Mocha Maintainer's Handbook

Introduction

Hi stranger! We've written this document for:

Active maintainers of Mocha
Prospective maintainers of Mocha
Anyone curious about how Mocha's maintainers maintain Mocha

The purpose of this document is to describe our processes. We want to avoid conflicts and confusion around "unwritten rules". In our opinion, the most straightforward way to address this is to write them down. This also happens to be the most straightforward way to change them!

To assist in eliminating ambiguity, we will define some terms.

Terminology

Anyone involved with Mocha will fall into one of these buckets: user, contributor, and maintainer.

User

A "user" for the purpose of this document is any individual developer who consumes Mocha to write and/or execute tests. A user interacts with contributors. A user interacts with the software, web site, documentation, etc., which these contributors provide.

As a user, you're expected to follow the code of conduct when interacting in Mocha's "official" social spaces. This includes:

Any channel under the mochajs Discord
Any project under the mochajs organization on GitHub
Any future social, in-person, or online events which Mocha might organize

Contributor

This is the most important thing:

You don't have to write code to be a contributor!

A "contributor" is any individual who has given back in some way to the project and its community. Contributions include (but are not limited to):

Reporting bugs which follow the reporting guidelines
Suggesting and debating enhancements that have wide applicability
Helping others with Mocha-related questions on our Discord, StackOverflow, or other sites
Sending pull requests which fix bugs, improve documentation, improve developer experience, improve code quality, and/or implement requested enhancements
Reviewing code on pull requests
Providing design assets
Posting a tutorial on a personal blog or blogging site
Suggesting usages for project funds
Organizing a "Mocha-branded" event or workshop
Recruiting more contributors! Don't spam.
Researching the user base, getting feedback, etc. Don't spam.

A contributor is usually a user as well, but this isn't a hard-and-fast rule. A contributor is also expected to adhere to the code of conduct as a user would.

As you can see, it's wide open! Think of it another way: if you are adding value to Mocha, then you are a contributor.

Due to the nature of GitHub, it's a challenge to recognize those who've made contributions elsewhere on the web, or even contributions of the "non-code" variety. If you know of any great contributions which have gone unnoticed, please bring them to the maintainers' attention!

A Note About Donations

A donation is also a great way to help Mocha if you want to help sustain OSS, but can't find time to contribute in other ways, or just want to say "thanks!"

We love our backers and sponsors! 💕

Maintainer

A maintainer has certain "rights" (or "permissions") to the Mocha project and other projects under the mochajs organization. There's no way to dance around this: with these rights come increased responsibilities.

However, there is no expectation of a standard of technical ability to be a maintainer of Mocha. This doesn't imply a lack of technical oversight--every pull request will eventually be reviewed.

If you think you aren't experienced enough to maintain a project like Mocha, you are incorrect. The only requirements are the above responsibilities and a desire to help the project. It bears repeating:

You don't have to write code to be a maintainer!

Maintainer is synonymous with "Collaborator" and/or "Owner" in GitHub parlance.

The Responsibilities of a Maintainer

As a maintainer, you are expected to not just "follow" the code of conduct, but embody its values. Your public behavior, whether in the physical or virtual world, reflects upon the project and other maintainers.

If you don't understand the code of conduct, or why it exists, it is your responsibility to educate yourself. This does not imply the CoC is immutable.

Furthermore, a maintainer is a contributor who contributes regularly. That can be daily, weekly, or even just a few times a month -- as long as it's regular. We are all people with Real Lives, and for many of us, contributing to OSS is just an occasional hobby!

Finally, a maintainer must help define what makes Mocha "Mocha". At minimum, a maintainer must understand the current definition (if a maintainer is not interested in decision-making). Some of these questions include:

What's the scope of Mocha?
Where should we focus efforts?
What's urgent, what can wait?
What can we break? What's off-limits?
What user feedback is valuable? What isn't?

As maintainers, we work together to learn about the nature of these questions. If we try hard enough, we even come to some answers!

A maintainer must also have 2FA enabled on their GitHub account.

If you think that you aren't familiar with mocha's internals enough to contribute, please watch this walkthrough video!

