silencing commands promise output, clarify inform attribute please?

[craigcomstock]

I am working on this build module to upgrade all packages and noticed that the output was rather verbose. I don't need all of that in my logs.

I thought that inform => "false" as described in the docs: https://docs.cfengine.com/docs/master/reference-promise-types-commands.html#inform, would silence output but it seems it does not.

I tried a different contain body, in_shell_and_silent, and that seems to do what I want.

This seems confusing to me. Are the docs for inform not quite right? Or am I misunderstanding them somehow?

Description: Suppress inform output from commands

By default, when running with inform level logging, commands that are executed produce output. This attribute can be used to suppress this output which may not be useful in all cases.

[nickanderson]

inform => "false" suppresses the info level logs from commands promises. In the example below three commands are run. One suppressing nothing, one suppressing command output and one suppressing both command output and inform log messages.

bundle agent __main__
{
  commands:
      "echo"
        arglist => { "Hello", "with", "inform true",
                     "without silence" },
        inform => "true",
        contain => in_shell,
        handle => "i_suppress_nothing";

      "echo"
        arglist => { "Hello", "with", "inform true",
                     "with contain in_shell_and_silent" },
        inform => "true",
        contain => in_shell_and_silent,
        handle => "i_suppress_command_output";

      # NOTE: You won't see this command execution when running cf-agent with info
      # level logging (--log-level info, --inform, -I)

      "echo"
        arglist => { "Hello", "with", 'inform false',
                     "with contain in_shell_and_silent" },
        inform => "false",
        contain => in_shell_and_silent,
        handle => "i_suppress_command_output_and_inform_output";
}

# cf-agent --no-lock --log-level info --file the_difference_between_contain_silent_and_inform_false_in_commands_promises.cf
    info: Executing 'no timeout' ... 'echo Hello with inform true without silence'
  notice: Q: "...echo Hello with": Hello with inform true without silence
    info: Last 1 quoted lines were generated by promiser 'echo Hello with inform true without silence'
    info: Completed execution of 'echo Hello with inform true without silence'
    info: Executing 'no timeout' ... 'echo Hello with inform true with contain in_shell_and_silent'
    info: Completed execution of 'echo Hello with inform true with contain in_shell_and_silent'

I think the docs could probably be improved.

[craigcomstock]

Right, I definitely think the docs make it sound like no command output will be seen and from your example that's not the case. Thanks!