When is a contributor ready to be a maintainer?
Mentorship can be a slow path. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself or the contributor too much, as it will become frustrating to you both. On the other end, if the contributor isn’t getting involved in the maintainer group much, they will become disinterested and drift away. Mentorship done well is an intentional process, with both the contributor and the maintainer setting clear goals and timelines to ensure the expectations are clear while having good communication to know how things are going and address concerns early on.
Sensing the moment at which a contributor is ready to become a maintainer tends to be more of an “art” rather than a “science.” There are some signals to look for to best gauge how things are going – let’s look at some of them now.
Signs that mentorship is going well
Each mentorship and project is a bit different, but you can generally look for a few...
