compiler team: trusted contributor

Signed-off-by: David Wood <david@davidtw.co>

text/0000-compiler-team-trusted-contrib-maintainer.md

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+- Feature Name: N/A
+- Start Date: 2024-01-19
+- RFC PR: [rust-lang/rfcs#3599](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/3599)
+- Rust Issue: N/A
+
+Summary
+=======
+[summary]: #summary
+
+Re-organise the compiler team:
+
+- Re-define and rename the tiers of membership
+- Change how team members and contributors are promoted
+- Document expectations of team members
+- Establish mechanism for scaling additional responsibilities that team members
+  take on and recognising these contributions
+
+Motivation
+==========
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+Compiler team contributors were introduced [in 2019 with RFC 2689][rfc2689],
+the last significant change to the compiler team's structure. A lot has changed
+in the project and compiler team since that time: we receive [approximiately
+twice as many pull requests each week][review_queue_analysis], there are more
+responsibilities that team members choose to take on, and many members of the
+team are now employed to work on the project.
+
+Given these increased demands on the team, it is important that the compiler
+team's structure can grow while maintaining high-quality output and remaining
+sustainable for team members. Ensuring that team members aren't assigned
+an untenable number of reviews each week requires that the team onboard new
+contributors and team members at a rate which keeps pace with project growth.
+
+Furthermore, the day-to-day operations of the team are composed of more varied
+tasks than was the case when RFC 2689 was drafted, now including prioritisation
+and issue triage, performance triage, meeting agenda preparation, and review of
+major change proposals. Team members who choose to contribute to these efforts
+should have those additional responsibilities recognised.
+
+As the team gets larger, our processes need to remain efficient. Final comment
+periods (FCPs) have traditionally required sign-off from all team members,
+which can become onerous with more team members. As the number of compiler team
+members has grown from ~10 to ~15 since RFC 2689, the team has already noticed
+scaling issues with our FCP process.
+
+Processes which scale poorly with team size have acted as a unconscious
+disincentive to promote compiler team contributors to compiler team members.
+Similarly, the team has found that nominations being the primary mechanism for
+promotion to compiler team contributor or member tends to result in contributors
+falling through the cracks and being considered team members in the minds of the
+team but not actually having been nominated for promotion.
+
+Since RFC 2689, the compiler team contributor role's purpose has become
+confused. It is often beneficial to be able to grant the infrastructure
+and merge permissions to trusted contributors quickly so they can work more
+efficiently. However, it is also desirable for the compiler team contributor
+role to act as recognition for those contributors who have shown staying power
+and that the team would like to recognise. These goals are in tension, adding
+new contributors early and regularly improves the efficiency of the compiler
+team while watering down the recognition and sense of achievement that the role
+would ideally confer.
+
+In addition, as compiler team contributors and members increasingly leverage
+their contributions to gain employment/contracts to contribute to the project
+full-time (or otherwise), the naming of the compiler team contributor role can
+be confusing. An employer unfamiliar with the project may not realise that a
+compiler team contributor is a role within the project which recognises regular
+contribution and trust rather than just having made a handful of contributions
+and thus being a contributor.
+
+[rfc2689]: https://rust-lang.github.io/rfcs/2689-compiler-team-contributors.html
+[review_queue_analysis]: https://borrowed.dev/p/on-the-compiler-teams-review-queue
+
+Definitions
+-----------
+[definitions]: #definitions
+
+There are various permissions/privileges/responsibilities which will be
+referenced in later sections of this RFC, defined here:
+
+- **r+**
+  - Contributors with *r+* privilege are able to approve pull requests to be
+    merged by *bors*. Contributors should not merge their own pull requests (with
+    the exception of re-approving their own work on behalf of another contributor
+    after a rebase or similarly trivial change). *r+* permissions apply to the
+    whole repository, but [it is expected][expectations] that contributors limit
+    themselves to only those parts of the *rust-lang/rust* repository that are under
+    the purview of the compiler team (unless granted *r+* from other teams too), and
+    for subsystems/pull requests that they are confident reviewing.
