Axim Engineering On-Call

Owned by Kyle McCormick
Last updated: Jun 05, 2023
3 min read

Quick Facts:

Contents

Schedule

On-Call Order

For exact dates, see the “Axim On-Call” Google calendar (Axim-internal).

(New Axim employees, you’ll need access to that calendar if you don’t have it already)

  • @Feanil Patel

  • @Kyle McCormick

  • @Brian Smith

  • @Brian Mesick

  • @Adolfo Brandes

  • @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • @Edward Zarecor

  • @Sarina Canelake

Past On-Calls

2022

  • 4/18-4/29: @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • 5/2 - 5/13: @Dave Ormsbee (Axim) (covering for @Carlos Muniz )

  • 5/16-5/27: @Feanil Patel

  • 5/30-6/10: @Adolfo Brandes

  • 6/13-6/24: @Carlos Muniz (covering for @Kyle McCormick )

  • 6/27-7/8: @Edward Zarecor

  • 7/11 - 7/22: @Sarina Canelake

  • 7/25 - 8/5: @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • 8/8 - 8/19: @Feanil Patel

  • 8/22 - 9/2: @Adolfo Brandes

  • 9/5 - 9/16: @Kyle McCormick (covering for @Carlos Muniz )

  • 9/19 - 9/30: @Carlos Muniz (covering for @Kyle McCormick )

  • 10/3 - 10/14: @Edward Zarecor

  • 10/17 - 10/28: @Sarina Canelake

  • 10/31 - 11/11: @Brian Mesick

  • 11/14 - 11/25: @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • 11/28 - 12/9: @Carlos Muniz

  • 12/12 - 12/22: @Adolfo Brandes

  • [xmas - no on call]

2023

  • 1/2/23 - 1/13: @Feanil Patel

  • 1/16 - 1/27: @Feanil Patel & @Kyle McCormick

  • 1/30 - 2/3: @Kyle McCormick (shadowed by @Brian Smith)

  • 2/6 - 2/17 @Brian Smith

  • 2/20 - 3/3: @Brian Mesick

  • 3/6 - 3/17: @Adolfo Brandes

  • 3/20 - 3/24: @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • 3/27 - 3/31: No on-call, it’s the Open edX Conference!

  • 4/3 - 4/7: Limited on-call (in-person week). Let’s share tickets or spend a little co-working time 2-3x during the week to knock important stuff out / cleaning up from the previous week.

  • 4/10 - 4/14 : @Dave Ormsbee (Axim)

  • 4/17 - 4/28: @Sarina Canelake

  • 5/01 - 5/12: @Edward Zarecor

  • [….see Google Calendar for latest]

Details

What is axim-oncall?

  • A lightweight rotation of Axim engineers, ensuring that someone is always responsible for responding to administrative requests from the community.

What isn’t axim-oncall?

  • Something that should be done outside of normal working hours.

  • Something that should affect weekends, holidays, or PTO.

  • Pager duty.

  • A designation that you need to handle ALL incoming community requests yourself.

What are the responsibilities?

  • Respond to GitHub Requests within one business day.

    • Requests should automatically ping the @openedx/axim-oncall GitHub group.

    • Assign yourself to the issue.

    • If you can’t resolve the request within a day, that is fine. Just give an “Ack” and a general timeline estimate.

    • Please note that users must also be added to the CLA check database. The specifics are documented here.

  • By the end of the sprint, ensure each GitHub Request is either:

    • closed, or

    • explicitly reviewed & handed off to the next on-call engineer at the beginning of the following sprint.

  • Respond to other pings to the @openedx/axim-oncall group if they happen.

  • Keep an eye on the #ask-axim Slack channel. If Axim-oriented questions come up that nobody is responding to, bring them up in daily standup so we don’t forget about them.

How do I handle requests?

  • All our on-call processes are documented here: https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/3438903337

    • If new things come up or if processes change, update that document!

  • The best way to see all open requests is by going to the axim-engineering repo’s issues and filtering for github-request:

  • If you are swamped during the sprint, delegate to other team members. You don’t need to do all the work yourself.

How does the rotation work?

  • Rotation order is defined at the top of this page.

  • At the semi-weekly Planning Meeting, the on-call engineer switches to the next person in the order. Switching process:

    • Update the @openedx/axim-oncall GitHub group.

    • The on-call engineer should audit their personal list of assigned issues. For issues that are related to on-call, the engineer can decide to “keep” the issue or “hand off” the issue to the next on-call engineer.

    • Make sure to update the assignee when handing off an issue.

  • If the on-call engineer is on PTO during their turn in the rotation, they should trade days with another engineer or trade the entire sprint. Don’t do on-call from vacation

Anything else to know?

  • Record any access changes or decisions you make in GitHub issues. This will help us keep track of what changes we make and why.

  • To be on the rotation, you will need admin (“owner”) rights on the openedx GitHub organization, which will confer you admin-level rights to all repositories in the organization. Be judicious with these. In the majority of cases we should be abiding by all normal branch protection rules.

    • Appropriate uses of admin rights include:

      • Handling Axim GitHub Requests.

      • Fixing minutiae like out-of-date documentation links or typos in repository descriptions.

      • Merging without review or CI validation in order to fix CI itself or update repository metadata (openedx.yml).

    • Inappropriate uses include:

      • Merging app code without appropriate review and CI validation.

      • Adding or removing access rights when there is no corresponding Axim GitHub Request.