data for disabled artifacts. There is some work to be done in the UI if we make that change, but it does seem reasonable to me. Otherwise when a user disables an artifact in the UI it will disappear from the listing (with then no way to re-enable it) and also if the user refreshes the current browser page they will get a 404 error. Not ideal.

Thoughts @Apicurio/developers ?

[ajborley]

PR #797 updates the APIs to return metadata for artifacts in DISABLED state, but does not make any UI changes. I expect either the UI will need to be updated to be able to handle disabled artifacts, or the API will need to be updated (perhaps via a query param or header) to support returning the artifact content when it is requested from the UI.

[EricWittmann]

I'll deal with the UI changes needed. Right now the UI doesn't have the feature of setting the state. But I need to add that and also handle disabled artifacts in search results and details. I think maybe it's ok for a first draft of the UI changes to simply not show the content for disabled artifacts.