Loading Test Matrix

The proctor loader can load the test matrix for an application. It ensures each test-definition is compatible with the application’s specification. Create a single instance of a proctor loader for a application to use when constructing its AbstractGroupsManager generated class.

AbstractProctorLoader

Proctor is bundled with several implementations of AbstractProctorLoader that can load the test matrix. You can implement a custom loader by extending AbstractProctorLoader or AbstractJsonProctorLoader.

FileProctorLoader - Loads the test matrix from a specified file. At Indeed, all applications use this implementation to load a file containing the test matrix managed by our operations team. See the Deployment section for guidance about loading the test matrix.

ClasspathProctorLoader - Loads the test matrix from a classpath resource. Useful for writing unit-tests involving Proctor or deploying the test matrix alongside the application.

UrlProctorLoader - Loads the test from from a given URL.

JsonProctorLoaderFactory - Factory class for configuring FileProctorLoader or ClasspathProctorLoader.

Java example:

final JsonProctorLoaderFactory factory = new JsonProctorLoaderFactory();
// Loads the specification from the classpath resource
factory.setSpecificationResource("classpath:/org/your/company/app/ExampleGroups.json");
// Loads the test matrix from a file
factory.setFilePath("/var/local/proctor/test-matrix.json");
final AbstractJsonProctorLoader loader = factory.getLoader();

Spring configuration XML example:

<bean id="loaderFactory" class="com.indeed.proctor.common.JsonProctorLoaderFactory">
    <!-- Loads the specification from the classpath resource -->
    <property name="specificationResource" value="classpath:/org/your/company/app/ExampleGroups.json" />
    <!-- Loads the test matrix from a file -->
    <property name="classResourcePath" value="/var/local/proctor/test-matrix.json" />
</bean>
<bean id="proctorLoader" factory-bean="loaderFactory" factory-method="getLoader" />

The JsonProctorLoaderFactory also supports loading the specification from the file system and test-matrix from the classpath. Both uses are rare but can be useful if you want to bundle the test-matrix with your application and don’t need to update the test-matrix without deploying new code.

<bean id="loaderFactory" class="com.indeed.proctor.common.JsonProctorLoaderFactory">
    <!-- Load the specification resource from the file-system (not common) -->
    <property name="specificationResource" value="WEB-INF/org/your/company/app/ExampleGroups.json" />
    <!-- Load the test matrix from a classpath resource (not common) -->
    <property name="classResourcePath" value="/proctor/test-matrix.json" />
</bean>
<bean id="proctorLoader" factory-bean="loaderFactory" factory-method="getLoader" />

Load-verify Loop

The Proctor loader periodically refreshes the test matrix and performs the following steps during each attempt:

  1. Reads and parses the test matrix from a JSON file, classpath or URL depending on the implementation of AbstractJsonProctorLoader. Invalid JSON preventing the deserialization of the test matrix will result in a failed recent attempt.
  2. Checks the audit.version of the new test-matrix against the audit.version of last successful refresh. If these values are equal, the attempt is finished and no further steps are executed.
  3. Validates each test in the specification against the corresponding test-definition in the test matrix:
    1. A test-definition should be defined for each test. A matrix missing a test is invalid.
    2. A test-definition allocating users to a bucket not defined in the specification is invalid. It’s valid for the test-definition to define new buckets in its buckets field, but their group size should be 0% across all test allocations.
    3. A test-definition must have valid payloads. If the application expects a test to have payloads, each bucket in the test-definition must have a payload of the correct type and pass the payload-validator expression. If an application doesn’t expect a test to have payloads, no validation of their values is performed.
    4. A test-definition’s allocations each must sum to 1.0.
    5. A test-definition must have exactly one allocation with a null or empty rule. This allocation must be the last allocation in the allocations array.
  4. Creates a new Proctor instance containing the data from the loaded test matrix. The instance is considered the last successful test-matrix.

Refer to Inspecting the Loader State for details about determining whether the loader has recently refreshed successfully.

Scheduling the Loader

The AbstractProctorLoader extends java.util.TimerTask and must be scheduled to run periodically.

The following examples show how to schedule the loader to refresh every 30 seconds. Each example creates a new ScheduledExecutorService specifically for the AbstractJsonProctorLoader. An application can reuse another ScheduledExecutorService if it already uses one for background tasks.

