---
layout: blog
title: "Community Membership Guide"
date: 2022-09-23
slug: community-membership-guide
---

# Community membership

**Note:** This document is a work in progress

This doc outlines the various responsibilities of contributor roles in
Kubernetes. The Kubernetes project is subdivided into subprojects under SIGs. Responsibilities for most roles are scoped to these subprojects.

| Role | Responsibilities | Requirements | Defined by |
| -----| ---------------- | ------------ | -------|
| Member | Active contributor in the community | Sponsored by 2 reviewers and multiple contributions to the project | Kubernetes GitHub org member|
| Reviewer | Review contributions from other members | History of review and authorship in a subproject | [OWNERS] file reviewer entry |
| Approver | Contributions acceptance approval| Highly experienced active reviewer and contributor to a subproject | [OWNERS] file approver entry|
| Subproject owner | Set direction and priorities for a subproject | Demonstrated responsibility and excellent technical judgement for the subproject | [sigs.yaml] subproject [OWNERS] file *owners* entry |

## New contributors

[New contributors] should be welcomed to the community by existing members,
helped with PR workflow, and directed to relevant documentation and
communication channels.

## Established community members

Established community members are expected to demonstrate their adherence to the
principles in this document, familiarity with project organization, roles,
policies, procedures, conventions, etc., and technical and/or writing ability.
Role-specific expectations, responsibilities, and requirements are enumerated
below.

## Member

Members are continuously active contributors in the community. They can have
issues and PRs assigned to them, participate in SIGs through GitHub teams, and
pre-submit tests are automatically run for their PRs. Members are expected to
remain active contributors to the community.

**Defined by:** Member of the Kubernetes GitHub organization

### Requirements

- Enabled [two-factor authentication] on their GitHub account
- Have made multiple contributions to the project or community. Contribution may include, but is not limited to:
- Authoring or reviewing PRs on GitHub. At least one PR must be **merged**.
- Filing or commenting on issues on GitHub
- Contributing to SIG, subproject, or community discussions (e.g. meetings, Slack, email discussion
forums, Stack Overflow)
- Subscribed to [[e-mail]]
- Have read the [contributor guide]
- Actively contributing to 1 or more subprojects.
- Sponsored by 2 reviewers. **Note the following requirements for sponsors**:
- Sponsors must have close interactions with the prospective member - e.g. code/design/proposal review, coordinating
on issues, etc.
- Sponsors must be reviewers or approvers in at least one OWNERS file within one of the [Kubernetes GitHub organizations]*.
- Sponsors must be from multiple member companies to demonstrate integration across community.
- **[Open an issue][membership request] against the kubernetes/org repo**
- Ensure your sponsors are @mentioned on the issue
- Complete every item on the checklist ([preview the current version of the template][membership template])
- Make sure that the list of contributions included is representative of your work on the project.
- Have your sponsoring reviewers reply confirmation of sponsorship: `+1`
- Once your sponsors have responded, your request will be reviewed by the [Kubernetes GitHub Admin team], in accordance with their [SLO]. Any missing information will be requested.

**Note:**
Excluding the [Contributor Playground repository]. It is configured to allow non-org members to be included in OWNERS files for contributor tutorials and workshops.

### Kubernetes Ecosystem

There are related [Kubernetes GitHub organizations], such as [kubernetes-sigs]. We are currently working on automation that would transfer membership in the Kubernetes organization to any related orgs automatically, but such is not the case currently. If you are a member of one of these Orgs, you are implicitly eligible for membership in related orgs, and can request membership when it becomes relevant, by creating a PR directly or [opening an issue][membership request] against the kubernetes/org repo, as above.

### Responsibilities and privileges

- Responsive to issues and PRs assigned to them
- Responsive to mentions of SIG teams they are members of
- Active owner of code they have contributed (unless ownership is explicitly transferred)
- Code is well tested
- Tests consistently pass
- Addresses bugs or issues discovered after code is accepted
- Members can do `/lgtm` on open PRs.
- They can be assigned to issues and PRs, and people can ask members for reviews with a `/cc @username`.
- Tests can be run against their PRs automatically. No `/ok-to-test` needed.
- Members can do `/ok-to-test` for PRs that have a `needs-ok-to-test` label, and use commands like `/close` to close PRs as well.

**Note:** members who frequently contribute code are expected to proactively perform code reviews and work towards becoming a primary *reviewer* for the subproject that they are active in.

## Reviewer

Reviewers are able to review code for quality and correctness on some part of a subproject. They are knowledgeable about both the codebase and software engineering principles.

**Defined by:** *reviewers* entry in an OWNERS file in a repo owned by the Kubernetes project.

Reviewer status is scoped to a part of the codebase.

**Note:** Acceptance of code contributions requires at least one approver in addition to the assigned reviewers.

### Requirements

The following apply to the part of codebase for which one would be a reviewer in
an [OWNERS] file (for repos using the bot).

- member for at least 3 months
- Primary reviewer for at least 5 PRs to the codebase
- Reviewed or merged at least 20 substantial PRs to the codebase
- Knowledgeable about the codebase
- Sponsored by a subproject approver
- With no objections from other approvers
- Done through PR to update the OWNERS file
- May either self-nominate, be nominated by an approver in this subproject, or be nominated by a robot

### Responsibilities and privileges

The following apply to the part of codebase for which one would be a reviewer in
an [OWNERS] file (for repos using the bot).

