Node.js Working Groups

Node.js Working Groups are autonomous projects created by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC).

Working Groups can be formed at any time but must be ratified by the TSC. Once formed the work defined in the Working Group charter is the responsibility of the WG rather than the TSC.

It is important that Working Groups are not formed pre-maturely. Working Groups are not formed to begin a set of tasks but instead are formed once that work is already underway and the contributors think it would benefit from being done as an autonomous project.

If the work defined in a Working Group charter is completed the Working Group should be dissolved and the responsibility for governance absorbed back in to the TSC.

Current Working Groups

Process:

Website

The website working group's purpose is to build and maintain a public website for the Node.js project.

Its responsibilities are:

  • Develop and maintain a build and automation system for nodejs.org.
  • Ensure the site is regularly updated with changes made to Node.js like releases and features.
  • Foster and enable a community of translators.

Streams

The Streams WG is dedicated to the support and improvement of the Streams API as used in Node.js and the npm ecosystem. We seek to create a composable API that solves the problem of representing multiple occurrences of an event over time in a humane, low-overhead fashion. Improvements to the API will be driven by the needs of the ecosystem; interoperability and backwards compatibility with other solutions and prior versions are paramount in importance. Our responsibilities include:

  • Addressing stream issues on the Node.js issue tracker.
  • Authoring and editing stream documentation within the Node.js project.
  • Reviewing changes to stream subclasses within the Node.js project.
  • Redirecting changes to streams from the Node.js project to this project.
  • Assisting in the implementation of stream providers within Node.js.
  • Recommending versions of readable-stream to be included in Node.js.
  • Messaging about the future of streams to give the community advance notice of changes.

Build

The build working group's purpose is to create and maintain a distributed automation infrastructure.

Its responsibilities are:

  • Produce Packages for all target platforms.
  • Run tests.
  • Run performance testing and comparisons.
  • Creates and manages build-containers.

Tracing

The tracing working group's purpose is to increase the transparency of software written in Node.js.

Its responsibilities are:

  • Collaboration with V8 to integrate with trace_event.
  • Maintenance and iteration on AsyncWrap.
  • Maintenance and improvements to system tracing support (DTrace, LTTng, etc.)
  • Documentation of tracing and debugging techniques.
  • Fostering a tracing and debugging ecosystem.

i18n

The i18n working groups handle more than just translations. They are endpoints for community members to collaborate with each other in their language of choice.

Each team is organized around a common spoken language. Each language community might then produce multiple localizations for various project resources.

Their responsibilities are:

  • Translations of any Node.js materials they believe are relevant to their community.
  • Review processes for keeping translations up to date and of high quality.
  • Social media channels in their language.
  • Promotion of Node.js speakers for meetups and conferences in their language.

Note that the i18n working groups are distinct from the Intl working group.

Each language community maintains its own membership.

Intl

The Intl Working Group is dedicated to support and improvement of Internationalization (i18n) and Localization (l10n) in Node. Its responsibilities are:

  1. Functionality & compliance (standards: ECMA, Unicode…)
  2. Support for Globalization and Internationalization issues that come up in the tracker
  3. Guidance and Best Practices
  4. Refinement of existing Intl implementation

The Intl WG is not responsible for translation of content. That is the responsibility of the specific i18n group for each language.

Evangelism

The evangelism working group promotes the accomplishments of Node.js and lets the community know how they can get involved.

Their responsibilities are:

  • Project messaging.
  • Official project social media.
  • Promotion of speakers for meetups and conferences.
  • Promotion of community events.
  • Publishing regular update summaries and other promotional content.

HTTP

The HTTP working group is chartered for the support and improvement of the HTTP implementation in Node. It's responsibilities are:

  • Addressing HTTP issues on the Node.js issue tracker.
  • Authoring and editing HTTP documentation within the Node.js project.
  • Reviewing changes to HTTP functionality within the Node.js project.
  • Working with the ecosystem of HTTP related module developers to evolve the HTTP implementation and APIs in core.
  • Advising the CTC on all HTTP related issues and discussions.
  • Messaging about the future of HTTP to give the community advance notice of changes.

