This guide explains how to setup and configure the code-owners plugin.
IMPORTANT: Do this setup before installing/enabling the plugin, or enabling the code owners functionality for further projects. This is important because as soon as the code owners functionality is switched on, all changes will immediately require code owner approvals for the submission of changes and you want everything been setup properly so that code owner approvals can be granted and change submission is not blocked.
The following configuration steps are recommended:
Recommendations about further configuration parameters can be found in the config guide.
Please also heck out the config FAQs.
The code-owners plugin supports multiple code owner backends and it must be configured which one should be used. The backend controls which files represent code owner configs and which syntax they use. The backends may also differ in the feature-set that they support.
By default, the find-owners backend is used, which reads code owner configs from OWNERS files and uses the same syntax that was previously supported by the deprecated find-owners plugin.
To configure a different backend globally, set plugin.code-owners.backend in gerrit.config (requires to be a host admin).
Example global configuration in gerrit.config that configures the proto backend:
[plugin "code-owners"]
backend = proto
To configure a backend on project-level codeOwners.backend in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch can be set (requires to be a project owner).
Example per-project configuration in code-owners.config that configures the proto backend:
[codeOwners]
backend = proto
It's also possible to configure backends per branch by setting codeOwners.<branch>.backend in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch (requires to be a project owner).
Example per-branch configuration in code-owners.config that configures the proto backend:
[codeOwners "refs/heads/experimental"]
backend = proto
IMPORTANT: The proto backend is experimental only and should not be used in production.
You can skip this step if the code owners functionality should be enabled for all projects/repositories on the host.
If the code owners functionality should only be enabled for some projects/repositories, it's best to:
To disable the code owners functionality globally, set plugin.code-owners.disabled in gerrit.config to true (requires to be a host admin).
gerrit.config:
[plugin "code-owners"]
disabled = true
Alternatively you may set codeOwners.disabled in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch of the All-Projects project to true (requires to be a host admin).
code-owners.config:
[codeOwners]
disabled = true
Enable the code owners functionality on project-level by setting codeOwners.disabled in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch to false (requires to be a project owner).
code-owners.config:
[codeOwners]
disabled = false
If the code owners functionality should only be disabled for some projects/repositories it's best to:
This is the default.
If needed, unset plugin.code-owners.disabled in gerrit.config and codeOwners.disabled in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch of the All-Projects project.
Disable the code owners functionality on project-level by setting codeOwners.disabled in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch to true (requires to be a project owner).
code-owners.config:
[codeOwners]
disabled = true
If the code owners functionality is enabled for a project/repository, it is enabled for all branches of the project/repository, unless branches opted-out.
You can skip this section, if the code owners functionality should be enabled for all branches (which is the default configuration).
To opt-out branches from using code owners set codeOwners.disabledBranch in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch to a regular expression that matches the branches that should be opted-out (requires to be a project owner).
code-owners.config:
[codeOwners]
disabledBranch = ^refs/heads/stable-.*
By default Code-Review+1 votes from code owners count as code owner approval. If this is what you want, you can skip this step.
Otherwise you can configure the required code owner approval globally by setting plugin.code-owners.requiredApproval in gerrit.config (requires to be a host admin) or per project by setting codeOwners.requiredApproval in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch (requires to be a project owner).
Example global configuration in gerrit.config that requires Code-Review+2 as code owner approval:
[plugin "code-owners"]
requiredApproval = Code-Review+2
Example per-project configuration in code-owners.config that requires Code-Review+2 as code owner approval:
[codeOwners]
requiredApproval = Code-Review+2
IMPORTANT: The specified label must exist for the project. Make sure that the project configuration contains or inherits the definition of the specified label. How to configure a label in project.config is described here. You may also use the Gerrit REST API to create new label definitions.
IMPORTANT: Code owners need to be granted permissions to vote on the specified label so that they can grant the code owner approval on changes (see next step).
NOTE: To submit a change, code owner approvals are required in addition to labels that are otherwise required for submission. If you want to rely solely on code owner approvals, you may need to reconfigure existing label definitions (e.g. change the Code-Review label definition to not require a Code-Review+2 vote for change submission).
NOTE: Whether code owner approvals are sticky across patch sets depends on the definition of the required label. If the label definition has copy rules enabled so that votes are sticky across patch sets, then also the code owner approvals which are based on these votes will be sticky.
Code owners must be granted permissions to vote on the label that counts as code owner approval (see previous step) in order to be able grant the code owner approval on changes so that they can be submitted.
As for any other permission, the permission to vote on labels needs to be granted via the access screen of the project or a parent project (at https://<host>/admin/repos/<project-name>,access).
