1753020 - Use RemoteSetting to store MDN compatibility data

Status: NEW

(DevTools :: Inspector: Compatibility, task)

Description

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

At the moment, we store MDN compat data coming from @mdn/browser-compat-data in the tree (devtools/shared/compatibility/dataset).
This means that the compatibility information we show to the user can be slightly outdated and confuse people.

The data changes fairly regularly so we don't want to bundle at build time. We were advised to use RemoteSettings in order to store and update this data. Looking at the documentation at https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/services/settings/index.html?highlight=remotesettings and https://remote-settings.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html, RemoteSettings should be a good fit for this.

We are looking at having each MDN compat entry as an individual record in a collection, rather than just having a single attachment with the whole JSON. We may tweak the data that we store to only have what's necessary (e.g. instead of storing false for every browser, just store true for the one concerned — or the other way around — , and manage a default value on the client code)

We can still have a default list still included at build time (called "initial data" in RemoteSettings jargon), so that the feature can work even if there is no network. It basically consists in dumping JSON exports from the server into mozilla-central. The Remote Settings client will populate the local DB with its content.

ccing Mathieu who'll be able to assist us in the process :)

Comment 1

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

I filed Bug 1753163 to handle the browsers list first. This will be a good first step for us to see how to handle RS with a set of record that is quite small (at least in comparison to the css properties data)