The Rights of a Maintainer

You may choose to do zero or more of these at their discretion:

Merge pull requests
Modify issues (closing, adding labels, assigning them other maintainers, etc.)
Modify GitHub Projects
Cancel builds, restart jobs, or otherwise interact with our CI server(s)
CRUD operations on GitHub integrations
Participate in the decision-making process
Add new maintainers to the team
Tag releases and publish Mocha to npm

While maintainers have the ability to commit directly to the main branch, this is to be avoided if any other maintainer could reasonably take issue with the change, or the change affects Mocha's API or output. For example, a spelling correction in CHANGELOG.md may not require a pull request. A change to a reporter's output most certainly would! Maintainers are trusted to use their best judgement; if unsure, err on the side of caution.

Expected Activity Levels

We generally expect maintainers to average at least:

Multiple contributions of any kind in a week
One meaningful, non-trivial contribution per month

These are rough averages, not strict minimums! It's totally fine to skip a week or two here and there, as long as you do a little more before or after. Meaningful, non-trivial contributions can be a well-thought-out comment, sending a non-straightforward pull request, or anything else that adds real value to the project.

If you have to step away longer than a couple of weeks, that's totally fine too. Just let the other maintainers know ahead of time.

If you need to step away for up to a month or two, don't sweat it.
If we don't hear from you for a month without prior notice, we'll check in with you to see if you want to remain a maintainer.
After three months of inactivity, or two without prior notice, we'll likely remove you as a maintainer.

Again, don't stress about this if you can't always be available. Your boss doesn't work here; contribute as often as you reasonably can. Even if you step down or are removed, if you can come back and be regularly active we'll happily reinstate you.

About "Owners"

Some maintainers will have full admin rights to the mochajs GitHub org and/or will have access to publish to npm.

Those with publish access must use npm's 2FA.
This level of access will be granted by the current owners to those maintainers who have earned the project's trust.

Mocha's Decision-Making Process

Mocha follows a consensus-seeking decision-making process. In other words, all maintainers attempt to come to agreement. If that fails, we decide by a simple vote.

Active maintainers will make an effort to solicit feedback from others before making important or potentially controversial decisions. Given the varying geographical distribution and availability of the maintenance team, we resolve to do the best we can to solicit feedback. We will wait at least two weeks for consensus votes in most cases, and a month for especially important decisions.

In other words, to have your opinion heard, participate regularly. The rest of the team won't wait on feedback that isn't necessarily forthcoming!

Communication

Maintainers will mainly gather in the Mocha Discord. This is a public Discord, and anyone can join. Videoconference (or audio) calls may happen on a regular or irregular basis, as schedules allow. This is mainly because we have Real Lives and time zones suck.

Working with Issues & Pull Requests

All new issues will need to be triaged, and pull requests must be examined. Maintainers must understand Semantic Versioning ("SemVer"), as Mocha follows it strictly.

If you see an issue or PR that could use some labels, please add them!

Semantic Versioning

The TL;DR of Semantic Versioning is:

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

Pull requests must have one of these three (3) labels:

semver-patch for backwards-compatible bug fixes, documentation, or anything which does not affect a "production" (npm install mocha) installation of Mocha
semver-minor for backwards-compatible new features or usability/interface enhancements
semver-major for backwards-incompatible ("breaking") changes to the API

A PR which introduces a breaking change is considered to be semver-major, regardless of whether it's a bug fix, feature, or whatever.

For the purposes of the above definitions, Mocha has some unique considerations, and includes the following in its definition of "API":

Mocha's documented, programmatic interface which is not explicitly tagged with @private
Mocha's machine-readable reporter output
Mocha's default settings
Mocha's command-line options
The environments which Mocha supports; this includes:
1. Browser versions
2. Node.js versions
3. Compatibility with popular module loaders (e.g., AMD)

Err on the side of the user; breaking changes to private APIs will be semver-major, if and only if they are known to be consumed by actively developed project(s).

Examples of a breaking changes might be:

Throwing an Error where one wasn't thrown before
Removing a command-line option or alias
Removing an environment from the CI configuration
Changing the default reporter!
Changing defaults in a way which would cause tests which were previously successful to start failing, or a failing test to start passing
- The exception is fixing likely false-positives
- A good example would be changing the default timeout value

Issue Triage

Issues should be filed according to one of our GitHub Issue forms. If any required information is missing, add the status: waiting for author label and politely ask for the missing information.

