2023-09-13 Project proposal: Project board improvements#
Author: @dhruvkb
Reviewers#
[x] @AetherUnbound
[x] @obulat
Project summary#
The end-goal of this project is to have a comprehensive set of boards where one can track all aspects of work being done in Openverse. This includes issues, PRs and project discussions. These boards should have lots of different views, for different purposes, and these views should be standardised and documented.
Each of these projects should be highly automated, where minimal effort is needed to keep these boards synced to reality. Most human actions should be complemented by automations that can sync the effects of the event to the board. These should be a combination of built-in and custom workflows, where custom workflows are consistent, well-tested and maintainable.
Goals#
This project should do both of the following things:
enhance our productivity by reducing a lot of work required to keep these projects up to date
increase our accountability by helping us stay on top of our work and also being aware of what others in the team are working on
Requirements and success#
The following are requirements & success criteria for the project automations:
all issues and PRs are automatically added to the relevant project boards
all cards are in the right columns as per their status
rarely, if ever, do we need to manually move cards to the right columns (except for moving cards from “📋 Backlog” to “📅 To do” to prioritise them)
all custom automations are in a single place and are easy to maintain
all automations are documented
The following are requirements & success criteria for the project views:
views are created based on clear utility in helping maintainers track work
views are clearly labelled, and it’s known which view to use for what purpose
all views, and their utilities, are documented
Participants#
The boards are primarily an internal tool for maintainers and to some extent, an external tools for contributors (to find potential inroads to contribute) and project leadership (to gauge activity and progress).
Expectation for maintainers#
Knowing what issues everyone, including themselves, is working on at a given time.
Having a clear idea of what issues need to be worked on after the current issues on hand are resolved.
Being able to find critical or high priority issues that haven’t been addressed.
Knowing the status of their own PRs.
Identifying PRs that require additional reviews.
Expectation for contributors#
Finding help wanted or good first issues that are not already assigned or being worked on by someone else.
Knowing that their PRs will be noticed, reviewed and merged in a timely manner.
Expectation for project leadership#
While project leadership are not directly concerned with the day-to-day issues and PRs, they should be able to see a steady movement of cards from left-to-right.
The project discussion boards are more relevant to the leadership.
Miscellaneous#
This project should not have any components related to infrastructure, a11y or marketing as it is internal. Several new workflows will be defined which will be executed on GitHub Actions.
Required implementation plans#
The following implementation plans would be required: