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👥 Maintainers — Roles & Responsibilities

This page describes the responsibilities, expectations, and roles of maintainers in the SUNCAST ecosystem.

🛠️ Maintainer Role

Maintainers are trusted contributors who help steward the long-term health, stability, and quality of SUNCAST repositories.

A maintainer is responsible for:

  • Reviewing and merging Pull Requests
  • Ensuring contributions follow FAIR, CARE, and TRUST principles
  • Maintaining code quality and documentation standards
  • Participating in governance discussions
  • Supporting contributors and answering technical questions
  • Managing releases and versioning (when applicable)

📋 Maintainer Responsibilities

1. Pull Request Review

  • Ensure PRs are clear, documented, and consistent with project goals.
  • Request changes when necessary.
  • Approve and merge PRs that meet standards.
  • Encourage contributors by providing constructive feedback.

2. Issue Management

  • Triage issues and label them appropriately.
  • Close resolved or inactive issues.
  • Engage with user feedback and help clarify problem reports.

3. Release Management

  • Follow semantic versioning (where applicable) for tagged releases.
  • Maintain CHANGELOG entries or release notes.
  • Coordinate with the SUNCAST Governance Board or PI team as needed.

4. Communication

  • Maintain respectful, constructive communication in all public and private channels.
  • Encourage new contributors and mentor early-career participants.
  • Represent SUNCAST values in all interactions.

🧭 Maintainer Appointment

Maintainers may be appointed by:

  • the SUNCAST Governance Board (once established), or
  • the provisional PI-led governance team during the initial phase.

Candidates are typically:

  • active contributors,
  • developers of major features or workflows,
  • individuals committed to SUNCAST’s open-science mission.

🔄 Maintainer Offboarding

If a maintainer becomes inactive for 6+ months or chooses to step down:

  • they retain authorship and contribution credit,
  • they may be listed as an “Emeritus Maintainer,”
  • repository permissions will be updated to maintain clarity and stability.

Maintainers are essential for the sustainability of the SUNCAST ecosystem.
Your service supports open science, reproducibility, and community-driven innovation.