Issue Meta

For all issues, apply the following labels based on which area(s) the issue pertains to:

area: async: Issues around Mocha's asynchronous usage
area: browser: Issues unique to a browser environment
area: parallel: Issues around Mocha's parallel mode
area: reporter: Usually concerning Mocha's output
area: repository tooling: Issues around Mocha's CI, own test suite, or other internal tooling
area: security: Involving vulnerabilities, actual or potential
area: windows: Windows-specific issues, particularly around path discrepancies

Additionally:

good first issue: If the implementation is likely doable by someone who's never contributed to Mocha (or potentially any other open source project) before
status: duplicate: If an equivalent issue was already filed, add this label, close as not planned, and comment with something like duplicate of #<other-issue-number>
status: in discussion: Add this whenever the issue is blocked on community input and/or deeper discussions
status: in triage: Added on new issues; re-add this whenever the issue is awaiting maintainer attention
status: waiting for author: Add this whenever the issue is blocked on something from the author

🐛 Bugs

Bug reports should include a way to reproduce the issue that someone who is not deeply familiar with Mocha can work with locally.

Depending on that reproduction, remove status: in triage and add the following label(s) in addition to the auto-added type: bug:

If the bug is valid and reproduction works: add status: accepting prs
If the bug might be valid but the reproduction isn't workable:
- Add status: waiting for author
- Politely comment explaining why the reproduction isn't workable
If the bug might be valid but it's not clear whether it's worth it:
- Add status: in discussion
- Explain that it might be worth it and that more community input is needed
If the bug is clearly not worth it or valid, explain why, close the issue as not planned, and:
- If it isn't a bug at all: add the invalid label
- If it is roughly a bug but isn't something that can or should be fixed: add the status: wontfix label

📝 Documentation

Documentation reports should clearly indicate a gap or problem that should be addressed in documentation. Triage documentation issues similar to bugs and/or feature requests - documentation is its own form of product area. Remove status: in triage and keep the auto-added area: documentation label.

🚀 Features

Feature requests should include a compelling reason why we should spend the maintenance time on the feature. Given that Mocha is prioritizing stability over growth, this can be a high bar.

Depending on the reasoning, remove status: in triage and add the following label(s) in addition to the auto-added type: feature:

If the reasoning is valid and seems worth the maintenance cost: add status: accepting prs
If the reasoning is unclear:
- Add status: waiting for author
- Politely comment explaining what's missing
If the feature might be valid but it's not clear whether it's worth it:
- Add status: in discussion
- Explain that it might be worth it and that more community input is needed
If the feature is not valid, explain why, close the issue as not planned, and:
- If it isn't a feature request at all: add the invalid label
- If it is roughly a feature request but isn't something that can or should be implemented: add the status: wontfix label

🛠 Tooling

Issues filed about improvements to Mocha's internal development processes. These can be more informally discussed by maintainers. Remove status: in triage and keep the auto-added area: repository tooling.

❓ Questions

Our issue tracker is not the right place to ask questions. If an issue is filed that seems like it's more of a question, remove status: in triage, add the type: question label, politely direct the user to the ❓ Got a Question? section, and close the issue as not planned.

If it's not a Mocha problem (people tend not to believe this), you may want to show a counter-example. It's often helpful to direct the issue author to the responsible project, if you can determine what that is.

If this issue seems to be repeatedly asked, add the faq label. This may also apply to questions which receive a lot of 👍 reactions.

Closing Issues

Write "closes #000" (where 000 is the issue number) or "resolves #000" in a commit or PR to have the original issue closed automatically once the PR is merged.

For any issue which is a duplicate, write "duplicate of #000" in a new comment, and close the issue. Read more about marking issues as duplicates.

If the issue is a support question, and you believe it has been answered, close the issue.

If the issue is not Mocha-related, and/or a bug cannot be confirmed, label it invalid and close.

Commenting on Issues and Reviewing Pull Requests

All maintainers should be courteous and kind. Thank the external contributor for the pull request, even if it is not merged. If the pull request has been opened (and subsequently closed) without discussion in a corresponding issue, let them know that by creating an issue first, they could have saved wasted effort. Clearly and objectively explain the reasoning for rejecting any PR.

If you need more information in an issue, nicely ask the user to provide it. Remind them to use the issue/PR templates if they have not.

Reviewing Code

Use GitHub's code review features. Requesting a review from another maintainer may or may not actually result in a review; don't wait on it. If the PR cannot move forward without input from a certain maintainer, assign them to the PR.

