Switch to PR-based process

[infinisil]

Changes the nomination process to individual PRs and as such requires approval from the entire @NixOS/commit-bit-delegation team. This is effectively an alternative to NixOS/nixpkgs#23.

New process

Feel free to try it out (no worries, this is using a test org, and nobody gets pinged):

Nominations

To nominate yourself or somebody else:

1. Check open nominations to make sure the user hasn't been nominated already.
2. Click this link to create a new file in the members directory.
3. Leave the file contents empty and replace <GITHUB_HANDLE> with the handle (without @) of the user you'd like to nominate .
4. Click on "Commit changes..." and follow the steps to create a PR.
5. State your motivation for the nomination in the PR description.

Such nominations are also automatically announced in this issue, which you can subscribe to for updates.

When such a PR is opened, an automatic comment is posted in NixOS/nixpkgs#35, allowing people to easily subscribe to new nominations without other noise.

To do after merging

• Unlock and clean up Nixpkgs Committer Nomination Announcements #35 (turns out automation can't post comment in locked issues, even with a GitHub App with issue write perms)
• Pin Add calf - audio effects plugin pack and lv2 - audio plugin standard nixpkgs#35
• Transfer [2018-2024] Nixpkgs committer nominations #60 and [2024-2025] Nixpkgs committer nominations #50 to this repo, change title/description for more clarity
• Comment then lock [2024-2025] Nixpkgs committer nominations #50 with a link to Nixpkgs Committer Nomination Announcements #35 and instructions for how to nominate going forward
• Create PRs for all nominations in [2024-2025] Nixpkgs committer nominations #50 that haven't been answered
• Merge Nixpkgs committers: Refer to new repo and switch to PR nominations org#179

Notes

There is no PR template for now. While this could be done (though there's only a single default PR template per repo), this PR is kept as minimal as possible, focusing only on the process switch from a single issue to multiple PRs.

Furthermore, we could also add instructions for the contributions script or even run it directly. I'd like to defer that to a later PR though, as it's not essential to have for the PR workflow.

[wolfgangwalther]

Thanks for doing this. I didn't check the implementation in detail, but approve on the change to a PR-based workflow!

[MattSturgeon]

I tried to read through the diff in a bit more detail. I can't see any issues beyond the minor discussion points below, most of which are ideas for future improvements or observations of potential (minor) pain points that may not be easily solved.

(I also tried testing on your test org, but ran into the issues we discussed before, as your test issue is still locked.)

It may be worth addressing the regex, validating that the created file is empty and named for a "real" user, and/or tweaking the nomination instructions. But only if that is low effort and doesn't increase this PR's scope.

LGTM, approving. Thanks for working on this, I'm convinced it'll be a much better experience for all involved!

[jtojnar]

Thanks. This looks good.

Regarding #23 (comment):

A PR can easily be approved by individual commit delegators (if they wish to use such a process), which gives more transparency and accountability. It also means that the team doesn't need its own internal synchronisation.

We will still probably want to keep an internal log with notes but it is cleaner to have single PR per nomination rather than issue + PR.

Slight downside is that GitHub requires having a fork in order to send PR but I guess that is acceptable price to pay.

[infinisil]

PR is now updated with all suggestions addressed :)

I also tried testing on your test org, but ran into the issues we discussed before, as your test issue is still locked.

I unlocked the issue, so that should work now if you wanna try again

[MattSturgeon]

PR is now updated with all suggestions addressed :)

LGTM 🚀

I also tried testing on your test org, but ran into the issues we discussed before, as your test issue is still locked.

I unlocked the issue, so that should work now if you wanna try again

Tested here: infinisil-test-org/nixpkgs-committers#49 (CI run)

[infinisil]

Resolved conflict after NixOS/nixpkgs#45

[niklaskorz]

Do I understand correctly that this is only pending approval by @winterqt? Thanks for the preparation, looking forward to the improved process!

[Pandapip1]

Bump! It would be a shame for this to stall now, so close to the finish line.

[winterqt]

Thanks for all the work on this! Sorry for the delay.

[winterqt]

(I will merge + implement this tomorrow (America/New_York) if someone else doesn’t by then.)

[infinisil]

Thanks! I'll go ahead with merging and implementing this as described in the PR description :)

[infinisil]

Now done effectively everything done as described in the PR description:

• All pending nominations were transferred to PRs, you can see the current nominees here
• Nixpkgs Committer Nomination Announcements #35 is pinned and announces new nominations
• The previous nomination issues are (being) transferred and now refer to the new process: [2018-2024] Nixpkgs committer nominations #60 and [2024-2025] Nixpkgs committer nominations #50
• Nixpkgs committers: Refer to new repo and switch to PR nominations org#179 is about to be merged, just pending an org owner approval

[philiptaron]

Yes! YES! Amazing to see this land.

[niklaskorz]

I like the idea of using review approvals instead of endorsement comments, as @philiptaron has just done on one nomination. Is there a preference on which to use?

[philiptaron]

My view is that we only used !endorse because it was an issue and ✅ isn't possible there. Therefore I will only use PR acceptance in the future 😁 unless otherwise strongly directed.

[wolfgangwalther]

I have migrated two more relevant issues from the org repo to here:

• Nixpkgs committer proposal: Mentor assignments #61
• Automatic retirement of Nixpkgs committers #62

I left NixOS/org#121 in the org repo, because how the commit bit team works is described over there.

I am unsure about NixOS/org#122. It doesn't really belong in the org repo, it would be entirely lost in nixpkgs itself - maybe we should move it here as well?

[tomodachi94]

Another reason that this is good: it should make it easier for mentors to find out when they've been assigned to someone. I did not know that I was assigned to someone until several months after the fact (I subscribed myself to the Committers issue but didn't usually monitor every single notification in that thread). (Side note: I did inadvertently end up "mentoring" her, but a dedicated notification on a PR would've given me an opportunity to be more proactive with that mentoring).