Worked Example: Reviewing a DVC Repository for Stewardship¶

Page Maps¶

graph LR
  family["Reproducible Research"]
  program["Deep Dive DVC"]
  section["Migration Governance Dvc Boundaries"]
  page["Worked Example: Reviewing a DVC Repository for Stewardship"]
  capstone["Capstone evidence"]

  family --> program --> section --> page
  page -.applies in.-> capstone

flowchart LR
  orient["Orient on the page map"] --> read["Read the main claim and examples"]
  read --> inspect["Inspect the related code, proof, or capstone surface"]
  inspect --> verify["Run or review the verification path"]
  verify --> apply["Apply the idea back to the module and capstone"]

This example shows the final course skill: reviewing a DVC repository as a steward, not only as a user.

The goal is to produce a review that leads to safe change.

The situation¶

A maintainer asks:

Is this DVC repository ready for another team to inherit?

The reviewer does not start with formatting. The reviewer starts with state contracts.

Step 1: Inspect evidence surfaces¶

The reviewer opens:

dvc.yaml
dvc.lock
params.yaml
metrics/metrics.json
publish/v1/
recovery and review guides
verification commands in the Makefile

The reviewer asks whether the files agree, not whether each file looks nice alone.

Step 2: Write findings as contracts¶

Finding:

The promoted release bundle has metrics and params, but no review note explains why the selected threshold is accepted.

Risk:

A downstream consumer can read the result but cannot defend the promotion decision.

Repair:

Add a release review note that names the threshold, metric tradeoff, baseline, and downstream contract.

That is a useful stewardship finding because it is evidence-based and repairable.

Step 3: Plan one migration safely¶

The repository wants to move from publish/v1/ to registry/incident-escalation/v1/.

The reviewer proposes:

Inventory current publish/v1/ files and manifest.
Copy the same supported bundle to the new registry boundary.
Keep the old boundary temporarily.
Run release audit and recovery review.
Update consumer documentation.
Remove the old boundary only after the new contract is verified.

The plan moves one boundary and preserves rollback.

Step 4: Add a governance rule¶

The reviewer writes:

Any future registry or release boundary change must include a manifest, matching params and metrics, a review note, and a passing release audit route.

This rule is small and directly tied to the problem found.

Step 5: Decide tool ownership¶

The review closes with ownership:

DVC should continue to own artifact lineage, params, metrics, lock evidence, and recovery of tracked outputs. The external registry should own consumer-facing lifecycle and deployment approval, but it must preserve links back to DVC evidence.

That division gives the next team a map.

The final review note¶

The repository has a workable DVC state model, but the release boundary needs stronger stewardship before handoff. The main repair is to add promotion rationale and manifest checks to the release review route. The proposed migration to a registry boundary should move only the promoted bundle first, keep publish/v1/ temporarily, and verify recovery before changing consumer documentation. DVC remains the authority for artifact lineage; the registry should own consumer lifecycle.

Why this is a mastery example¶

This one story exercises the whole module:

Core 1: review began with evidence surfaces
Core 2: migration moved one boundary with rollback
Core 3: governance came from a real recurring risk
Core 4: vague promotion was treated as an anti-pattern
Core 5: tool ownership was split deliberately

The course ends with stewardship because reproducibility survives through reviewable decisions, not only through commands.