Cancel pending installs/uninstalls when editing and deleting App Store (VPP) apps

[noahtalerman]

Goal

User story
As an IT admin, editing or deleting an App Store app
I want Fleet to cancel all pending installs and uninstalls and revoke licenses
so that I can be sure the app won't be installed or uninstalled on hosts outside of my new scope or deleted.

Key result

Auto-update (patch) any software without writing custom policies

Original requests

• Uninstall & revoke licenses for App Store (VPP) apps #25077

Context

• Product designer: @noahtalerman

Changes

Product

• UI changes: Figma here
• CLI (fleetctl) usage changes: No changes.
• YAML changes: No changes.
• REST API changes: No changes.
• Fleet's agent (fleetd) changes: No changes.
• Activity changes: No changes.
• Permissions changes: No changes.
• Changes to paid features or tiers: Fleet Premium
• Transparency changes: No changes.
• First draft of test plan added
• Other reference documentation changes: No changes.
• Once shipped, requester has been notified
• Once shipped, dogfooding issue has been filed

Engineering

• Test plan is finalized
• Feature guide changes: TODO
• Database schema migrations: TODO
• Load testing: TODO

ℹ️  Please read this issue carefully and understand it. Pay special attention to UI wireframes, especially "dev notes".

QA

Risk assessment

• Requires load testing: TODO
• Risk level: Low / High TODO
• Risk description: TODO

Test plan

Manual install

• Add an App Store app, trigger an installation and uninstallation on several hosts, head to the Software title page, and verify that the "Pending" count is accurate.
• Select Actions > Edit and change the software's targets. Select Save.
  • Verify that pending installs and uninstalls are canceled for hosts that are outside of the new target.
  • Verify that the "Pending" count is set to 0 to reflect that pending installs and uninstalls were canceled.
  • Verify that the the activities in Host details > Activity > Pending for hosts outside of the new target are removed, and that the software is never installed.

Automatic install (via policy)

• Add an App Store app with automatic install enabled. Head to the Software title page, and verify that the "Pending" count is accurate.
  • Select Actions > Edit and change the software's targets. Select Save. Verify that all
  • Verify that the "Pending" count is first set to 0 and then updated to reflect that pending installs and uninstalls were canceled and then re-triggered for the hosts part of the new target.
  • Verify that the the activities in Host details > Activity > Pending for hosts outside of the new target are removed, and that the software is never installed.

Testing notes

Confirmation

1. Engineer: Added comment to user story confirming successful completion of test plan.
2. QA: Added comment to user story confirming successful completion of test plan.

[noahtalerman]

During user story review on 2025-02-06 (Gong recording here - start at minute 35) we realized that if we want to cancel all pending installs/uninstalls for App Store apps, we'll have to handle license assignment and revocation which is tricky and bug prone.

Since this user story is a lower priority improvement I think we can deprioritize it. Fleet might come back to it so that the behavior for editing all software's target is the same: cancel pending installs/uninstalls.

Currently, for App Store apps, Fleet does not cancel pending installs/uninstalls. We tell the user this:

Currently, for all other software, Fleet cancels pending installs/uninstalls. We tell the user this:

cc @eugkuo @iansltx @jmwatts @mostlikelee