dashboard: fix /namespaces page empty when on-by-default is set

[BRGOVIND]

Fixes #855 — /namespaces dashboard page shows empty when --on-by-default is set on the controller.

Root cause

The /namespaces page and /dashboard page use different namespace discovery strategies:

Page	Discovery method
/dashboard	Lists VPA objects → extracts namespaces from them
/namespaces	Lists Kubernetes namespaces by goldilocks.fairwinds.com/enabled label

When the controller runs with --on-by-default, it creates VPA objects for unlabelled namespaces. The /dashboard page works because it finds those VPAs. The /namespaces page fails because it looks for the label, which is absent.

Fix

When OnByDefault or ShowAllVPAs is set on the dashboard, switch /namespaces to use VPA-based discovery (the same source as /dashboard), making both pages consistent.

Mode	/namespaces now uses
OnByDefault=true	VPAs with Goldilocks labels (creator=Fairwinds, source=goldilocks)
ShowAllVPAs=true	All VPAs (no label filter)
Default	Namespace label goldilocks.fairwinds.com/enabled=true (unchanged)

Namespaces are returned sorted alphabetically.

The empty-state message in
amespace_list.gohtml is also updated so it gives accurate guidance for each mode instead of always suggesting kubectl label ns ....

Changes

• pkg/dashboard/namespace-list.go — VPA-based discovery for OnByDefault/ShowAllVPAs modes
• pkg/dashboard/templates/namespace_list.gohtml — context-aware empty-state message

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[BRGOVIND]

The ci/circleci: test status check (lint + unit tests) is passing. The ests workflow check failure appears to be the snapshot job which requires Docker registry credentials from the org-global context — unavailable for PRs from forks. This is unrelated to the code changes.

Happy to rebase or adjust anything if needed for review.

[BRGOVIND]

Hi @sudermanjr @transient1 — friendly ping! This PR has been open for 4 days. The unit tests and lint are passing on CircleCI. The tests workflow failure and pending E2E checks are fork-related (Docker registry credentials from org-global context aren't available for fork PRs) and unrelated to the code changes.

Would love to get a review when you have a moment. Happy to make any adjustments!

[sudermanjr]

Thanks for the PR! Sorry for the slow uptake on our end.

This particular set of issues is not currently covered by any of the tests, so it will need to be verified manually, or tests will need to be added to cover it.

Can you either add some tests, or provide some screenshots of the desired behavior for each of the three scenarios?

[BRGOVIND]

Thanks for the PR! Sorry for the slow uptake on our end.

This particular set of issues is not currently covered by any of the tests, so it will need to be verified manually, or tests will need to be added to cover it.

Can you either add some tests, or provide some screenshots of the desired behavior for each of the three scenarios?

Thanks for taking a look, @sudermanjr!
I’ll add unit tests covering the three namespace discovery scenarios:

OnByDefault=true → namespaces discovered from Goldilocks-created VPAs
ShowAllVPAs=true → namespaces discovered from all VPAs
Default mode → namespaces discovered from goldilocks.fairwinds.com/enabled=true

I’ll also make sure the tests cover the expected filtering and alphabetical sorting of the returned namespaces.
I’ll push the tests to this PR once they’re ready.