Workflow created from Workflowtemplate doesn't respect the activeDeadlineSeconds defined the Workflowtemplate

[ediezh]

Summary

• Define a workflowtemplate with a activeDeadlineSeconds: 36000

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: WorkflowTemplate
metadata:
  name: workflow-template-test
  namespace: argo
spec:
  activeDeadlineSeconds: 36000
 ...

• Submit a workflow from this workflowtemplate

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Workflow
metadata:
  generateName: workflow-test-
spec:
  workflowTemplateRef:
    name: workflow-template-test
...

• Expect the workflow has activeDeadlineSeconds: 36000

• But instead, the workflow has activeDeadlineSeconds: 86400 which is from the controller workflow defaults

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Workflow
metadata:
...
  generateName: workflow-test-
  namespace: argo
spec:
  activeDeadlineSeconds: 86400
...

Diagnostics

What version of Argo Workflows are you running?

Client:

argo: v2.10.0-rc4+8d6dae6.dirty
  BuildDate: 2020-07-28T22:59:40Z
  GitCommit: 8d6dae6128074445d9bd0222c449643053568db8
  GitTreeState: dirty
  GitTag: v2.10.0-rc4
  GoVersion: go1.13.4
  Compiler: gc
  Platform: darwin/amd64

Server:

argo: v2.10.0-rc7
  BuildDate: 2020-08-14T00:51:56Z
  GitCommit: 267da535b66ed1dab8bcc90410260b7cf4b80e2c
  GitTreeState: clean
  GitTag: v2.10.0-rc7
  GoVersion: go1.13.4
  Compiler: gc
  Platform: linux/amd64

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[simster7]

Hmmm it's not obvious to me what should take precedence between the WorkflowTemplate and the workflow defaults.

If you were to manually set the workflow's activeDeadlineSeconds field, you'd expect that to override the WorkflowTemplate. This is exactly what the workflow defaults do, so it is possible that this is actually desired behavior.

I'll discuss with the team and get back.

[alexec]

Order of precedence:

1. workflow
2. workflow template
3. workflow defaults

[simster7]

But that order of precedence is paradoxical:

If there is a workflow default, then each submitted workflow will be modified. If a submitted workflow is modified, then it will override the workflow template.

To keep the desired order of preference that @alexec mentioned, we would have to add logic for workflow defaults to not apply to workflows that call other workflow templates and said workflow templates contain the same settings that the workflow defaults do.

It doesn't seem to be desirable logic to have in the codebase.