# Maintainer responsibilities

## Join the team meetings

Participate in the regular team meetings, see [meeting information and protocol] for details.

[meeting information and protocol]: ./README.md#team-meetings

If you can't participate, notify other team members.

## Stay informed

Follow relevant activities on these communication channels:

- GitHub

  Subscribe to issues and pull requests you care about.

- Discourse

  Set the notification level on the [Development > Documentation] Discourse category to "watching".

  [Development > Documentation]: https://discourse.nixos.org/c/dev/documentation/25

- Matrix

  Join the [Nix\* Documentation] Matrix room and enable relevant notifications.

  [Nix\* Documentation]: https://matrix.to/#/#docs:nixos.org

## Take ownership

The team has entries in the [`CODEOWNERS`] file in the respective repositories.
GitHub will request reviews for pull requests that change files the team owns.

[`CODEOWNERS`]: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-code-owners

Team members can review and approve changes, which then have to merged by the team lead, since GitHub currently does not allow more granular permission management.
As a maintainer, you and the team lead are responsible for the changes you approve.
Make sure to follow up on bugs and regressions in the code you maintain.

Respond to `@` mentions on GitHub, Discourse, and Matrix within reasonable time.
Notify readers if you cannot deal with the issue due to time constraints or other priorities.

Make sure to reserve time for reviewing pull requests that fall within your area of interest or expertise.

## Provide guidance

Guide new and potential contributors:

- Help answering questions on the [Discourse Help category]
- Encourage question authors to raise or upvote issues on GitHub, if needed
- Assist them with making pull requests to solve the underlying problems, if possible

[Discourse Help category]: https://discourse.nixos.org/c/learn/9