+- **try**
+  - Contributors with *try* permissions are able to trigger complete toolchain
+    builds for a pull request or commit, which are then used by *rustc-perf* and
+    *crater*. *try* permissions aren't available to everyone because try builds
+    can pose a security risk: try builds have access to secrets and the resulting
+    builds are hosted on `static.rust-lang.org` where we would never want
+    malicious code.
+- **review rotation**
+  - Contributors on the review rotation will be randomly assigned to new pull
+    requests submitted to the compiler. Being on the review rotation is one of the
+    best ways for contributors to help the compiler team and learn new parts of
+    the compiler. Review capacity is one of the most important resources that the
+    team has, as it enables our progress in the compiler's continued development
+    and maintenance.
+- **organization membership**
+  - Contributors that are added to the *rust-lang/compiler* team in the GitHub
+    organisation can be assigned to issues/pull requests, modify labels, receive
+    group mentions and receive a "Member" badge next to their name.
+- **rustc-perf**
+  - Contributors with permissions to use *rustc-perf* can request benchmarking
+    of their pull requests (and pull requests they are reviewing). *rustc-perf*
+    permissions are useful for regular contributors as it is common to need to
+    request benchmarks from contributors with permissions. *rustc-perf* permissions
+    only make sense alongside *try* permissions.
+- **crater**
+  - Contributors with permissions to *crater* can request crater runs to check
+    whether their code breaks any public ecosystem code. *crater* permissions only
+    make sense alongside *try* permissions.
+- **dev desktops**
+  - Contributors with access to developer desktops are able to connect to shared
+    development servers that they can do their contributions from.
+- **triagebot**
+  - [triagebot][triagebot] is a GitHub bot that can perform helpful tasks on issues
+    and pull requests. Many of its functions are available to everyone, such as issue
+    claiming, but some functions may restricted to project/team members.
+
+[expectations]: https://forge.rust-lang.org/compiler/reviews.html#expectations-for-r
+[triagebot]: https://forge.rust-lang.org/triagebot/index.html
+
+Guide-level explanation
+=======================
+[guide-level-explanation]: #guide-level-explanation
+
+Contributors start without any particular privileges, permissions or
+responsibilities and can contribute whatever they'd like. Contributors can
+progress to [Trusted Contributors][trusted-contributors] and then
+[Team Members][team-members].
+
+Trusted Contributors
+--------------------
+[trusted-contributors]: #trusted-contributors
+
+Being able to grant permissions to trusted contributors quickly is beneficial to
+enable them to contribute to the project more efficiently and review and approve
+work of their collaborators.
+
+Any contributor can request to become a trusted contributor by contacting the
+compiler team's leads, or current team members and trusted contributors can
+nominate a contributor. Team leads will check for a reasonable contribution
+history, and will check if the current team have any serious concerns related to
+contributor conduct (waiting approximately one week).
+
+When evaluating a candidate's contribution history, length of time and
+consistency of contributions and interactions with other contributors and team
+members will be taken into account. It is important to note that many kinds
+of contributions will be considered such as code contributions, helping with
+issue triage and bisection, running meetings and creating minutes, documentation
+contributions for rustc internals or the [Compiler Development Guide], etc.
+
+Trusted contributor is a mix of RFC 2689's "working group participant" and
+"compiler team contributor" roles. It is explicitly intended to be granted more
+liberally to contributors who have demonstrated competence and trustworthiness,
+for whom they would be able to work more effectively with these permissions and
+can be trusted to use them responsibily. Trusted contributors do not need to
+have experience with most of the compiler, and can be specialised to specific
+subsystems of the compiler.
+
+Trusted contributors are granted *r+*, *try*, *triagebot*, *rustc-perf*, and
+*crater* permissions; *organisation membership*; and *dev desktop* access.
+Trusted contributors are considered members of the Rust project as a whole, and
+are automatically eligible for any benefits that incurs (e.g. invitations to
+meetups of project members). As representatives of the Rust project, trusted
+contributors are expected to obey not just the letter of the
+[Code of Conduct][coc] but its spirit.
+
+Trusted contributors can choose to take on additional responsibilities, such as
+those listed in the [responsibilities][responsibilities] section. Participating
+in the team's review rotation is encouraged.