Roadmap

The roadmap working group is responsible for user community outreach and the translation of their concerns into a plan of action for Node.js.

The final ROADMAP document is still owned by the TC and requires the same approval for changes as any other project asset.

Their responsibilities are:

  • Attract and summarize user community needs and feedback.
  • Find or potentially create tools that allow for broader participation.
  • Create Pull Requests for relevant changes to Roadmap.md

Docker

The Docker working group's purpose is to build, maintain, and improve official Docker images for the Node.js project.

Their responsibilities are:

  • Keep the official Docker images updated in line with new Node.js releases.
  • Decide and implement image improvements and/or fixes.
  • Maintain and improve the images' documentation.

Addon API

The Addon API Working Group is responsible for maintaining the NAN project and corresponding nan package in npm. The NAN project makes available an abstraction layer for native add-on authors for both Node.js and Node.js, assisting in the writing of code that is compatible with many actively used versions of Node.js, Node.js, V8 and libuv.

Their responsibilities are:

  • Maintaining the NAN GitHub repository, including code, issues and documentation.
  • Maintaining the addon-examples GitHub repository, including code, issues and documentation.
  • Maintaining the C++ Addon API within the Node.js project, in subordination to the Node.js TSC.
  • Maintaining the Addon documentation within the Node.js project, in subordination to the Node.js TSC.
  • Maintaining the nan package in npm, releasing new versions as appropriate.
  • Messaging about the future of the Node.js and NAN interface to give the community advance notice of changes.

The current members can be found in their README.

Benchmarking

The purpose of the Benchmark working group is to gain consensus for an agreed set of benchmarks that can be used to:

  • track and evangelize performance gains made between Node releases
  • avoid performance regressions between releases

Its responsibilities are:

  • Identify 1 or more benchmarks that reflect customer usage. Likely need more than one to cover typical Node use cases including low-latency and high concurrency
  • Work to get community consensus on the list chosen
  • Add regular execution of chosen benchmarks to Node builds
  • Track/publicize performance between builds/releases

Post-mortem

The Post-mortem Diagnostics working group is dedicated to the support and improvement of postmortem debugging for Node.js. It seeks to elevate the role of postmortem debugging for Node, to assist in the development of techniques and tools, and to make techniques and tools known and available to Node.js users.

Its responsibilities are:

  • Defining and adding interfaces/APIs in order to allow dumps to be generated when needed
  • Defining and adding common structures to the dumps generated in order to support tools that want to introspect those dumps

Starting a WG

A Working Group is established by first defining a charter that can be ratified by the TC. A charter is a statement of purpose, a list of responsibilities and a list of initial membership.

A working group needs 3 initial members. These should be individuals already undertaking the work described in the charter.

The list of responsibilities should be specific. Once established, these responsibilities are no longer governed by the TC and therefore should not be broad or subjective. The only recourse the TC has over the working group is to revoke the entire charter and take on the work previously done by the working group themselves.

If the responsibilities described in the charter are currently undertaken by another WG then the charter will additionally have to be ratified by that WG.

You can submit the WG charter for ratification by sending a Pull Request to this document, which adds it to the list of current Working Groups. Once ratified the list of members should be maintained in the Working Group's README.

Bootstrap Governance

Once the TC ratifies a charter the WG inherits the following documentation for governance, contribution, conduct and an MIT LICENSE. The WG is free to change these documents through their own governance process, hence the term “bootstrap.”

[insert WG name] Working Group

The Node.js [insert WG name] is jointly governed by a Working Group (WG) that is responsible for high-level guidance of the project.

The WG has final authority over this project including:

  • Technical direction
  • Project governance and process (including this policy)
  • Contribution policy
  • GitHub repository hosting
  • Conduct guidelines
  • Maintaining the list of additional Collaborators

For the current list of WG members, see the project README.md.