- Tests are automatically run for Pull Requests from members of the Kubernetes GitHub organization
- Code reviewer status may be a precondition to accepting large code contributions
- Responsible for project quality control via [code reviews]
- Focus on code quality and correctness, including testing and factoring
- May also review for more holistic issues, but not a requirement
- Expected to be responsive to review requests as per [community expectations]
- Assigned PRs to review related to subproject of expertise
- Assigned test bugs related to subproject of expertise
- Granted "read access" to kubernetes repo
- May get a badge on PR and issue comments

## Approver

Code approvers are able to both review and approve code contributions. While
code review is focused on code quality and correctness, approval is focused on
holistic acceptance of a contribution including: backwards / forwards
compatibility, adhering to API and flag conventions, subtle performance and
correctness issues, interactions with other parts of the system, etc.

**Defined by:** *approvers* entry in an OWNERS file in a repo owned by the
Kubernetes project.

Approver status is scoped to a part of the codebase.

### Requirements

The following apply to the part of codebase for which one would be an approver
in an [OWNERS] file (for repos using the bot).

- Reviewer of the codebase for at least 3 months
- Primary reviewer for at least 10 substantial PRs to the codebase
- Reviewed or merged at least 30 PRs to the codebase
- Nominated by a subproject owner
- With no objections from other subproject owners
- Done through PR to update the top-level OWNERS file

### Responsibilities and privileges

The following apply to the part of codebase for which one would be an approver
in an [OWNERS] file (for repos using the bot).

- Approver status may be a precondition to accepting large code contributions
- Demonstrate sound technical judgement
- Responsible for project quality control via [code reviews]
- Focus on holistic acceptance of contribution such as dependencies with other features, backwards / forwards
compatibility, API and flag definitions, etc
- Expected to be responsive to review requests as per [community expectations]
- Mentor contributors and reviewers
- May approve code contributions for acceptance

## Subproject Owner

**Note:** This is a generalized high-level description of the role, and the
specifics of the subproject owner role's responsibilities and related
processes *MUST* be defined for individual SIGs or subprojects.

Subproject Owners are the technical authority for a subproject in the Kubernetes
project. They *MUST* have demonstrated both good judgement and responsibility
towards the health of that subproject. Subproject Owners *MUST* set technical
direction and make or approve design decisions for their subproject - either
directly or through delegation of these responsibilities.

**Defined by:** *owners* entry in subproject [OWNERS] files as defined by [sigs.yaml] *subproject.owners*

### Requirements

The process for becoming an subproject Owner should be defined in the SIG
charter of the SIG owning the subproject. Unlike the roles outlined above, the
Owners of a subproject are typically limited to a relatively small group of
decision makers and updated as fits the needs of the subproject.

The following apply to the subproject for which one would be an owner.

- Deep understanding of the technical goals and direction of the subproject
- Deep understanding of the technical domain of the subproject
- Sustained contributions to design and direction by doing all of:
- Authoring and reviewing proposals
- Initiating, contributing and resolving discussions (emails, GitHub issues, meetings)
- Identifying subtle or complex issues in designs and implementation PRs
- Directly contributed to the subproject through implementation and / or review

### Responsibilities and privileges

The following apply to the subproject for which one would be an owner.

- Make and approve technical design decisions for the subproject.
- Set technical direction and priorities for the subproject.
- Define milestones and releases.
- Mentor and guide approvers, reviewers, and contributors to the subproject.
- Ensure continued health of subproject
- Adequate test coverage to confidently release
- Tests are passing reliably (i.e. not flaky) and are fixed when they fail
- Ensure a healthy process for discussion and decision making is in place.
- Work with other subproject owners to maintain the project's overall health and success holistically

## Inactive members

_Members are continuously active contributors in the community._

A core principle in maintaining a healthy community is encouraging active
participation. It is inevitable that people's focuses will change over time and
they are not expected to be actively contributing forever.

However, being a member of one of the Kubernetes GitHub organizations comes with
an [elevated set of permissions]. These capabilities should not be used by those
that are not familiar with the current state of the Kubernetes project.

Therefore members with an extended period away from the project with no activity
will be removed from the Kubernetes GitHub Organizations and will be required to
go through the org membership process again after re-familiarizing themselves
with the current state.

### How inactivity is measured

Inactive members are defined as members of one of the Kubernetes Organizations
with **no** contributions across any organization within 18 months. This is
measured by the CNCF [DevStats project].

**Note:**
Devstats does not take into account non-code contributions. If a non-code contributing member is accidentally removed this way, they may open an issue to quickly be re-instated.

After an extended period away from the project with no activity
those members would need to re-familiarize themselves with the current state before being able to contribute effectively.

[code reviews]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/guide/expectations.md#code-review
[community expectations]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/guide/expectations.md
[contributor guide]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/guide/README.md
[Kubernetes GitHub Admin team]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/github-management/README.md#github-administration-team
[Kubernetes GitHub organizations]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/github-management#actively-used-github-organizations
[Kubernetes org]: https://github.com/kubernetes
[[e-mail]]: https://groups.google.com/a/kubernetes.io/group/dev
[kubernetes-sigs]: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs
[membership request]: https://github.com/kubernetes/org/issues/new?assignees=&labels=area%2Fgithub-membership&template=membership.yml&title=REQUEST%3A+New+membership+for+%3Cyour-GH-handle%3E
[membership template]: https://github.com/kubernetes/org/blob/main/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/membership.yml
[Contributor Playground repository]: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/contributor-playground
[New contributors]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
[OWNERS]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/guide/owners.md
[sigs.yaml]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/sigs.yaml
[SLO]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/github-management/org-owners-guide.md#slos
[two-factor authentication]: https://help.github.com/articles/about-two-factor-authentication
[elevated set of permissions]: https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/community-membership.md#Responsibilities-and-privileges
[Devstats project]: https://k8s.devstats.cncf.io/