User:APaskulin (WMF)/Development policies

Development policies

{{Development policy}}

Development policies define standards of practice for developing and maintaining Wikimedia software. In contrast to development guidelines, policies describe what developers must do, while guidelines describe what developers generally should do. There can be no deviations from policies, while minor deviations from guidelines, like coding conventions, can often be allowed based on individual circumstances.

Scope

The scope of development policies includes all official software that serves Wikimedia users, including MediaWiki core, MediaWiki skins and extensions, official mobile apps, services, and other software running in production.

Policies regarding documentation targeted at developers are in scope, including policies regarding source code documentation as well as documentation of system design. Documentation aimed at wiki users or wiki owners is not in scope.

The scope also does not include developer tools, software running on Wikimedia Cloud Services, or other non-production technologies. Nor does its scope include hardware, team practices, codes of conduct, or other social factors.

Development policies

Title	Subject	Status
Development policies	Creating and maintaining development policies	Active
Wikimedia services policy	Developing and deploying services	Active
Wikimedia Engineering Architecture Principles	Principles and requirements for all Wikimedia engineering projects	Active
Support policy for PHP	Process for changes to PHP support in MediaWiki core and components	Active
Stable interface policy	Process for defining the parts of MediaWiki core that are considered stable for use by other components	Active
MediaWiki database policy	Requirements for MediaWiki database queries and schema changes	Active
Gerrit/Privilege policy	Gerrit rights and responsibilities for MediaWiki core and components	Active

Status

A policy can have one of these statuses:

Active

Official policy in effect

Proposed

New policy in review

Draft

Work-in-progress policy

Deprecated

Inactive policy

Superseded

Inactive policy replaced by another policy

Questions

To ask a question about a policy, leave a comment on the policy’s talk page.

Minor edits

Anyone can make minor edits to a policy to improve formatting, grammar, or clarity.

Changes and new policies

To propose a new policy or a change to an active policy, create a Phabricator task following the technical decision making process. Anyone can propose a policy change. Once finalized, policy changes must be announced through the wikitech-l mailing list.

Communications

To be notified about proposed policies and proposed changes to policies, follow #Development policies on Phabricator. To be notified about finalized changes and new policies, subscribe to the wikitech-l mailing list.

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