Andal.LND/edx-platform
6
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions 1 Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Added process documentation

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
David Baumgold
2014-04-22 17:06:16 -04:00
parent 6fc05bcacf
commit 4db7f33196
5 changed files with 369 additions and 0 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

138
docs/en_us/developers/source/process/community-manager.rst Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,138 @@
*****************
Community Manager
*****************
Community managers handle the first part of the process of responding to pull
requests, before they are reviewed by core committers. Community managers are
responsible for monitoring the Github project so that they are aware of incoming
pull requests. For each pull request, a community manager should:
#. Read the description of the pull request to understand the idea behind it
and what parts of the code it impacts. If the description is absent or
unclear, inform the author that the pull request cannot be reviewed until
the description is clearer.
#. Evaluate the idea behind the pull request. Is this something that
Open edX wants? Discuss with product owners as necessary. If you and the
product owner(s) all believe that Open edX does not want this pull request,
add a comment to the pull request explaining the reasoning behind that
decision. Be polite, and remind them that they are welcome to fork the code
and run their own fork on their own servers, without needing permission
from edX. Try to suggest ways that they can build something that Open edX
*does* want: for example, perhaps an API that would allow the contributor
to build their own component separately. Then close the pull request.
#. Check that the author of the pull requests has submitted a
`contributor's agreement`_, added name to AUTHORS file, and any other
necessary administrivia. If not, inform author of problems
and wait for them to fix it.
#. Once you’ve verified that the code change is not malicious,
run a Jenkins job on the pull request and check the result.
If there are failing tests (and they are real failures, not flaky tests),
inform the author that the pull request cannot be reviewed until the tests
are passing.
#. When all the tests pass, check the diff coverage and diff quality.
If they are too low, inform the author of how to check these metrics,
and ask the author to write unit tests to increase coverage and quality
Diff quality should be 100%, and diff coverage should be at least 95% unless
there are exceptional circumstances.
#. Skim the contents of the pull request and suggest obvious fixes/improvements
to the pull request. Note that this is *not* a thorough code review --
this is simply to catch obvious issues and low-hanging fruit.
The point is to avoid interrupting core committers for trivial issues.
#. Ask the author of the pull request for a test plan:
once this code is merged, how can we test that it’s working properly?
Whichever core committer merges this pull request will need to test it
on a staging server before the code is deployed to production, so be sure
that the test plan is clear enough for a core committer to follow.
#. If the PR includes any visual changes, or changes in user interaction,
ask the author of the pull request to provide some screenshots.
(For interaction changes, GIFs are awesome!) When a core committer starts
reviewing the changes, it is often helpful to deploy the pull request to a
sandbox server, so that the reviewer can click around and verify that the
changes look good.
#. The core committers will put together a style guide.
Pull requests that have visual/UX changes will be expected to respect this
style guide -- if they don’t, point the author to the style guide and tell
them to resubmit the pull request when it does.
.. _contributor's agreement: http://code.edx.org/individual-contributor-agreement.pdf
At this point, the pull request is ready for code review. There are two
different options: small PR review and large PR review. A PR is “small” if it
can be read and understood in less than 15 minutes, including time spent
context-switching, reading the description of the pull request, reading any
necessary code context, etc. Typically, “small” PRs consist of fixing typos,
improving documentation, adding comments, changing strings to unicode, marking
strings that need to be translated, adding tests, and other chores. A “small”
pull request doesn’t modify the code that will be run in production in any
meaningful way.
If the pull request is small, it can be reviewed immediately. If the community
manager that is handling this pull request feels comfortable doing the code
review, then he or she should do so rather than handing it off to a core
committer. If not, he or she should add a comment to the PR tagging a core
committer to do the review, and informing the author that it might take a few
days for the reviewer to get around to it.
If the pull request is not small, it will be handled by the core contributor
Scrum process. The community manager should:
* Determine which teams of core committers this pull request impacts.
At least one developer from each of these teams should review this pull request.
* For each team, create a story on the team’s JIRA board that links to the
pull request in question. In the story description, include any relevant
information about which contributor organization is behind the pull request,
any known political factors, etc. Tag the story as a contributor pull
request in whatever manner the team prefers: adding it to an epic, perhaps.
* Inform the product owner of the team that there is a contributor pull request
that their team is responsible for reviewing, and send them a link to the
JIRA story that you’ve just created. Ask the product owner for an estimate
of how many sprints it will take for the pull request to be reviewed:
if its more than one, try to push back and advocate for the contributor.
However, the estimate is ultimately up to the product owner, and if he/she
says it will really be more than one sprint, respect that.
* Add a comment to the pull request and inform the author that the pull request
is queued to be reviewed. Give them an estimate of when the pull request
will be reviewed: if you’re not sure what to say, tell them it will be in
two weeks. If the product owner has estimated that it will take more than
one sprint before the pull request can be reviewed, tag the product owner
in the comment so that they will be notified of further comments on
the pull request.
For determining which teams that the pull request impacts, use common sense --
but in addition, there are a few guidelines:
* If any SASS files are modified, or any HTML in templates,
include the UX (user experience) team.
* If any settings files or requirements files are modified,
include the devops team.
* If any XModules are modified,
include the blades team.
* Include the doc team on every contributor pull request.
Once the code review process has started, the community managers are also
responsible for keeping the pull request unblocked during the review process. If
a pull request has been waiting on a core committer for a few days, a community
manager should remind the core committer to re-review the pull request. If a
pull request has been waiting on a contributor for a few days, a community
manager should add a comment to the pull request, informing the contributor that
if they want the pull request merged, they need to address the review comments.
If the contributor still has not responded after a few more days, a community
manager should close the pull request. Note that if a contributor adds a comment
saying something along the lines of “I can’t do this right now, but I’ll come
back to it in X amount of time”, that’s fine, and the PR can remain open -- but
a community manager should come back after X amount of time, and if the PR still
hasn’t been addressed, he or she should warn the contributor again.

