Contributor Communication Guide

This guide helps maintainers respond promptly and consistently to contributor PRs, especially those that have been waiting a long time for review. Contributor retention is a direct function of response speed and quality.

Why this matters: KubeStellar has 288 forks and 683 stars but 1 documented adopter. Many forks represent active contributors or evaluators. A poor first-contribution experience costs real community members permanently.

Response SLAs

PR age	Target action
0–7 days	First review comment or acknowledgment
7–30 days	Full review or clear status update
30+ days	Explicit status: blocked / in-progress / needs-rebase / accepted
90+ days	Escalation to maintainer meeting agenda

Response Templates

New PR — Acknowledgment (within 48h)

Thanks for this contribution! We appreciate you taking the time to work on this.

I've added it to our review queue. You should hear back with a full review within the week. In the meantime, please make sure:
- [ ] CI checks pass
- [ ] DCO sign-off is present (`git commit -s`)
- [ ] There are no merge conflicts with `main`

We'll ping you here as soon as we have feedback.

PR Waiting on Author (needs-rebase / failing CI)

Thanks for your patience while we've been heads-down on other priorities!

Before we can move forward, this PR needs a few updates:

- [ ] Rebase on latest `main` to resolve merge conflicts
- [ ] [specific CI failure] — see the failing check above those are addressed, we'll prioritize the review. Let us know if you have any questions or need help getting unblocked.

Long-Stale PR — Status Check (30+ days)

Thanks for your patience — this PR has been in our queue for a while and we want to make sure it doesn't fall through the cracks.

Quick status check:
- Are you still interested in landing this change?
- Is there anything blocking you that we can help with?
- Do you need a review pair or any architectural guidance?

If we don't hear back in 2 weeks, we'll assume life got busy and close this PR — but you're always welcome to reopen or create a new PR from this work. Your contribution is valued and this code is saved in your fork.

PR Declined — With Explanation

Thank you for this contribution — we've reviewed it carefully.

After discussion, we've decided not to merge this PR because:
[specific reason — architecture mismatch / out of scope / alternative approach preferred]

This doesn't reflect on the quality of your work. We'd love to have you contribute in a direction that fits our current roadmap:
- [link to good first issues]
- [link to help wanted issues]

Feel free to ask in CNCF Slack #kubestellar if you'd like guidance on where to start next.

PR Merged — Celebration

🎉 Merged! Thank you for this contribution — it's now part of KubeStellar.

Here's how to stay involved:
- **Star** the repo if you haven't already ⭐
- **Join CNCF Slack** [#kubestellar](https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C058SUSL5AA) for community discussions
- **Check [good first issues](https://github.com/kubestellar/kubestellar/labels/good%20first%20issue)** for your next contribution
- **Add your org to [ADOPTERS.md](https://github.com/kubestellar/kubestellar/blob/main/ADOPTERS.md)** if you're using KubeStellar

Your commit will appear in the next release. We'll mention your contribution in the release notes. Welcome to the KubeStellar contributor community!

Stale PR Triage Process

For any PR older than 30 days without recent activity:

Check if it still applies — has the underlying issue been fixed another way?
Check CI status — if CI is red, that’s usually the blocker
Comment using the “Long-Stale PR — Status Check” template above
Label it with needs-rebase or waiting-for-author as appropriate
Assign it to a maintainer who will own the review
Set a 2-week deadline in the comment

Priority triage list (as of June 2026)

The following PRs are oldest and should be triaged first:

PR	Author	Age	Topic
#2682	clubanderson	541d	Lima demo environment support
#3119	PranjaliBhardwaj	319d	Duplicate object identifier detection
#3167	krrish-sehgal	310d	Additional metrics from generic sources
#3170	AritraDey-Dev	310d	Wait for cleanup in demo env
#3171	krrish-sehgal	309d	Status updates fix
#3287	antedotee	280d	Remove arbitrary sleep, add state validation
#3297	rishi-jat	275d	Singleton status report
#3324	greninja517	263d	ArgoCD and kubectl research
#3326	antedotee	263d	Automation to unassign stale issues
#3379	antedotee	244d	OSPS-QA security check content

See #3814 for the full retention risk analysis.

GitHub Discussions for Community Engagement

GitHub Discussions is enabled on kubestellar/kubestellar but has been dormant since 2023. Reactivating it with intentional posts creates a community hub that converts GitHub visitors into engaged members.

Recommended starter threads

Welcome thread: “Welcome to KubeStellar — who are you and what are you building?”
Adopters thread: “Using KubeStellar in production or evaluation? Tell us about it”
CFP thread: “KubeCon NA 2026 CFP is open — looking for co-presenters and lightning talk volunteers”
Ideas thread: “What features would make KubeStellar better for your use case?”

How to post

Any GitHub user with repo access can post a Discussion. Go to https://github.com/kubestellar/kubestellar/discussions/new and select the appropriate category.

#3814 — contributor retention P0
#3823 — GitHub Discussions reactivation
#3799 — AI-contribution gap
#3793 — ADOPTERS.md self-service PR

Maintained by the KubeStellar outreach team. Last updated June 2026.