From contributor to maintainer
A maintainer is someone who takes responsibility for keeping a piece of the Exponential world working over time: answering issues, reviewing changes and making releases.
Contents
Kinds of maintainership
| Kind | How it starts | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Your own extension, theme or site package | You publish it | Sharing extensions and themes |
| An abandoned extension | Its author has stopped; you fork or adopt it | Adopting an abandoned extension |
| An area of the project (a translation, a group of help pages) | You have contributed there for a long time | From user to contributor |
The sources describe no formal appointment of maintainers for areas of the kernel; merges into the kernel are made by the project's maintainers (Who decides).
What a maintainer does
- Answers issues, even with "not planned".
- Reviews pull requests and helps contributors through the rounds (Reviewing and being reviewed).
- Tests against each new 6.0.x release and PHP version.
- Keeps the README, the changelog and the version fields current.
- Follows the code of conduct as one of the "community leaders" of their space (
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).
The full description: The maintainer path and The maintenance life cycle.
Release discipline
| Rule | Page |
|---|---|
| A pushed tag is permanent; a mistake is fixed by the next version | Tags are permanent |
| Choose the next number from what is published, sorted by version | Choosing the next version |
ezinfo.php and extension.xml carry the release's version | Bumping ezinfo.php and extension.xml |
| Packagist must learn about new tags | The Packagist webhook |
| Run through a checklist before every release | The release checklist |
Handing over
When you can no longer maintain something, say so in its README and in the forums, and name a successor if there is one. An honest "unmaintained" note is better for users than silence.
Related pages
- Paths through the community
- Mentoring
- Keeping a fork in sync
- Growing the community through code
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.