ADR 0006: CODEOWNERS for review routing¶

Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-05-24

Context¶

ADR 0003 established pull requests as the primary control gate for all changes. The governance charter (docs/governance-checklist.md) and the continuity anchor (docs/framework-continuity-and-memory.md) both treat PRs as the mechanism for human review and approval. Without explicit ownership declared in the repository, review routing relied on convention; this risked unreviewed merges, especially as agent-authored PRs increased in volume and frequency.

Decision¶

Adopt .github/CODEOWNERS declaring @izakl as the default owner for all paths (*), with explicit entries for the highest-sensitivity areas:

/docs/ — framework documentation
/docs/adr/ — architecture decision records
/docs/framework-continuity-and-memory.md — continuity anchor
/.github/ — repository automation and configuration
/.github/workflows/ — CI workflow definitions

The file is structured to be extensible: adding a new path entry with a different owner is sufficient to route reviews as the contributor base grows.

Consequences¶

Every pull request automatically requests review from the correct owner based on which paths it touches.
The PRs as control gate charter principle is enforced by tooling rather than convention.
Future contributors or teams can extend ownership by path without restructuring the file.
Works in concert with the SECURITY.md private vulnerability reporting path and the markdown CI guardrail from ADR 0004.

Alternatives considered¶

Branch protection rules alone: rejected — enforces a review requirement but does not provide path-based review routing.
No CODEOWNERS: rejected — leaves review routing implicit, which violates the "PRs as control gate" principle in the governance charter.
Team-based ownership: deferred — premature for a single-maintainer repository; the file is structured to accommodate team entries when that changes.

References¶

PR #21
../../.github/CODEOWNERS
../governance-checklist.md