Skip to content

Onboarding a New Maintainer

A concise playbook to onboard maintainers to your project. It explains how individuals become maintainers of an LFDT project, what is expected of them, and how to help them get fully set up during their first 30 days.

It complements (but does not replace) each project's documented governance and maintainer policies.

New Maintainer Onboarding Guide

How Someone Becomes a Maintainer

Becoming a maintainer is a community-driven process defined by each project's governance model.
Most LFDT projects follow a similar pattern:

Nomination

An existing maintainer nominates a contributor who has demonstrated:

  • Sustained, high-quality contributions
  • Constructive participation in discussions and reviews
  • Understanding of project architecture and goals
  • Professional, collaborative behavior

Review Period

Maintainers review the nomination by:

  • Assessing contribution history
  • Evaluating readiness for responsibilities
  • Confirming willingness to serve as a maintainer

Approval

Once approved:

  • The individual is added to the project's MAINTAINERS.md
  • Repository permissions are updated
  • They are added to communication channels
  • They are added to the TAC voting roster (if applicable)

Expectations for New Maintainers

Maintainers steward the project's technical direction and community health. Expectations include:

Technical Stewardship

  • Review and merge pull requests
  • Maintain code quality, tests, and documentation
  • Participate in design, roadmap, and architecture discussions
  • Ensure releases follow LFDT policies and project conventions

Community Stewardship

  • Welcome and mentor new contributors
  • Provide constructive, respectful feedback
  • Help clarify issues and improve documentation
  • Model transparency and open decision-making

Governance Responsibilities

  • Follow the project's governance model
  • Participate in project meetings and async decisions
  • Contribute to TAC reporting (annual reviews, project updates)
  • Address inactivity and succession planning when necessary

Security & Compliance

  • Follow the project's SECURITY.md process
  • Participate in responsible disclosure and embargo workflows
  • Support release signing, SBOM/provenance, and related requirements (where applicable)

Codes of Conduct and Behavior Expectations

All LFDT maintainers must follow:

  • LFDT Code of Conduct
  • The project's CONTRIBUTING guidelines
  • Any project-specific escalation and decision-making processes

Maintainers are expected to:

  • Act professionally and respectfully
  • Support inclusive and transparent collaboration
  • De-escalate conflict and seek consensus
  • Provide clear, actionable review feedback

Access Setup for New Maintainers

After approval, maintainers receive access needed to perform their role.

Repository Permissions

  • Write access to GitHub
  • Ability to review and merge PRs
  • Access to protected branches (if configured)

Project Infrastructure

May include:

  • Release pipelines
  • Build/signing systems
  • Project dashboards or analytics

Communication Channels

  • Discord channels
  • Maintainer or TSC meeting invitations
  • Mailing lists or GitHub Teams

First 30 Days as a Maintainer

The following onboarding plan helps new maintainers ramp up smoothly.

Week 1 — Orientation

Goals:
Understand project expectations, meet the team, and ensure access.

Actions:
- Review GOVERNANCE.md, MAINTAINERS.md, CONTRIBUTING.md
- Read recent PRs, issues, and discussions
- Confirm GitHub and communication-channel access
- Attend one maintainer or working group meeting

Week 2 — Begin Active Participation

Goals:
Start engaging in reviews and triage.

Actions:
- Triage issues (labels, duplicates, questions)
- Provide thoughtful reviews on PRs
- Pair with a maintainer on a release or workflow
- Improve documentation or contributor experience

Week 3 — Take Ownership

Goals:
Begin leading small pieces of project work.

Actions:
- Merge approved PRs
- Own a small area of documentation or code
- Participate in release discussions
- Support onboarding of new contributors

Week 4 — Full Participation

Goals:
Operate confidently as a maintainer.

Actions:
- Engage in roadmap or architectural discussions
- Contribute to TAC-update preparation (as needed)
- Review broader cross-project proposals
- Support long-term contributor engagement

Getting Help

Maintainers are encouraged to ask questions early and often. Helpful resources include:

  • Project leads and maintainers
  • LFDT TAC and community architects
  • Contributor Ladder documentation
  • Project Discord channels
  • LFDT governance pages

Looking for Project Onboarding?

This page focuses on onboarding people. For onboarding a new project, see:
New Project Onboarding