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Maintainers Technical Guide

This guide is a technical reference for maintainers working in the LabVIEW Icon Editor repository. It outlines the workflows and GitHub Actions used to manage branches, run continuous integration (CI), and finalize releases. In addition to the steps below, maintainers are expected to triage issues, keep dependencies up to date, and ensure that published guidance across the repository remains current.

Maintainer Responsibilities

  • Issue Triage – Label new issues, confirm reproduction steps, and mark items that are ready for community contribution.
  • Branch Hygiene – Delete merged branches, keep develop rebased on main, and close stale pull requests after consultation with the author.
  • CI Upkeep – Periodically review workflow runs and update GitHub Actions versions or build scripts when they go out of support.
  • Community Support – Respond to discussion threads and provide direction to contributors in pull requests and issues.

Feature Branch Workflow

  1. Confirm the related GitHub issue is approved for work.
  2. Create a branch from develop named issue-<number>-<short-description> (for example, issue-123-fix-toolbar). Branch names must include issue-<number>.
  3. Set the linked issue's Status field to In Progress. The issue-status job enforces the branch naming and status requirements, skipping most jobs when either condition is not met.
  4. Push the branch to the main repository and open a pull request targeting develop (or another appropriate branch).
  5. Run unit tests or scripted checks locally whenever possible.
  6. Ensure CI passes and obtain at least one maintainer approval before merging.
  7. After merging, delete the source branch to keep the repository tidy.

Workflow Administration

  • Approve experiment branches – When an experiment branch should publish artifacts (VIPs), run the approve-experiment workflow in GitHub Actions. Coordinate with the NI Open-Source Program Manager (OSPM) before execution.
  • Finalize experiment merges – Prior to merging an experiment branch into develop, apply an appropriate version label (major/minor/patch) and remove any temporary settings or NoCI labels. A NoCI label causes the CI workflow to skip all jobs, so clear it before running final tests. The OSPM or designated NI staff typically gives the final approval.
  • Hotfix branches – For critical fixes on an official release, create or approve a hotfix/* branch targeting main. After merging into main, merge the changes back into develop to keep branches synchronized.
  • Documentation updates – When workflows change, update related documentation in the /docs directory as part of the same pull request.

Pull Request Review Checklist

  • The pull request references a tracked issue and targets the correct branch.
  • Commit messages are clear and follow repository conventions.
  • CI jobs complete successfully and any failures are explained.
  • Documentation and tests are added or updated as needed.

Release Preparation

Maintainers ensure that develop remains in a releasable state:

  1. Verify version labels and changelog entries reflect upcoming changes.
  2. Confirm that CI is green on develop and main.
  3. Coordinate with release engineers or the OSPM to merge into main and publish packages when a release is planned.

Additional Resources

  • Repository governance is described in GOVERNANCE.md.
  • Action-specific documentation is available in this directory's other guides.