This document describes how the NVIDIA AI Cluster Runtime (AICR) project is governed: the roles people hold, how decisions are made, and how maintainers join and leave. It is intentionally lightweight and will grow with the project. For the current roster and maintainer responsibilities, see MAINTAINERS.md.
AICR uses three roles. They map directly to the project's GitHub teams and to
.github/CODEOWNERS.
Anyone who opens an issue, pull request, or discussion. Contributors follow the Code of Conduct and sign off their commits under the DCO (see CONTRIBUTING.md). No special access is required to contribute.
Trusted contributors (the @nvidia/aicr-write team) who review and approve pull
requests for the paths they own. Code ownership is declared per path in
.github/CODEOWNERS, which GitHub uses to request reviews
automatically. Code owners keep their areas healthy and mentor contributors.
The @nvidia/aicr-maintainer team. Maintainers have merge rights, make and
ratify project decisions, manage releases, and own this governance process —
including adding and removing maintainers. Maintainers are also code owners.
Path-level ownership is authoritative in
.github/CODEOWNERS. At a high level the project is
organized into:
- Recipes and evidence —
recipes/**(maintainer-reviewed; the evidence allowlist is the trust root). - Core engine — recipe resolution, bundling, collection, and validation
(
pkg/**). - CLI and API server —
cmd/**,pkg/cli,pkg/server. - Supply chain and CI — release, attestation, and workflow tooling.
- Documentation —
docs/**and the root project docs.
Maintainers hold cross-cutting responsibility across all areas.
AICR decides by lazy consensus: a proposal (pull request, issue, or
discussion) is accepted if no maintainer raises a blocking objection within a
reasonable review window — at least five business days for non-trivial changes.
Most day-to-day changes are merged through normal code-owner review under
.github/CODEOWNERS and the process in
CONTRIBUTING.md.
When consensus is not reached:
- Majority vote. Any maintainer may call a vote. A proposal passes on a simple majority of non-emeritus maintainers; quorum is a simple majority of that same group.
- Blocking objection (veto). A maintainer may block a change by stating a concrete technical rationale and an actionable path to resolution. A blocked change proceeds only if a two-thirds supermajority of maintainers votes to override.
- Supermajority decisions. Adding or removing a maintainer, and changes to this document, require a two-thirds supermajority of non-emeritus maintainers.
If a vote is tied, the lead maintainer has the casting vote. The lead
maintainer is a maintainer designated by the maintainer team and recorded with
the @nvidia/aicr-maintainer team; the role exists to break deadlocks and
carries no additional day-to-day authority. If the lead maintainer is the
subject of, or is recused from, a decision, the remaining maintainers designate
an acting lead for that decision.
Maintainers are added on merit. The selection criteria and nomination steps are listed in MAINTAINERS.md. A nominee is added when a two-thirds supermajority of current maintainers approves.
A maintainer may step down at any time by opening a pull request that moves them to emeritus. A maintainer may also be removed by a two-thirds supermajority vote — for sustained inactivity (see Emeritus), or for conduct that violates the Code of Conduct. Removal for cause follows the Code of Conduct enforcement process.
A maintainer is considered inactive after six months with no substantive contribution, review, or governance participation. Inactive maintainers are moved to the Emeritus list in MAINTAINERS.md — voluntarily, or by a maintainer vote — which removes merge rights and excludes them from quorum and vote counts. Emeritus maintainers are welcomed back through the normal onboarding process when they return to active participation.
Amendments follow the supermajority rule above: a pull request plus approval from a two-thirds supermajority of non-emeritus maintainers.
The current maintainers (the @nvidia/aicr-maintainer team), sorted by GitHub
handle. The GitHub team is the authoritative source; this table is a convenience
snapshot.
| GitHub | Name | Headshot |
|---|---|---|
| @ArangoGutierrez | Carlos Arango Gutierrez |  |
| @cullenmcdermott | Cullen McDermott |  |
| @dims | Davanum Srinivas |  |
| @lalitadithya | Lalit Adithya V |  |
| @lockwobr | Brian Lockwood |  |
| @mchmarny | Mark Chmarny — lead maintainer |  |
| @njhensley | Nathan Hensley |  |
| @yuanchen8911 | Yuan Chen |  |