Manually specify request parent

Currently the only way to set the parent for a request is to modify the request_context threadlocal.

Should we support specifying an alternate parent ID when using the SystemClient? Specifically should we modify _construct_bg_request to accept a _parent kwarg?

We should definitely continue doing what we currently do, this would be more of an override.

[hazmat345]

From what I can tell the use-case is a standalone script that is using a SystemClient to do multiple things, and subsequent requests should logically be children of a request that happens earlier in the script. But since the later requests don’t actually occur during processing of the initial request they are top-level.

I agree - I’m not opposed to adding this since it’s pretty easy to implement, doesn’t really break anything, and it’s actually possible to implement yourself already if you manually set the request_context (that’s just gross).

I do think this is a “you should know what you’re doing” type of feature - if you’re using it you should understand that the failure case you mentioned is a possibility and account for it.

[loganasherjones]

@hazmat345 my vote is the _parent_id just because its more flexible.

@TheBurchLog if we allow invalid parent ID’s then it’s going to be tricky to know what the “obvious and right” thing to do is when we go to clean up a request.