99
docs/en_us/developers/source/process/contributor.rst Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
***********
Contributor
***********
Before you make a pull request, it’s a good idea to reach out to the edX
developers and the rest of the Open edX community to discuss your ideas. There
might well be someone else already working on the same change you want to make,
and it’s much better to collaborate than to submit incompatible pull requests.
You can `send an email to the mailing list`_, `chat on the IRC channel`_, or
open an issue on our Github issue tracker. (We prefer email or IRC rather than
Github issues.) The earlier you start the conversation, the easier it will be to
make sure that everyone’s on the right track -- before you spend a lot of time
and effort making a pull request.
.. _send an email to the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/edx-code
.. _chat on the IRC channel: http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=edx-code
It’s also sometimes useful to submit a pull request even before the code is
working properly, to make it easier to collect early feedback. To indicate to
others that your pull request is not yet in a functional state, just prefix the
pull request title with "WIP:" (which stands for Work In Progress).
Once you’re ready to submit your changes in a pull request, check the following
list of requirements to be sure that your pull request is ready to be reviewed:
#. The code should be clear and understandable.
Comments in code, detailed docstrings, and good variable naming conventions
are expected.
#. The pull request should be as small as possible.
Each pull request should encompass only one idea: one bugfix, one feature,
etc. Multiple features (or multiple bugfixes) should not be bundled into
one pull request. A handful of small pull requests is much better than
one large pull request.
#. Structure your pull request into logical commits.
"Fixup" commits should be squashed together. The best pull requests contain
only a single, logical change -- which means only a single, logical commit.
#. All code in the pull request must be compatible with edX’s AGPL license.
This means that the author of the pull request must sign a `contributor's
agreement with edX`_, and all libraries included or referenced in
the pull request must have `compatible licenses`_.
#. All of the tests must pass.
If a pull request contains a new feature, it should also contain
new tests for that feature. If the pull request fixes a bug, it should
also contain a test for that bug to be sure that it stays fixed.
(edX’s continuous integration server will verify this for your pull request,
and point out any failing tests.)
#. The author of the pull request should provide a test plan for verifying
the change in this pull request. The test plan should should include details
of what should be checked, how to check it, and what the correct behavior
should be.
#. For pull requests that make changes to the user interface,
it’s very helpful if you can include screenshots of what you changed.
In the future, the core committers will produce a style guide that
contains more requirements around how pages should appear and how
front-end code should be structured.
#. The pull request should contain some documentation for the feature or bugfix,
either in a README file or in a comment on the pull request.
A well-written description for the pull request may be sufficient.
#. The pull request should integrate with existing infrastructure as much
as possible, rather than reinventing the wheel. In a project as large as
Open edX, there are many foundational components that might be hard to find,
but it is important not to duplicate functionality, even if small,
that already exists.
#. The author of the pull request should be receptive to feedback and
constructive criticism.
The pull request will not be accepted until all feedback from reviewers
is addressed. Once a core committer has reviewed a pull request from a
contributor, no further review is required from the core committer until
the contributor has addressed all of the core committer’s feedback:
either making changes to the pull request, or adding another comment
explaining why the contributor has chosen not make any change
based on that feedback.
It’s also important to realize that you and the core committers may have
different ideas of what is important in the codebase. The power and freedom of
open source software comes from the fact that you can fork our software and make
any modifications that you like, without permission from us; however, the core
committers are similarly empowered and free to decide what modifications to pull
in from other contributors, and what not to pull in. While your code might work
great for you on a small installation, it might not work as well on a large
installation, have problems with performance or security, not be compatible with
internationalization or accessibility guidelines, and so on. There are many,
many reasons why the core committers may decide not to accept your pull request,
even for reasons that are unrelated to the quality of your code change. However,
if we do reject your pull request, we will explain why we aren’t taking it, and
try to suggest other ways that you can accomplish the same result in a way that
we will accept.
.. _contributor's agreement with edX: http://code.edx.org/individual-contributor-agreement.pdf
.. _compatible licenses: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/wiki/Licensing

