The SIG includes several key roles that are critical to the group's success. The group will have many members, all serving in varying capacities. Within this document, "member" may refer to a Chair, a Technical Lead, or other Member roles.
The following is the current listing of member roles:
All members are identified in the SIG README, with annotations where they hold an additional role.
- The primary role of a member is to contribute expertise to the group.
- To add yourself as a member, submit a Pull Request (PR) adding yourself to the list of members.
- Members SHOULD remain active and responsive in their Roles.
- Members taking an extended leave of 1 or more months SHOULD coordinate with other members to ensure the role is adequately staffed during the leave.
- Members going on leave for 1-3 months MAY work with other members to identify a temporary replacement.
- Members of a role SHOULD remove any other members that have not communicated a leave of absence and either cannot be reached for more than 1 month or are not fulfilling their documented responsibilities for more than 1 month. This may be done through a super-majority vote of members, or if there are not enough active members to get a super-majority of votes cast, then removal may occur through a super-majority vote of the Chairs.
- Members contribute to projects, according to the standard group process.
- Membership disagreements may be escalated to the Chairs. Disagreements among the Chairs may be escalated to a SIG-Security TOC Liaison.
- Members MAY decide to step down at anytime and optionally propose a replacement.
While CNCF TOC allows for Chairs to serve in purely administrative roles, SIG-Security was formed with deeply technical Chairs based on early need to navigate a complex security landscape. If the SIG has less than two Technical Leads, any Chair may act as Technical Lead.
- Primary role of Chairs is to run operations and the governance of the group.
- The Chairs are responsible for ensuring that group meetings are planned
and facilitated effectively, while also engaging group members in leadership
roles. Effective facilitation includes (but is not limited to) the following
activities:
- setting the agenda for meetings
- extending discussion via asynchronous communication to be inclusive of members who cannot attend a specific meeting time.
- scheduling discussion of proposals that have been submitted
- asking for new proposals to be made to address an identified need
- partnering with Technical Leads to establish a roadmap and manage ongoing projects
Technical Leads (TLs) expand the bandwidth of the leadership team. Proposals must have a TL or Chair working as an active sponsor (as detailed in SIG process).
The general list of activities for TL are:
- Establish new subprojects
- Decommission existing subprojects
- Resolve cross-subproject technical issues and decisions
- Propose agenda items for meetings to ensure that open issues are discussed with the group when needed
TLs are assigned by CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (see CNCF SIG Tech Lead nomination and election process).
Project Leads will lead larger streams of work that require sustained effort and coordination. In some cases, these projects remain ongoing.
Project Leads are nominated and approved by the following process:
- Project Lead actively participates in the group, making a proposal or volunteering to take on a project that has been prioritized by the group
- A Chair or TL nominates a candidate.
- The nomination is communicated via a pull request annotating the list of members in the SIG README with a link to the issue tracking the project. The nomination is typically open for a week (but may be shorter with LGTM of at least two Chairs).
- Members are encouraged to review the tracking issue and work together to ensure that the Project Lead is set up for success or suggest alternatives.
Depending on the expected length of the project, Project Leads may be assigned as OWNERS of the project directory in this repository to help facilitate and moderate new content to the project.
The CNCF SIG process identifies a TOC Liaison. The SIG Chairs are responsible for establishing effective communication with the TOC liaison, including further communication to the wider TOC upon request.
The TOC Liaison will occasionally prioritize SIG activities, as needed by the TOC, to further the CNCF mission.
Members often contribute by working in small groups that research and discuss options and then share their findings with the rest of the group in a presentation and typically contribute to the body of work in this repository (via Pull Request). Some tasks can be effectively executed by simply chiming in on a github issue and independently contributing a PR without any particular role or authorization.
This section describes roles where more coordination is helpful and the work benefits from identifying one or more members who will take on specific responsibilities. Our goal is to empower members to move forward independently, while defining an approval process designed to support communication and alignment across the wider group.
New roles in this section are typically defined after someone has acted in that role for some time informally, then proposed as an on-going role by Pull Request which must be approved by a majority of Chairs. Process clarifications are welcome and PRs can be approved by any single Chair.
Members fulfilling any Roles in SIG-Security are responsible for understanding and abiding the by the governance and policies defined in this group. This commitment and execution of understanding includes not only commits to the repo, but also to any approvals or direction required by their Role.
Write access to the repo: Where applicable, the following roles define specific areas of the repo or actions on issues where changes require write access. In any case, governance is not enforced by access permissions, but rather by members who are expected to thoughtfully consider their actions to support the group.
Github permissions note: Facilitation roles are identified in github settings which grants Github permissions. Pull Requests to appoint members to new Roles must be approved by at least one Chair, along with whatever additional process, if any, is described in this document. When a member has multiple roles, the additional role that does not require additional access are noted in a comment. PRs to remove someone from a role must be approved by the person themselves or a majority of Chairs.
Security Assessments are part of the ongoing work of the group and led by a Security Assessment Facilitator, who will:
- coordinate security review leads for upcoming security assessments.
- identify and recommend security reviewers.
- contribute to process improvements.
- review and merge PRs in the /assessments directory (ensuring co-chair review of significant process changes).
- triage issues related to security assessments.
The group meetings are an important part of community building and the facilitator ensures a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere. In keeping with these goals, the meeting facilitator has the following responsibilities:
- prepares the meeting notes with template and agenda
- coordinates with presenter, if applicable
- ensures there are scribes
- runs meeting check-in, including partner groups
- leads the meeting through the agenda
Prerequisites:
- active member
- history of regular attendance
One or more of the following:
- served in another facilitator role
- leader on a project team
- tech lead
- co-chair
Any member who meets the above qualifications is encouraged to add themselves to the list of people in this role.
Each meeting must have at a minimal one scribe and preferable with two.
Scribe is expected to perform the following:
- Plan to coordinate/review meeting Agenda with facilitator via Slack before start of meeting
- Summarize discussions and capture into meeting notes (not transcribe verbatim)
- Clarify and annotate actions as discussion progresses with assignee and due dates
- Partner with Facilitator to capture major occurring items in the meeting
- Add links to issues being discussed if not already in Agenda
- Open new issues to track action items from meeting
All members are expected to review Pull Requests (PRs), comment on issues, and provide meaningful feedback or helpful references.
Members who have contributed regularly, including discussion on multiple
PRs and submitting PRs themselves, can volunteer to participate as a member
of the Triage Team. Interested members should first join #sig-security-triage
on Slack and flag issues that need attention, ask questions and volunteer
to take on process improvement PRs that may arise.
When there is a vacancy or need additional help, they will ask on Slack for volunteers to officially join the team.
Each member of the Triage Team will:
- assign labels to issues.
- comment where issues need more detail.
- recommend proposals or suggestions for discussion at working session meetings.
- participate on #sig-security-triage slack channel.
Some ongoing projects may have teams where members are identified for additional roles and may be required to have specific expertise. For visibility, these additional project roles are listed below: