Maintainer guide

Maintainers ensure that the project remains reliable, sustainable, and aligned with its mission. Maintainers oversee contributions, manage releases, guide contributors, and uphold project standards.

Maintainers are stewards of both the code-base and the community. Strive to balance technical excellence with empathy and collaboration. Core responsibilities are described below.

Code stewardship

  • Review and merge pull requests (PRs) carefully and fairly.

  • Ensure that all code follows project coding standards, testing, and documentation requirements.

  • Keep the main branch in a buildable and releasable state.

  • Maintain compatibility across supported platforms (e.g., Linux, macOS, BSDs, Windows).

Community management

  • Engage respectfully with users and contributors via:

    • GitHub issues and pull requests

    • Mailing list and chat

    • HPC community events

  • Mentor new contributors and ensure a welcoming, inclusive culture.

  • Enforce and model the project’s Code of conduct.

Issue and pull request triage

  • Label issues appropriately (bug, enhancement, question, etc.).

  • Review pull requests for:

    • Completeness (tests, docs)

    • Coding style and maintainability

    • Reproducibility of reported issues

  • Merge (rebase merging) once review and CI checks are passed.

Documentation & communication

  • Keep user and developer documentation up to date.

  • Maintain consistency between README, INSTALL, and manual pages.

  • Communicate major changes through release notes, mailing list, chat and social media.

Infrastructure & tooling

  • Maintain CI pipelines and automated test coverage.

  • Manage GitHub Actions, Cirrus, test scripts, and build tools.

  • Ensure reproducibility and backward compatibility across builds.

Reference materials