Wei Lu: GitHub Workflow to Maintain openIMIS

1. Title Slide

Title: GitHub Workflow to Maintain openIMIS
Subtitle: Sustaining Quality and Collaboration at Scale with Protected Branches, Structured Reviews, and Automation

2. Branch Protection Rules

• Enforce branch protection to disable force pushes (admins included)

  • ✅ Already enabled

  • 🔧 Need to enable “apply to administrators” toggle

• Require at least one approving review before merging (no admin bypass)

  • ✅ Already enabled

  • 🔧 Need to enable “apply to administrators” toggle

• Require CI status checks before merging

  • Start with unit tests

  • Add integration / E2E tests (in draft)

  • Review linters, bring to health, then enable

  • Review coverage config, then enable

To-Dos:

• https://openimis.atlassian.net/browse/OP-2800

• After Patrick is done with the empty DB change for solution building: https://openimis.atlassian.net/browse/OP-2801. Starts with only enforcing module CI for selected backend modules (core, individuals, social_protection)

3. More Descriptive PRs

• PR must explain rationale: what was broken, why needed

• For user-facing changes or bug fixes: include a short screen recording

• Enforce norms with a GitHub PR template

To-Dos:

see - PR template dsicussion on 2025-11-25 Developers Deep Dive Call

4. Maintainer Pool & Review Triage Workflow

• Organize maintainers into GitHub Teams (Cash Transfer, Interoperability, Solution Building, Maintenance, etc.)

• Triage adds relevant teams → Code Review Assignment auto-assigns 2 reviewers per team (round-robin)

• Reviewer assignment examples:

•  

  If no review in 48h → triage assigns backup reviewers

• Maintainers can mark status as Busy to avoid assignment when on leave

5. Metrics for Maintainer Pool Health

• Quarterly review of reviewer responsiveness (% PRs reviewed within 48h)

• Remove consistently inactive contributors from active pool

• Highlight top reviewers and recognize consistent responsiveness

• For organizations under GIZ contracts, maintain minimum number of active contributors proportional to engagement scale

6. Automations for Productivity

• Auto-merge: PR merges when all required checks (reviews + CI) pass

• Stale Bot: keep repo clean

  • Nudge inactive PRs after 48h

  • Auto-close if no activity after 7 days (can be reopened manually)

To-do:

• auto-merge needs to be tested

• stale-bot: try out with (nudge: 4 days) and (no-activity: 14 days)

7. PR Lifecycle (Visual)

Flow:
Developer opens PR → Triage assigns teams → Reviewers auto-assigned → CI checks → Reviewer approval → Auto-merge if green → Metrics tracked

(Add arrows + icons for a visual workflow here)

8. Summary & Next Steps

Recap:

• Protected branches (no force push, CI checks, mandatory reviews)

• PR governance (templates, descriptive rationale, recordings)

• Structured review workflow (maintainer pool, auto-assignment)

• Automations (auto-merge, reminders, stale PR closure)

• Metrics (review responsiveness, recognition, contributor pool health)

Call to Action:

Finalize branch protection settings

Roll out PR template

Build and publish maintainer directory + triage process

Implement automation (auto-merge + bots)

Launch quarterly review cycle for pool health