This is intended to be a simple process that does heavy lifting and stays out of the way.

For each course that is enabled for automation, by default:

• A dedicated Namespace is created in Gitlab
• Registrar data (rosters) are processed nightly, and data is refreshed every 1 hour
• Each student is given an individual Project (git repository)
• Nominated Graders get appropriate access roles to Projects and the enclosing namespace
• Subsequent customization is ignored or respected by the automation
• The tool is flexible and can be modified to suite different situations.

The Gitlab server emails each individual at the time they are granted access to a resource. If you have not received an email, please write Techstaff and let us know.

Hints:

• The current server is named Proj
• The entire namespace path is identical to the Course identifier, e.g., https://proj.cs.uchicago.edu/mpcs-53001-aut-20

The overall automation tool is controlled by Techstaff. However, online customization of repository and project details are available to instructors and other course staff.

Before establishing any repositories, the automations server can be optionally configured to read configuration that is published in your own secure Gitlab repository. Note that the automations can only read from certain known Gitlab servers.

Every hour, the automations bot will checkout the head of your main or other nominated branch and scan a directory for YAML files containing course and enrollment data.

Because of Roster Config Merging, you typically only need to /augment/ Registrar data.

It is also possible to specify partial information, or split data across multiple files. All configuration files are merged with others having the same identifier.

CMSC-3456-aut-2020:
  display_name: Optimal Data Structures 2020
  memberships:
    student: 
      - tdobes
    grader:
      - chudler
      - ctopper

An example to create course without any associated Registrar data is the same, but includes more memberships

# sample config to be checked into a file rosters.d/sample.yaml
#
my-globaly-unique-id-1234-aut-2020:
  display_name: my-special Custom Course Taking Place in 2020
  memberships:
    instructor:
      - rdb
    student: 
      - kauffman
      - tdobes
    ta:
      - chudler
    grader:
      - ctopper

Techstaff will augment any configuration you provide with roster data from the University Registrar. The union of memberships is considered, and scalar values are overridden by your values.

More Roster Configuration Examples