Documenting the governance of the git project?

Documenting the governance of the git project?

[Antonin Delpeuch]

Hi all,

As an occasional contributor to Git, I have been interested in getting a 
clear picture of the project's governance. By governance, I primarily 
mean a list of roles people can have in the project, the associated 
privileges and expectations, the ways people get in and out of those 
roles, and any decision processes in place for important matters (which 
`Documentation/DecisionMaking.adoc` already does a pretty good job at 
describing).

For instance, I'm aware that Junio is the one merging patches, but are 
any other responsibilities delegated to other contributors? What are the 
responsibilities of the Project Leadership Committee and how are its 
members renewed? If Junio wasn't available anymore, would there be an 
agreed on process to find a successor? Are those aspects of the project 
documented anywhere?

Through my experience in other projects, I have learned that it can be 
beneficial to write such things down. I think it can help avoid some 
conflicts, help onboard contributors, spread responsibilities in a more 
intentional way and increase the bus factor. See [1] for more background 
on the why and how of documenting governance. There is an emerging 
convention to document those things in a `GOVERNANCE.md` file at the 
root of the repository, but many projects choose to publish this 
information in other ways (such as on their website).

If there is interest, I would be happy to try and document this. All I 
need is the confirmation that people see value in maintaining such a 
piece of documentation, and the readiness of project leadership to 
answer my questions (which I would try to do in a way that respects 
their time, using the communication channel they prefer). I would then 
submit my write-up as a patch in the location/format you prefer. I would 
of course be delighted to team up with others in this endeavor.

Best,

Antonin

[1]: 
https://theopensourceway.github.io/production/en/growing-contributors/project-and-community-governance.html

Re: Documenting the governance of the git project?

[Junio C Hamano]

Antonin Delpeuch <antonin@delpeuch.eu> writes:

> As an occasional contributor to Git, I have been interested in getting a 
> clear picture of the project's governance. By governance, I primarily 
> mean a list of roles people can have in the project, the associated 
> privileges and expectations, the ways people get in and out of those 
> roles, and any decision processes in place for important matters (which 
> `Documentation/DecisionMaking.adoc` already does a pretty good job at 
> describing).

I would refrain from commenting on how good a job that document
does, but the way it describes how our community works does
reflect the nature of our community, which is a loosely knit
group of self-nominated volunteers.  'CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md' at the
top level refers to the Git PLC at SFC as "Community leaders",
and that is the closest thing to an official structure we have,
I think.

Specifically, we do not have an official list of reviewers with an
approval bit or those with privileges and responsibilities to speak
of.  Clout in the community, on both technical and non-technical
matters, is earned through continued contribution over time, and one
interesting side effect of this is that a totally new person cannot
even know whose words carry weight before they are accustomed to the
community.

> If there is interest, I would be happy to try and document this. All I 
> need is the confirmation that people see value in maintaining such a 
> piece of documentation, and the readiness of project leadership to 
> answer my questions (which I would try to do in a way that respects 
> their time, using the communication channel they prefer). I would then 
> submit my write-up as a patch in the location/format you prefer. I would 
> of course be delighted to team up with others in this endeavor.

I am somewhat indifferent.  I wouldn't oppose it at all. I would
welcome a descriptive "this is roughly how it currently works"
document, but it might be hard to come up with a good descriptive
document.

Once the document starts trying to be prescriptive, it may open a
big discussion with different "opinions" not backed by any common
experience from which discussion participants can draw, which would
lead to a lot of wasted time and effort.  That is the only thing I
would be a bit worried about.

Thanks.

Re: Documenting the governance of the git project?

[Antonin Delpeuch]

Hi Junio,

Thanks for your reply.

On 22/09/2026 00:09, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Specifically, we do not have an official list of reviewers with an
> approval bit or those with privileges and responsibilities to speak
> of.  Clout in the community, on both technical and non-technical
> matters, is earned through continued contribution over time, and one
> interesting side effect of this is that a totally new person cannot
> even know whose words carry weight before they are accustomed to the
> community.

