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       # Nixpkgs Maintainers

     

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       The *Nixpkgs maintainers* are people who have assigned themselves to

     

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       maintain specific individual packages. We encourage people who care

     

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       about a package to assign themselves as a maintainer. When a pull

     

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       request is made against a package, OfBorg will notify the appropriate

     

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       maintainer(s).

     

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       Unlike other packaging ecosystems, the maintainer doesn't have exclusive

     

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       control over the packages and modules they maintain. This more fluid approach

     

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       is one reason why we scale to so many packages.

     

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       ## Definition and role of the maintainer

     

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       The main responsibility of a maintainer is to keep the packages they maintain

     

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       in a functioning state, and keep up with updates. In order to do that, they

     

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       are empowered to make decisions over the packages they maintain.

     

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       That being said, the maintainer is not alone proposing changes to the

     

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       packages. Anybody (both bots and humans) can send PRs to bump or tweak the

     

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       package.

     

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       We also allow other non-maintainer committers to merge changes to the package,

     

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       provided enough time and priority has been given to the maintainer.

     

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       For most packages, we expect committers to wait at least a week before merging

     

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       changes not endorsed by a package maintainer (which may be themselves). This should leave enough time

     

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       for the maintainers to provide feedback.

     

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       For critical packages, this convention needs to be negotiated with the

     

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       maintainer. A critical package is one that causes mass-rebuild, or where an

     

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       author is listed in the [`CODEOWNERS`](../.github/CODEOWNERS) file.

     

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       In case of critical security updates, the [security team](https://nixos.org/community/teams/security) might override these

     

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       heuristics in order to get the fixes in as fast as possible.

     

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       In case of conflict, the maintainer takes priority and is allowed to revert

     

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       the changes. This can happen for example if the maintainer was on holiday.

     

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       ### How to become a maintainer

     

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       We encourage people who care about a package to assign themselves as a

     

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       maintainer. Commit access to the Nixpkgs repository is not required for that.

     

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       In order to do so, add yourself to the

     

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       [`maintainer-list.nix`](./maintainer-list.nix), and then to the desired

     

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       package's `meta.maintainers` list, and send a PR with the changes.

     

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       ### How to lose maintainer status

     

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       Maintainers who have become inactive on a given package can be removed. This

     

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       helps us keep an accurate view of the state of maintenance in Nixpkgs.

     

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       The inactivity measure is currently not strictly enforced. We would typically

     

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       look at it if we notice that the author hasn't reacted to package-related

     

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       notifications for more than 3 months.

     

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       Removing the maintainer happens by making a PR on the package, adding that

     

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       person as a reviewer, and then waiting a week for a reaction.

     

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       The maintainer is welcome to come back at any time.

     

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       ### Tools for maintainers

     

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       When a pull request is made against a package, OfBorg will notify the

     

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       appropriate maintainer(s).

     

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       ## Reviewing contributions

     

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