Skip to content

Governance Playbook

Welcome

Clear governance sustains project health and trust. Use these patterns to document roles, decisions, and succession.

Roles & Ladder (MAINTAINERS.md)

Contributor → Reviewer → Approver → Maintainer; expectations and promotion signals.

  • Contributor → Reviewer → Approver → Maintainer
  • Expectations: code quality, reviews, conduct, release participation
  • Promotion: nomination, lazy consensus, objection window; document criteria

Decision-Making & Dispute Resolution

Lazy consensus for most changes; voting for breaking changes; TAC escalation patterns.

  • Lazy consensus for routine changes
  • Documented voting for breaking changes & elections
  • Escalation: unresolved disputes summarized and sent to the TAC

Subprojects & Repository Topology

Propose, accept, and retire subprojects; OWNERS mapping per directory/repo.

  • How to propose a subproject, maintainer expectations, acceptance criteria
  • OWNERS/maintainers per directory or repo
  • Deprecation/retirement path and communications

Elections & Inactivity

Cadence, eligibility, tie-breakers, and the LFDT inactivity/succession process.

  • Election cadence, eligible voters, nomination windows, tie-breakers
  • Follow LFDT inactivity policy for respectful transitions
  • Maintain a public maintainers list with contact and terms (if applicable)

Required Docs

  • GOVERNANCE.md — decisions, roles, meetings, dispute resolution
  • MAINTAINERS.md — names/handles, ladder, how to become a maintainer
  • CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md — link to LFDT or project CoC

Checklists

  • GOVERNANCE.md merged and discoverable
  • MAINTAINERS.md with ladder + expectations
  • Elections documented (if applicable)
  • Inactivity/succession process linked