Java example:

...
final AbstractJsonProctorLoader loader = factory.getLoader();

final ScheduledExecutorService scheduledExecutorService = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
scheduledExecutorService.scheduleWithFixedDelay(loader, 0, 30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Spring XML example:

...
<bean id="proctorLoader" factory-bean="loaderFactory" factory-method="getLoader" />
<bean id="scheduledExecutorService" class="org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorFactoryBean" lazy-init="false">
    <property name="threadNamePrefix" value="BackgroundTasks"/>
    <property name="continueScheduledExecutionAfterException" value="true"/>
    <property name="poolSize" value="1"/>
    <!-- Add all of the scheduled Tasks to the Executor Service -->
    <property name="scheduledExecutorTasks" >
        <list>
            <!-- scheduledExecutorService.scheduleWithFixedDelay(proctorLoader, 0, 30, TimeUnit.SECONDS); -->
            <bean class="org.springframework.scheduling.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorTask">
                <property name="runnable" ref="proctorSupplier" />
                <property name="delay" value="0" />
                <property name="period" value="30000" />
                <property name="fixedRate" value="false" />
            </bean>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

Inspecting the Loader State

Depending on the outcome of the load-verify loop, the loader may be in one of these states:

UNLOADED: The loader has never successfully loaded the test matrix. This state occurs when the ScheduledExecutorService has not yet run the loader, or when the JSON file could not be read or parsed.

LOADED-COMPLETE: The most recent refresh was successful and did not have verification problems.

LOADED-PARTIAL: The most recent refresh parsed the test matrix successfully, but verification errors occurred in at least one test definition.

LOADED-STALE: The most recent refresh was a failure: The test matrix could not be read or parsed. The loader will use test definitions from a previous successful attempt.

You can interpret the loader’s state from a combination of the following AbstractProctorLoader and Proctor methods:

Method Description
boolean isLoadedDataSuccessfullyRecently() Returns flag whose value indicates whether the most recent refresh was successful.
A true value indicates the loader is in the LOADED-COMPLETE or LOADED-PARTIAL state.
Proctor loader.get() Returns the currently loaded Proctor instance.
This method will return null when in the UNLOADED state.
ProctorLoadResult Proctor.getLoadResult() Returns a ProctorLoadResult instance describing the outcome of the most recent load.
ProctorLoadResult.hasInvalidTests can be used to differentiate between the LOADED-COMPLETE and LOADED-PARTIAL states.
private enum ProctorRefreshState {
  UNLOADED,LOADED_COMPLETE,LOADED_PARTIAL,LOADED_STALE;
}

private ProctorRefreshState determineState(final AbstractProctorLoader loader) {
  final Proctor proctor = loader.get();
  final boolean recentSuccess = loader.isLoadedDataSuccessfullyRecently();

  final ProctorRefreshState state;
  if(recentSuccess) {
    // LOADED-COMPLETE or LOADED-PARTIAL
    assert proctor != null;
    final ProctorLoadResult loadResult = proctor.getLoadResult();
    state = loadResult.hasInvalidTests() ? ProctorRefreshState.LOADED_PARTIAL : ProctorRefreshState.LOADED_COMPLETE;
  } else {
    // loader.getLastLoadErrorMessage() will contain the root cause of the failed attempt

    if(proctor == null) {
      state = ProctorRefreshState.UNLOADED;
    } else {
      state = ProctorRefreshState.LOADED_STALE;
      // similar to above, the ProctorLoadResult can be inspected to determine if the previous test matrix had any invalid test definitions
    }
  }
  return state;
}

Exporting the Loader State

The AbstractProctorLoader extends com.indeed.util.core.DataLoadingTimerTask and uses VarExport to make its state available for debugging. The com.indeed.util.varexport.servlet.ViewExportedVariablesServlet can be used to view the exported namespaces and variables (example web.xml).

Namespace and variable Description
FileProctorLoader.last-audit JSON representation of com.indeed.proctor.common.model.Audit containing matrix version information
FileProctorLoader.last-error String containing any error message from the most recent refresh
ProctorLoaderDetail.file-source The source of the loader
ProctorLoaderDetail.file-contents The raw contents of the loaded source file

Note: The FileProctorLoader namespace is the loader class name, which varies depending on your application’s AbstractProctorLoader implementation.