For context I ran into this issue here: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue/+/886192

@tstarling is this intentional or should UserIdentity have the isTemp method?

The UserIdentity interface has isRegistered but no isTemp method. Was this intentional?

I suspect it's to keep UserIdentity free from service dependencies, as a simple value object. @tstarling or @daniel could confirm.

If so, how do you advise we check temporary state from a UserIdentity object?

We have been injecting UserNameUtils and using $this->userNameUtils->isTemp( $user->getName() ).

In T328799#8793151, @Tchanders wrote:

I suspect it's to keep UserIdentity free from service dependencies, as a simple value object. @tstarling or @daniel could confirm.

Yes, that's correct.

The reason that it has an isregistered() method is that it's synonymous with "has a user ID".

If so, how do you advise we check temporary state from a UserIdentity object?

We have been injecting UserNameUtils and using $this->userNameUtils->isTemp( $user->getName() ).

That's the correct approach, yes.

The alternative would eb to inject the knowledge into the constructor of UserIdentityValue. But it's a newable object, so the cosntructor signature is considered stable.

@Jdlrobson There's a discussion about adding a user_is_temp column to the user table on T333223. If this goes ahead, I suppose the would be an isTemp method on UserIdentity.

In T328799#8804671, @Tchanders wrote:

@Jdlrobson There's a discussion about adding a user_is_temp column to the user table on T333223. If this goes ahead, I suppose the would be an isTemp method on UserIdentity.

I disagree. If we follow the pattern we also use for pages and revisions, UserIdentity represents *just* the identity, not information about the user. We would introduce a UserRecord or AccountRecord that represents information about the user.

The problem with adding information to the "identity" object is that it then becomes non-newable. But we want it to be possible to construct these objects directly, because you should be able to look up information about a user by supplying a UserIdentity.