Yes, I wouldn't try to codify the clout of project members in such a 
document. But even without that, I don't think we'd run out of things to 
describe. Just by reading the discussion from the Contributor Summit, I 
identified a few more roles I hadn't thought about: the set of people 
with access to the git-security list and the maintainer(s) of 
git-scm.com. I imagine there might be other well delimited hats like 
those, whose expectations and renewal process we could describe.

>> If there is interest, I would be happy to try and document this. All I
>> need is the confirmation that people see value in maintaining such a
>> piece of documentation, and the readiness of project leadership to
>> answer my questions (which I would try to do in a way that respects
>> their time, using the communication channel they prefer). I would then
>> submit my write-up as a patch in the location/format you prefer. I would
>> of course be delighted to team up with others in this endeavor.
> I am somewhat indifferent.  I wouldn't oppose it at all. I would
> welcome a descriptive "this is roughly how it currently works"
> document, but it might be hard to come up with a good descriptive
> document.
>
> Once the document starts trying to be prescriptive, it may open a
> big discussion with different "opinions" not backed by any common
> experience from which discussion participants can draw, which would
> lead to a lot of wasted time and effort.  That is the only thing I
> would be a bit worried about.

I think aiming for a descriptive document makes perfect sense (even 
having it state explicitly that it isn't prescriptive). Even without 
trying to give it any authority, the questions asked in the process of 
writing the document can be valuable on their own. They can prompt the 
team to identify some gaps or some things that they want to change. That 
change can happen at its own pace, independently of the documentation 
effort.

For instance, if the team behind git-security is struggling with a high 
volume of reports, I wouldn't be surprised if by taking the time to 
describe who's on the team and how to get in and out of it, we might 
identify people who'd be fit and willing to serve (for clarity, I am 
definitely not throwing my hat here - the task sounds absolutely 
daunting). This is a random example: I'm not (yet) familiar with your 
existing processes in this area, so it can be that I'm off-base on this 
one, but I'm sure you get the broad idea.

Best,

Antonin

Re: Documenting the governance of the git project?

[Antonin Delpeuch]

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Hi all,

I am planning to go ahead with this project, unless anyone thinks it's a 
bad idea.

My plan is to write an initial document based on the information I can 
find on my own, and then fill the gaps by asking questions about the 
points I couldn't figure out myself.

It would be great if I don't have to bother Junio too much with those 
questions, so if you have a good grasp of the social structures in place 
in this project, I'd appreciate it a lot if you could let me know you're 
available to help.

My goal will be to write something that you are happy to include in the 
official documentation or website, but if that doesn't work out, I'll 
publish it externally (making its unofficial status clear, of course).

Thanks,

Antonin


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Re: Documenting the governance of the git project?

[Christian Couder]

Hi Antonin,

On Tue, Oct 6, 2026 at 1:13 PM Antonin Delpeuch <antonin@delpeuch.eu> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am planning to go ahead with this project, unless anyone thinks it's a
> bad idea.
>
> My plan is to write an initial document based on the information I can
> find on my own, and then fill the gaps by asking questions about the
> points I couldn't figure out myself.
>
> It would be great if I don't have to bother Junio too much with those
> questions, so if you have a good grasp of the social structures in place
> in this project, I'd appreciate it a lot if you could let me know you're
> available to help.

If you write an initial document and send it to the list as a patch to
add that document to the Git code base, that would be a good start.

The people who will reply to your patch will be the people willing to
help. That's how it works here. Someone could tell you they are
willing to help but then for example get sick or have a vacation when
your first draft is ready, and cannot actually help. That's why it's
better if the process does not rely on people making such promises.

> My goal will be to write something that you are happy to include in the
> official documentation or website, but if that doesn't work out, I'll
> publish it externally (making its unofficial status clear, of course).

Sure, no worries. I think we are not perfect, but overall do a good
job at helping people who are willing to put some effort in useful
quality work. In this case, if it's not accepted in the code base, nor
on the git-scm.org website, maybe we will accept it on the Git
Developer Pages at https://git.github.io/ or as a "How the Git project
works" article in Git Rev News. Just trust the process and community
as a whole that you are going to describe in your document ;-)

Best,
Christian.