+
+If a trusted contributor becomes inactive (the contributor's prior contributions
+and other interactions with the project cease) for longer than a year, the
+trusted contributor will be moved into alumni status. At any point in the
+future, they can ask to be re-instated at the trusted contributor level if they
+desire.
+
+[Compiler Development Guide]: https://rustc-dev-guide.rust-lang.org/
+
+Team Members
+------------
+[team-members]: #team-members
+
+Trusted contributors are eligible to become team members after they have
+continued to contribute actively for a year. Trusted contributors can contact
+team leads or will be contacted by team leads to enquire about promotion to team
+membership. Trusted contributors who are eligible for team membership do not
+have to become team members.
+
+Unlike trusted contributors, team members are expected to consider themselves
+as *maintainers* of the compiler - put otherwise, to be invested in the quality
+of the compiler codebase and overall health of the compiler team, independent
+of their own projects. Team membership is primarily intended to recognise and
+encourage participation in activities which are vital to the success of the
+compiler team and broader project.
+
+Team members are expected to participate in the ongoing maintainance tasks
+that the compiler team is responsible for (with all of the expected caveats
+for vacation time, mental health breaks, etc) - listed as
+[responsibilities][responsibilities] below. However, not all contributors need
+to participate in these responsibilities to an equal degree. Contributors should
+participate in these tasks to the degree that they are able - volunteers are not
+expected to participate as much as those employed to work on the compiler, for
+example. It is the responsibility of the compiler team leads to ensure that the
+ongoing maintenance tasks of the team can be completed sustainably.
+
+Team members have all of the same permissions and access as trusted
+contributors. Like trusted contributors, team members are considered members of
+the Rust project as a whole and are expected to follow the spirit of the [Code
+of Conduct][coc].
+
+Like trusted contributors, after inactivity for longer than a year, a
+contributor will be moved to alumni status. Members who are no longer able to
+help maintain the compiler but otherwise wish to continue contributing to the
+compiler can also be moved to alumni status and retain their trusted contributor
+status. Alumni can ask to be reinstated in the future.
+
+[coc]: https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct
+
+Responsibilities
+----------------
+[responsibilities]: #responsibilities
+
+There are various responsibilities that a team member could take on to help the
+team. All team members must participate in at least one activity.
+
+Team members can get involved in any of these by contacting the team leads, by
+asking team members currently involved in these responsibilities, or by asking
+in any venue where these responsibilities are conducted (e.g. a Zulip stream).
+
+- Final comment period (FCP) reviewer
+    - Final comment periods are the process by which the team signs-off on a
+      change before it is made, like stabilizing a feature.
+
+      FCPs have always required whole team to sign-off, but this doesn't scale
+      as the team grows. As described above, this acts as a disincentive for the
+      team to grow. Furthermore, not all FCPs are relevant to all team members and a
+      diffusion of responsibility means that most team members just sanity-check and
+      then sign-off. This isn't ideal, as it doesn't guarantee that someone on the
+      team has thoroughly considered a FCP.
+
+      Instead, have FCPs require sign-off from team members who opt-in to being
+      an "FCP reviewer", with the expectation that they will spend time reviewing
+      an FCP thoroughly. FCP reviewers should also consider reaching out to relevant
+      domain experts and soliciting their opinions whenever possible. Any team or
+      project member can raise concerns with an FCP, which will be considered by the
+      FCP reviewers.
+
+      To function effectively, it is recommended that there be 4 - 8 FCP
+      reviewers at any time. If less than 4 FCP reviewers are available, the compiler
+      team co-leads will act as FCP reviewers until the reviewers can be found.
+
+- Performance triage
+    - There is a rotation of team members and other project members who check
+      all of the interesting performance benchmarks from the last week to produce a
+      report summarizing the improvements and regressions. This is valuable to keep
+      track of the compiler's performance over time and make sure that regressions are
+      being addressed.
+
+- Issue prioritisation
+    - The compiler team has a prioritisation procedure and policy to identify
+      and label issues according to their importance. These labels feed into the
+      backport procedure (what's worth being backported) and work priorities of team
+      members.
+
+- Backport reviews
+    - On a regular basis, some team members participate a review of pull
+      requests which have been nominated for backporting to the beta or stable
+      release. This involves a judgement call on the risk of backporting a
+      particular fix versus the severity of the issue being addressed.
