Staging variables for services that aren't yet deployed on a device

Its not currently possible to set device variables for services added in a release which hasn’t been deployed to a device yet. That can potentially result in race conditions.

For example we have a service which manages a VPN tunnel for data collection, and have recently refactored things so a different container handles the certificates. Because we can’t pre-stage the new variables there’ll be a period of time for each device where the VPN has no certificates, and will be unable to connect.

In this case its not a crisis because devices still have a route to balenaCloud to grab the updated variables once they’re set, but I could see situations where devices are left stranded without connectivity because of this.