chef: Resource that uses with_run_context does not trigger notifications

Description

If you write a custom resource that uses the accumulator pattern via with_run_context and edit_resource or find_resource the resulting resource does not trigger any notifications for the custom resource.

Chef Version

Chef 12.16 & 13.8

Platform Version

Tested on Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 with both of the above chef client versions.

Replication Case

Create an accumulator, we’ll call this one aliases:

property :address, String
property :recipients, Array

action :add do
  with_run_context :root do
    edit_resource(:template, "/tmp/aliases") do |new_resource|
      source 'aliases.erb'
      variables[:aliases] ||= {}
      variables[:aliases][new_resource.address] ||= []
      variables[:aliases][new_resource.address] += new_resource.recipients
      action :nothing
      delayed_action :create
    end
  end
end

Then in a recipe, consume the resource and try to attach a service reload signal:

service 'mailserver' do
  supports reload: true
  action :nothing
end

foo_aliases do
  address 'bar'
  recipients ['baz', 'quux']
  notifies :reload, 'service[mailserver]' 
end

After foo_aliases converges at the end of the chef run, the service will not be signaled at all.

Workaround

A workaround does not exist (to my knowledge) as the sub-resources that are created via find/edit resource do not mark the returned resource as updated.