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Codeowners and Review

CODEOWNERS routes review requests by path. It does not grant approval, classify risk, prove validation, or replace branch policy.

flowchart LR
    Change[Changed paths] --> Route[CODEOWNERS match]
    Route --> Reviewer[Requested owner]
    Change --> Risk[Compatibility and operational risk]
    Change --> Checks[Required and focused evidence]
    Reviewer --> Decision[Approval decision]
    Risk --> Decision
    Checks --> Decision

Current Routing Model

The checked-in .github/CODEOWNERS is intentionally coarse:

  • * @bijux supplies the default owner for every path;
  • .github/ @bijux explicitly covers repository governance and automation;
  • shared/bijux-gh/ @bijux and shared/bijux-checks/ @bijux cover shared workflow and check material.

There are no separate checked-in owners for crates, docs, configs, or ops subtrees. Those paths inherit the default owner. Do not infer domain-specific review separation that the file does not encode.

Approval Policy

The policy / pr approval workflow applies rules beyond review routing:

  • an owner-authored pull request requires the owner-self-signoff label;
  • a non-owner pull request requires the latest owner review state to be APPROVED;
  • draft state and later review changes remain part of policy evaluation.

This workflow reads the pull request through GitHub's API. A requested owner or an earlier approval is not sufficient when the latest evaluated state fails the policy.

Review Depth

Change Review concerns beyond path routing
generated or synchronized .github content upstream authority, synchronization source, checksum or policy validation
public CLI, API, schema, or report compatibility classification and consumer evidence
ops, security, load, or recovery declared policy versus target-bound execution evidence
release workflow permissions, immutable identity, partial publication, rollback, and receipts
documentation factual authority, reader impact, navigation, links, and focused validation

Escalation Boundary

Escalate when a change relaxes a gate, introduces a bypass, alters required contexts, changes a compatibility window, or affects a domain without encoded specialist ownership. A single default owner is clear routing, but it is not evidence that every technical perspective was represented.

Stability

Ownership patterns and approval-policy labels are repository governance contracts. Update documentation and branch-policy expectations when their meaning changes; do not treat a CODEOWNERS edit as sufficient proof that the new review model is enforced.