Membership

There are currently two levels of membership:

• members: regular contributors with r+ rights, bot privileges, and access toinfrastructure
• maintainers: members who have committed themselves to invest in the quality of the compiler andhealth of the compiler team

The path to membership

People who are looking to contribute to the compiler typically start in one of two ways. They maytackle “one off” issues, or they may get involved in some kind of existing working group. Theydon’t know much about the compiler yet and have no particular privileges. They are assigned toissues using the triagebot and (typically) work with a mentor or mentoring instructions.

Compiler team member

Once an individual has been contributing regularly for some time, they can be promoted to thelevel of acompiler team member (see the section onhow decisions are made below).This title indicates that they are someone who contributes regularly.

It is hard to define the precise conditions when such a promotion is appropriate. Being promotedto member is not just a function of checking various boxes. But the general sense is that someoneis ready when they have demonstrated three things:

• “Staying power” – the person should be contributing on a regular basis in some way. This mightfor example mean that they have completed a few projects.
• “Independence and familiarity” – they should be acting somewhat independently when taking ontasks, at least within the scope of the working group. They should plausibly be able to mentorothers on simple PRs.
• “Cordiality” – compiler team members will be part of the Rust organization and are held to ahigher standard with respect to theCode of Conduct. They should not only obey theletter of the CoC but also its spirit.

Being promoted to member implies a number of privileges:

• Members haver+ (approve a pull request) privileges and can do reviews (they are expected touse those powers appropriately, as discussed previously). They also have access to controlperf/rustc-timer and other similar bots.See the documentation forbors andr+ athttps://bors.rust-lang.org.

  Tip: some baseline rules around bors permissions are: don’t do atry build unless you havedone a check for malicious code first and don’tr+ unless you are reasonably confident thatyou can effectively review the code in question.

• Compiler team members are members of the Rust organization so they can modify labels and beassigned to issues.

• Members become a part of therust-lang/compiler team on GitHub, so that they receive pingswhen people are looking to address the team as a whole.

• Members arelisted on the rust-lang.org web page.

It also implies some obligations (in some cases, optional obligations):

• Members will be asked if they wish to be added to the reviewer rotation.
• Members may take part in various other maintainer activities to help the team.
• Members are held to a higher standard than ordinary folk when it comes to theCode of Conduct.

What it means to be a compiler member

Once you’re a member of the compiler team, a number of events will happen:

• You will gain access to a private Zulip stream, where internal discussions happen or ideas invery draft state are shared. Come and say hello to your new team members!

• You will be subscribed and gain write access to a number of Github repositories. CheckthisGitHub page to see whichrepositories you have now access to. Some of them are pretty quiet or obsolete, so don’t worryabout all of them.

  Tip: Github automatically adds you as subscriber to every repo you get write permission too. Youcan disable this in the settings (here).

• You will also be subscribed to theall@rust-lang.org mailing list. Seethis file to check how subscriptionsto mailing lists work. It’s a very low-volume mailing list (maybe a few emails per year), it’s away to communicate things to all contributors. We will not send you spam from this address.

Maintainers

After being a compiler team member for a year, members can request or be asked to become acompiler team maintainer. This implies that they are not only a regular contributor, but areactively helping to shape the direction of the team or some part of the compiler (or multipleparts).

• Compiler team maintainers are expected to participate in at least one maintenance activities.
• Compiler team maintainers are identified with the “Maintainer” role on the rust-lang website.

How promotion decisions are made

After an individual has been contributing to the compiler for a while, they may be nominated by anexisting compiler team member or they may ask the compiler team leads if their contribution historyis sufficient for team membership.

The compiler team leads will check with the rest of the compiler team to see if there are concernswith extending a membership invitation to the individual. If there are no objections, an invitationwill be extended. We aim to provide a response within a week, but it can take longer (for reasonsoften outside the scope of the decision itself).

If the invitation is accepted by the individual, the compiler team leads will update theteamrepository to reflect their new role.

Not just code

It is worth emphasizing that becoming a member of the compiler team does not necessarily implywriting PRs. There are a wide variety of tasks that need to be done to support the compiler andwhich should make one eligible for membership. Such tasks would include organizing meetings,participating in meetings, bisecting and triaging issues, writing documentation, and working on therustc-dev-guide.

The most important criterion for being a compiler team member, in particular,isregular and consistent participation.As for being a compiler team maintainer, the most important criterion isactively shaping the direction of the team or compiler.

Alumni status

If at any time a compiler team member or maintainer wishes to take a break from participating,they can opt to put themselves into alumni status. When in alumni status, they will be removed fromGitHub aliases and the like, so that they need not be bothered with pings and messages. They willalso not have r+ privileges.Alumni members will however still remain members of the GitHuborg overall.

People in alumni status can ask to return to “active” status at any time. This request wouldordinarily be granted automatically barring extraordinary circumstances.

People in alumni status are still members of the team at the level they previously attained andthey may publicly indicate that, though they should indicate the time period for which they wereactive as well.

Entering or leaving the Maintainer role

After a compiler team member has committed to actively maintaining the compiler by becoming aMaintainer, they may wish to take a break from these ongoing responsibilities either temporarilyor indefinitely. In either case, the Maintainer can let the compiler team leads know or open a PRthemselves to theteam repo, removing themselves from the Maintainer marker team and placingthemselves in the alumni list.

In the future, if the former Maintainer would like to resume maintenance duties, they can requestre-instatement from the compiler team leads. This request would ordinarily be granted automaticallybarring extraordinary circumstances.

Compiler team alumni

Likewise, if any member of the compiler team would like to take an extended break from contributionand interaction with the team, they can let the compiler team leads know or open a PR themselvesto theteam repo, moving themselves to alumni status.

If an alumni member would like to resume compiler team membership in the future, they can requestre-instatement from the compiler team leads and this will normally be granted.

Automatic alumni status after 6 months of inactivity

If a member or maintainer has been inactive in the compiler for 6 months, then we will ask them ifthey would like to go to alumni status. If they respond yes or do not respond, they can be placed onalumni status. If they would prefer to remain active, that is also fine, but they will get askedagain periodically if they continue to be inactive.

Process: Adding a new team member

When a potential team member has been nominated by existing members, there is a standard processthat can be followed by team leads to add the new team member:

1. Contact the nominees asking if they are interested in joining the team:

Hey $name, you've been nominated for compiler team membership by a few people on the compilerteam! The [compiler team re-org RFC][rfc] has the full details as to what this means. This wouldgrant you permission to resources like bors and such.This would not require you to take on additional work or responsibilities (though joining thereview queue is encouraged), and is just public recognition of the great work you've already beendoing around the compiler!If you would like to accept, please let me know and I can update the teams repo accordingly.[rfc]: https://rust-lang.github.io/rfcs/3599-compiler-team-reorganisation.html#team-members

2. Add the new nominee to the teams repository and to thecompiler team. This will syncwith Zulip, GitHub, etc. to give the new team member access and permissions.

3. Draft a Inside Rust blog post introducing the new team members. Seepreviousexamplesfor a template.