+
+      Once those team members interested in backport reviews are identified,
+      this function could be performed in a separate meeting or asynchronously,
+      allowing the triage meeting to be streamlined and focused on nominated issues or
+      other tasks requiring broader discussion.
+
+      To establish a reasonable quorum of triage members, it is recommended that
+      at least 4 members participate in triage meetings. In the event there are not
+      enough triage members, the compiler team co-leads will act as triage members
+      until additional members are found.
+
+- Review rotation
+    - Every week, lots of pull requests are submitted to the compiler which need
+      to be reviewed. Being on the review rotation is one of the primary ways that
+      team members can help keep the wheels turning in the compiler team.
+
+      It is **strongly** encouraged that all team members be a part of the
+      review rotation.
+
+
+- Operations
+    - There are various *operations* tasks like agenda preparation and taking
+      meeting notes which are very useful for the team.
+
+      This list isn't exhaustive, and this RFC shouldn't be considered the canonical
+      list of these responsibilities. Similarly, this RFC isn't intended to define how
+      these responsibilities are conducted (in meetings or asynchronously, etc), that
+      should be decided and documented by those involved in each.
+
+While this RFC doesn't aim to be authorative with respect to how team members
+who take on additional responsibilities are recognised, one way would be for
+team members who take on additional responsibilities to record this in the
+*rust-lang/team* metadata (using the `roles` key), e.g.
+
+```toml
+[people]
+members = [
+    { github = "davidtwco", roles = ["compiler-backport"] }
+]
+
+[[roles]]
+id = "compiler-backport"
+description = "Backport Reviewer"
+```
+
+By tracking responsibility participation in the team repository, it is easier
+for the team leads to have visibility into the participation in each to ensure
+that it is sustainable. Participants will be recognised for the additional
+responsibilities they participate in on the compiler team's page on the Rust
+website.
+
+Drawbacks
+=========
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+- Granting permissions earlier may be a risk
+    - We haven't had any issues with contributors having staying power to the
+      extent that we would trust them with permissions and then having those be used
+      inappropriately. We can always revert changes if neccessary.
+- Expectations of team members
+    - This RFC formally establishes expectations which come with team
+      membership. Some team members already assume that these expectations are there,
+      but this wasn't made explicit when current team members were made team members.
+
+Rationale and alternatives
+==========================
+[rationale-and-alternatives]: #rationale-and-alternatives
+
+- Get better at doing nominations
+    - A lot of this proposal's simplification of the way that promotions are
+      granted is based on the premise that our current system doesn't work well for us
+      - but we could just try and do the current system better.
+- Only change review responsibilites
+    - We could instead try to increase the number of reviewers on the review
+      queue by just amending the current compiler team membership policy to include
+      review rotation duty. This does not improve our ability to correctly promote
+      contributors or recognize the ways individuals contribute to the maintenance
+      of the compiler but could be reasonable if implementing all of the changes
+      described here will take too long.
+
+Prior art
+=========
+[prior-art]: #prior-art
+
+- [Responsibilities][responsibilities] are similar to [an unsubmitted proposal
+  by Niko Matsakis in December 2020 to have "elected officers"][officers] within
+  the compiler team responsible for different team functions. This RFC shares
+  many of the goals of Niko's earlier proposal, but is slightly less formal -
+  responsibilities are loosely-defined groups of contributors rather than elected
+  positions, and there is no rotations or term limits.
+
+  In this RFC's proposal, it is expected that responsibilities are shared
+  amongst a group of team members, and that team members do less of other
+  responsibilities so that their workload is sustainable, but this isn't enforced.
+  Team leads are instead responsible for ensuring that the team is large enough to
+  perform each responsibility sustainably.
+
+[officers]: https://hackmd.io/S9xqmwJbSI-a9mFdK9yQBA
+
+Unresolved questions
+====================
+[unresolved-questions]: #unresolved-questions
+
+None!
+
+Future possibilities
+====================
+[future-possibilities]: #future-possibilities
+
+Responsibilities could be formalized further - see references in
+[Prior art][prior-art].