It's possible that some files have no code owners defined (e.g. missing root code owner config file). In this case changes for these files cannot be code owner approved and hence cannot be submitted.
To avoid that this leads to unsubmittable changes, it is recommended to configure code owner overrides and/or fallback code owners.
It's possible to configure code owner overrides that allow privileged users to override code owner approvals. This means they can approve changes without being a code owner.
Configuring code owner overrides is optional, but recommended.
To enable code owner overrides, you must define which label vote is required for an override. This can be done globally by setting plugin.code-owners.overrideApproval in gerrit.config (requires to be a host admin) or per project by setting codeOwners.overrideApproval in the code-owners.config file in the refs/meta/config branch (requires to be a project owner).
Example global configuration in gerrit.config that requires Owners-Override+1 for a code owner override:
[plugin "code-owners"]
overrideApproval = Owners-Override+1
Example per-project configuration in code-owners.config that requires Owners-Override+1 for a code owner override:
[codeOwners]
overrideApproval = Owners-Override+1
IMPORTANT: Same as for the label that is required as code owner approval (see above), the specified label must exist for the project and permissions to vote on it must be granted separately.
Example for the definition of the Owners-Override label in project.config:
[label "Owners-Override"]
function = NoBlock
value = 0 No score
value = +1 Override
defaultValue = 0
It is possible to configure a policy for fallback code owners that controls who should own files for which no code owners have been defined, e.g. project owners, all users or no one (default).
Configuring fallback code owners is optional. For the initial rollout of the code-owners plugin it is highly recommended to allow fallback code owners so that projects that do not have any code owner config files yet are not disrupted.
By default, the emails in code owner config files that make users code owners can have any email domain. It is strongly recommended to limit the allowed email domains to trusted email providers (e.g. email providers that guarantee that an email is never reassigned to a different user, since otherwise the user to which the email is reassigned automatically takes over the code ownerships that are assigned to this email, which is a security issue).
To limit the allowed email domains, set plugin.code-owners.allowedEmailDomain in gerrit.config (requires to be a host admin).
Example gerrit.config configuration with restricted email domains:
[plugin "code-owners"]
allowedEmailDomain = google.com
allowedEmailDomain = chromium.org
NOTE: Allowed email domains cannot be configured on project level.
Other optional configuration parameters are described in the config documentation.
Examples (not an exhaustive list):
This section can be skipped if you haven't used the find-owners plugin so far.
The find-owners plugin comes with a Prolog submit rule that prevents the submission of changes that have insufficient code owner approvals. With the code-owners plugin this is now being checked by a submit rule that is implemented in Java. Hence the Prolog submit rule from the find-owners plugin is no longer needed and you should stop using it before you start using the code-owners plugin.
NOTE: It's possible to use the submit rules from the code-owners plugin and find-owners plugin at the same time, but then certains things like code owner overrides and exemptions are not working (as they are not supported by the find-owners plugin).
NOTE: Do not yet disable/uninstall the find-owners plugin, see below which preconditions needs to be fulfilled for this.
By enabling the code owners functionality, a code owner approval from code owners will be required for submitting changes.
If code owners are not defined yet, changes can only be submitted
Right after the code owners functionality got enabled for a project/branch, it is recommended to add an initial code owner configuration at the root level that defines the code owners for the project/branch explicitly.
NOTE: Submitting the initial code owner configuration requires an override or an approval from a fallback code owner (see above).
NOTE: It's recommended to add the initial code owner configuration only after enabling the code owners functionality so that the code owner configuration is validated on upload, which prevents submitting an invalid code owner config that may block the submission of all changes (e.g. if it is not parseable).
NOTE If the repository contains pre-existing code owner config files, it is recommended to validate them via the Check code owners files REST endpoint and fix the reported issues.
NOTE: If neither code owner overrides nor fallback code owners are configured an initial code owner configuration must be added before enabling the code owners functionality as otherwise changes can become unsubmittable (they require code-owner approvals, but noone can provide nor override them).
NOTE: Instead of defining root code owners in all branches, you may also define default code owners in the refs/meta/config branch, that then apply to all branches (also see config guide).
If the find-owners plugin has been used so far, you likely want to disable/uninstall it after the code-owners plugin has been set up. Before doing this it is important to remove all usages of the find-owners Prolog predicates from all Prolog submit rules and filters. If the find-owners Prolog predicates are still used when the find-owners plugin is disabled/uninstalled, they can no longer be resolved which breaks the submit rules using them. If submit rules are broken, changes cannot be submitted, which most users would consider an outage. Hence before disabling/uninstalling the find-owners plugin you want to be sure that the find-owners Prolog predicates are no longer used.
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