Debdeploy uses server groups, which assign a descriptive name to a group of servers (which cover both groups of servers assigned via roles and specific hosts (e.g. for canaries). That's currently handled via Salt grains. With cumin we can simply specify the canaries by FQDN, the role are available via puppetdb.
It would be nice if Cumin would gain the option to assign a descriptive name to Cumin query, e.g. with a config file which assigns those, some kind of aliases.
Cumin will have to look for ${backend_name}.aliases files in the configuration directory and load the aliases defined there like (aliases are specific to a backend to reduce complexity):
cp-ulsfo: R:class = role::cache::text or R:class = role::cache::upload or R:class = role::cache::misc and R:class%site = ulsfo cp-canaries: cp4001.ulsfo.wmnet dc-codfw: R:class = profile::cumin::target and R:class%site = codfw
These aliases could then be assigned with something like A:cp-canaries