Collaborators

The [insert WG name] GitHub repository is maintained by the WG and additional Collaborators who are added by the WG on an ongoing basis.

Individuals making significant and valuable contributions are made Collaborators and given commit-access to the project. These individuals are identified by the WG and their addition as Collaborators is discussed during the weekly WG meeting.

Note: If you make a significant contribution and are not considered for commit-access log an issue or contact a WG member directly and it will be brought up in the next WG meeting.

Modifications of the contents of the [insert WG repo] repository are made on a collaborative basis. Anybody with a GitHub account may propose a modification via pull request and it will be considered by the project Collaborators. All pull requests must be reviewed and accepted by a Collaborator with sufficient expertise who is able to take full responsibility for the change. In the case of pull requests proposed by an existing Collaborator, an additional Collaborator is required for sign-off. Consensus should be sought if additional Collaborators participate and there is disagreement around a particular modification. See Consensus Seeking Process below for further detail on the consensus model used for governance.

Collaborators may opt to elevate significant or controversial modifications, or modifications that have not found consensus to the WG for discussion by assigning the WG-agenda tag to a pull request or issue. The WG should serve as the final arbiter where required.

For the current list of Collaborators, see the project README.md.

WG Membership

WG seats are not time-limited. There is no fixed size of the WG. However, the expected target is between 6 and 12, to ensure adequate coverage of important areas of expertise, balanced with the ability to make decisions efficiently.

There is no specific set of requirements or qualifications for WG membership beyond these rules.

The WG may add additional members to the WG by unanimous consensus.

A WG member may be removed from the WG by voluntary resignation, or by unanimous consensus of all other WG members.

Changes to WG membership should be posted in the agenda, and may be suggested as any other agenda item (see “WG Meetings” below).

If an addition or removal is proposed during a meeting, and the full WG is not in attendance to participate, then the addition or removal is added to the agenda for the subsequent meeting. This is to ensure that all members are given the opportunity to participate in all membership decisions. If a WG member is unable to attend a meeting where a planned membership decision is being made, then their consent is assumed.

No more than 1/3 of the WG members may be affiliated with the same employer. If removal or resignation of a WG member, or a change of employment by a WG member, creates a situation where more than 1/3 of the WG membership shares an employer, then the situation must be immediately remedied by the resignation or removal of one or more WG members affiliated with the over-represented employer(s).

WG Meetings

The WG meets weekly on a Google Hangout On Air. A designated moderator approved by the WG runs the meeting. Each meeting should be published to YouTube.

Items are added to the WG agenda that are considered contentious or are modifications of governance, contribution policy, WG membership, or release process.

The intention of the agenda is not to approve or review all patches; that should happen continuously on GitHub and be handled by the larger group of Collaborators.

Any community member or contributor can ask that something be added to the next meeting's agenda by logging a GitHub Issue. Any Collaborator, WG member or the moderator can add the item to the agenda by adding the WG-agenda tag to the issue.

Prior to each WG meeting the moderator will share the Agenda with members of the WG. WG members can add any items they like to the agenda at the beginning of each meeting. The moderator and the WG cannot veto or remove items.

The WG may invite persons or representatives from certain projects to participate in a non-voting capacity.

The moderator is responsible for summarizing the discussion of each agenda item and sends it as a pull request after the meeting.

Consensus Seeking Process

The WG follows a Consensus Seeking decision-making model.

When an agenda item has appeared to reach a consensus the moderator will ask “Does anyone object?” as a final call for dissent from the consensus.

If an agenda item cannot reach a consensus a WG member can call for either a closing vote or a vote to table the issue to the next meeting. The call for a vote must be seconded by a majority of the WG or else the discussion will continue. Simple majority wins.

Note that changes to WG membership require unanimous consensus. See “WG Membership” above.

Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.0

By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

  • (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or
  • (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file; or
  • (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it.

Moderation Policy

The Node.js Moderation Policy applies to this WG.

Code of Conduct

The Node.js Code of Conduct applies to this WG.