The Part About Jerks

There will be jerks.

Rude or Entitled People

These are users who feel the Mocha project and its maintainers owe them time or support. This is incorrect.

However, this behavior is often indicative of someone who is "new" to open source. Many just don't know better. It is not your responsibility to educate them (again, you owe them nothing).

Here are some suggestions:

If u mad, wait 20 minutes before writing a comment.
"Kill them with kindness". Explain how they are presenting themselves; maybe link to a good article or two about it.
Don't make it about "users vs. maintainers". Treat them like a potential future maintainer.
Avoid adding to the drama. You could try to reach out privately; email may be in their GitHub profile. You will likely never hear from that individual again (problem solved)
If an issue is getting out of control, lock it.
If someone is repeatedly rude and does not correct their mistakes, you may ban them from participating in the mochajs org. If you do not have permission to do so, contact one which does (an "owner").

Code of Conduct Violations

This section is theoretical, as it's yet to happen.

Inform the individual of the violation; link to the CoC
Follow up with OpenJS Foundation for further guidance
Repeated violators will be banned inasmuch as that is technically possible
No maintainer nor contributor is exempt from the CoC

Branches

main is the only maintained branch in mochajs/mocha or any of the other repos. main is the only branch to which force-pushing is disallowed.

Maintainers may push new branches to a repo, as long as they remove them when finished (merging a PR will prompt to do so).

Please please please delete old or unused branches.

Merging PRs

We prefer to squash merge PRs. Requiring users to keep clean histories for rebasing would be a large ask that we don't feel justifies the benefits.

Upon acceptance of a PR, you must assign it a milestone.

Using Milestones

If you know that the PR is breaking, assign it to a new or existing milestone correlating with the next major release. For example, if Mocha's current version is v6.5.2, then this milestone would be named v7.0.0.

Likewise, if the PR is semver-minor, create or use a new milestone correlating to the next minor release, e.g., v6.6.0.

If it's unclear what the next milestone will be, use or create a milestone named next. This milestone will be renamed to the new version at release time.

By using milestones, we can cherry-pick non-breaking changes into minor or patch releases, and keep main as the latest version.

This is subject to change, hopefully.

Mocha's Release Process

Releases are managed by Release Please and require manual approval after tests pass. To create a new release after merging changes, merge the chore(main): release... pull request that its automation has created. Doing so will:

Create a new GitHub release
Cause a CI job to run on main that will publish the package to npm

You'll then need to go to the chore(main): release ... commit Publish to npm job run logs and click the Review pending deployments link.

Major releases

For major releases, we follow an even-odd pattern:

Even versions only update dependencies and avoid breaking functional changes
Odd versions can update dependencies and add breaking functional changes

This results in even versions being quite small but easy to migrate to, and odd versions can usually focus on the functional changes.

For large releases, we recommend betas, then release candidates (RCs), then a full release. Betas are when most features are available, but more will likely be added before full release. RCs are almost ready for release, but would benefit from user testing before a full release.

To start a new major version beta, add Release-As: 12.0.0-beta.1 to the additional details of your PR commit message. This must be part the last line of the commit message, not the PR description. Release Please respects this property and will update accordingly. You can also set Release Please to prelease mode to increment the beta number.

Important: Always use a dot (.) as the separator between the pre-release label and the number (e.g. beta.1, not beta-1). The semver library (used by npm) treats dot-separated numeric identifiers numerically, so beta.10 > beta.9. With a dash separator, beta-10 is a single string identifier and sorts before beta-9 alphabetically.

To transition to an RC, add Release-As: 12.0.0-rc.1 at the end of the PR commit message.

To transition from betas or RCs to a full release, just change Release Please back to prerelease: false.

About The OpenJS Foundation

The OpenJS Foundation retains copyright of all projects underneath the mochajs org. The Foundation does not influence technical decisions nor the project roadmap. It is, however, charged with ensuring the continued vitality and sustainability of projects under its banner.

As a maintainer, you have access to the resources the OpenJS Foundation provides.

About OpenCollective

Mocha collects donations via OpenCollective. As a maintainer, you may help decide how the funds are used. These decisions are made via a consensus-seeking process, much like any other decision.

Expense transparency is built in to OpenCollective.

Questions? Ask in the Mocha Discord!