53
docs/en_us/developers/source/process/core-committer.rst Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
**************
Core Committer
**************
Core committers are responsible for doing code review on pull requests from
contributors, once the pull request has passed through a community manager and
been prioritized by a product owner. As much as possible, the code review
process should be treated identically to the process of reviewing a pull request
from another core committer: we’re all part of the same community. However,
there are a few ways that the process is different:
* The contributor cannot see when conflicts occur in the branch.
These conflicts prevent the pull request from being merged,
so you should ask the contributor to rebase their pull request,
and point them to the documentation for doing so.
* Jenkins may not run on the contributor’s pull request automatically.
Be sure to start new Jenkins jobs for the PR as necessary -- do not approve
a pull request unless Jenkins has run, and passed, on the last commit
in the pull request. If this contributor has already contributed a few
good pull requests, that contributor can be added to the Jenkins whitelist,
so that jobs are run automatically.
* The contributor may not respond to comments in a timely manner.
This is not your concern: you can move on to other things while waiting.
If there is no response after a few days, a community manager will warn the
contributor that if the comments are not addressed, the pull request will
be closed. (You can also warn the contributor yourself, if you wish.)
Do not close the pull request merely because the contributor hasn’t responded
-- if you think the pull request should be closed, inform the
community managers, and they will handle it.
Each Scrum team should decide for themselves how to estimate stories related to
reviewing external pull requests, and how to claim points for those stories,
keeping in mind that an unresponsive contributor may block the story in ways
that the team can’t control. When deciding how many contributor pull request
reviews to commit to in the upcoming iteration, teams should plan to spend about
two hours per week per developer on the team -- larger teams can plan to spend
more time than smaller teams. This is just a guideline, however: the teams can
decide for themselves how many contributor pull request reviews they want to
commit to.
Once a pull request from a contributor passes all required code reviews, a core
committer will need to merge the pull request into the project. The core
committer who merges the pull request will be responsible for verifying those
changes on the staging server prior to release, using the test plan provided by
the author of the pull request.
In addition to reviewing contributor requests as part of sprint work, core
committers should expect to spend about one hour per week doing other tasks
related to the open source community: reading/responding to questions on the
mailing list and/or IRC channel, disseminating information about what edX is
working on, and so on.

65
docs/en_us/developers/source/process/index.rst Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
*****************************
Process for Contributing Code
*****************************
Open edX is a massive project, and we would love you to help us build
the best online education system in the world -- we can’t do it alone!
However, the core committers on the project are also developing features
and creating pull requests, so we need to balance reviewing time with
development time. To help manage our time and keep everyone as happy as
possible, we’ve developed this document that explains what core committers
and other contributors can expect from each other. The goals are:
* Keep pull requests unblocked and flowing as much as possible,
while respecting developer time and product owner prioritization.
* Maintain a high standard for code quality, while avoiding hurt feelings
as much as possible.
Roles
-----
:doc:`core-committer`
Can commit changes to an Open edX repository. Core committers are responsible for the quality of the code, and for supporting the code in the future. Core committers are also developers in their own right.
:doc:`product-owner`
Prioritizes the work of core committers.
:doc:`community-manager`
helps keep the community healthy and working smoothly.
:doc:`contributor`
submits pull requests for eventual committing to an Open edX repository.
.. note::
At the moment, developers who work for edX are core contributors, and other
developers are contributors. This may change in the future.
Overview
--------
If you are a :doc:`contributor <contributor>` submitting a pull request, expect that it will
take a few weeks before it can be merged. The earlier you can start talking
with the rest of the Open edX community about the changes you want to make,
before you even start changing code if possible, the better the whole process
will go. Follow the guidelines in the document for a high-quality pull
request: include a detailed description, keep the code clear and readable,
make sure the tests pass, be responsive to code review comments.
Small pull requests are easier to review than large pull requests, so
split up your changes into several small pull requests when possible --
it will make everything go faster.
If you are a :doc:`product owner <product-owner>`, treat pull requests
from contributors like feature requests from a customer.
Keep the lines of communication open -- if there are delays or unexpected
problems, add a comment to the pull request informing the author of the
pull request of what’s going on. No one likes to feel like they’re being ignored!
If you are a :doc:`core committer <core-committer>`, allocate some time
in every two-week sprint to review pull requests from other contributors.
The community managers will make sure that these pull requests meet a
basic standard for quality before asking you spend time reviewing them.
Feel free to read the other documentation specific to each individual role in the
process, but you don’t need to read everything to get started! If you're not
sure where to start, check out the :doc:`contributor <contributor>` documentation. Thanks
for helping us grow the project smoothly! :)

14
docs/en_us/developers/source/process/product-owner.rst Normal file
View File

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
*************
Product Owner
*************
The product owner is responsible for prioritizing pull requests from
contributors, and keeping them informed when prioritization slips. The community
managers will inform product owners of incoming pull requests that are relevant
to their team. For every sprint, each incoming pull request should either be
included in the sprint as a commitment to get the pull request reviewed, or the
product owner must inform the author of the pull request that the pull request
is still queued and is not being ignored. Contributors should be treated as
customers, and if their pull requests are delayed then they should be informed
of that, just as a product owner would inform any customer when that customer’s
requests are delayed.