handbook/contributions/committers-credo.md

# Committers Credo

Some people have write access to WP-CLI repositories. These people are identified in the following teams:

* [maintainers](https://github.com/orgs/wp-cli/teams/maintainers) - Project leadership
* [committers](https://github.com/orgs/wp-cli/teams/committers) - Trusted contributors

This “Committers credo” is a living document. It’s meant to establish generally agreed upon standards for committers, and will continue to evolve over time.

## Product quality

WP-CLI is a project depended upon by the entire WordPress ecosystem. This trust is earned by producing a consistent, dependable, and high quality product. WP-CLI committers hold product and code quality in the highest regard.

Practically-speaking:

* Given a choice between Good, Fast, and Cheap, we pick Good and Slow. Creating great software is a journey, not a destination.
* Product decisions are made [in alignment with our core philosophy](https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/philosophy/).
* [Code review is an integral part of our development workflow](https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/code-review/). Pull requests need approval of at least one other committer before merging. If you’d like more than one code review, please don’t hesitate to request one. You can request a review from a specific person, or from the `@wp-cli/committers` team.
* If you need help with something, ask for help. Seriously, ask for help any time you feel like you need help. No sense getting stuck.

## Stellar judgement

A great product is a reflection of thoughtful, deliberate, and considered decision-making. WP-CLI committers exhibit stellar judgement with making decisions on new features, fixing bugs, merging others pull requests, and generally working on the project.

The basis of this decision-making ensures:

* New features fit within the [scope and philosophy of the WP-CLI project](https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/philosophy/).
* Bug fixes are prioritized, because bugs negatively affect the product quality.
* Pull requests include tests covering the scope of the change.
* Potential code additions are evaluated on their maintenance burden as well as their usefulness.

## Consistent participation

Effective involvement with the WP-CLI project requires consistent involvement, clarity of communication, and a propensity to help others.

As a widely adopted project, WP-CLI has a diverse user base. Helping this user base has tremendous opportunity for impact. WP-CLI committers prioritize clearing others’ blockers over their own work, knowing this is a key contributor to a stable community.

Notably, the idea that "[pending code reviews represent blocked threads of execution](http://glen.nu/ramblings/oncodereview.php)" can be applied broadly across all forms of collaboration. Prioritize providing feedback to others over your own work, if your feedback is blocking their progress. Request a [code review](https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/code-review/) for a pull request by assigning the `@wp-cli/committers` team for review.

Committer participation isn’t just committing code. Often, you can have a huge amount of impact by investing a little bit of your time into:

* Refining an existing piece of documentation, or drafting a new one.
* Helping a contributor with whatever is needed to finish up their pull request.
    * If a contributor abandons a pull request (e.g. no activity in two weeks) that's close to a mergeable state, you can [perform any necessary cleanup by committing directly to their branch](https://help.github.com/articles/committing-changes-to-a-pull-request-branch-created-from-a-fork/) and get it over the finish line.
* Triaging issues by spending 5-10 minutes further diagnosing the report and commenting with additional information you’ve discovered.