Project Areas¶

ovn-kubernetes organises its codebase into areas — focused domains that are owned by designated Area Maintainers. Each area has a clear scope of files defined in CODEOWNERS and a set of maintainers and reviewers responsible for its health.

For the full governance details — roles, responsibilities, appointment and removal process — see Area Maintainers in the governance docs.

How Areas Work¶

Every area is declared as a section in CODEOWNERS with a header comment identifying the Area Maintainer(s):
```
# Virtualization (Area Maintainer: @user)
```
GitHub automatically assigns reviewers from the listed owners when a PR touches files matching the area's patterns.
Area Maintainers can merge PRs that exclusively touch files within their area by commenting /area-maintainer-approved on the PR. The merge bot (.github/workflows/area-merge.yml) verifies file scope, CI status, and authorization before merging.
PRs that touch files across multiple areas require a repo Maintainer to merge.

Merge Bot (ovn-kubernetes-merge-bot)¶

The area merge workflow uses a dedicated GitHub App called ovn-kubernetes-merge-bot to perform merges. This is required because the repository's branch protection rules restrict who can push to master. The app is added to the branch protection allow-list, enabling it to merge PRs on behalf of area maintainers once all checks pass.

Configuration:

Item	Location
GitHub App	Installed on the `ovn-kubernetes` org (app settings)
Client ID	Repository variable: `OVN_KUBERNETES_MERGE_BOT`
Private key	Repository secret: `OVN_KUBERNETES_MERGE_BOT`
Branch protection	`master` — app listed under "Restrict who can push to matching branches"

The workflow generates a short-lived installation token via actions/create-github-app-token at the start of each run. No long-lived access tokens are used during workflow execution.

Current Areas¶

Virtualization¶


Scope	KubeVirt integration, live migration, multi-homing, localnet
Area Maintainer	@maiqueb
Reviewers	@qinqon, @ormergi

Files:

Category	Paths
E2E tests	`/test/e2e/kubevirt.go`, `/test/e2e/kubevirt/`, `/test/e2e/multihoming.go`, `/test/e2e/multihoming_utils.go`, `/test/e2e/multihoming_external_router_utils.go`, `/test/e2e/network_segmentation_localnet.go`, `/test/e2e/localnet-underlay.go`, `/test/e2e/network_segmentation_preconfigured_layer2.go`, `/test/e2e/testscenario/cudn/valid-scenarios-localnet.go`, `/test/e2e/testscenario/cudn/invalid-scenarios-localnet-*.go`
Unit tests	`/go-controller/pkg/ovn/kubevirt_test.go`, `/go-controller/pkg/ovn/multihoming_test.go`, `/go-controller/pkg/ovn/multipolicy_test.go`, `/go-controller/pkg/ovn/layer2_user_defined_network_controller_test.go`, `/go-controller/pkg/util/multi_network_test.go`
Production code	`/go-controller/pkg/kubevirt/`, `/go-controller/pkg/util/arp.go`, `/go-controller/pkg/util/ndp/`
Docs	`/docs/features/live-migration.md`, `/docs/features/multiple-networks/multi-homing.md`, `/docs/features/multiple-networks/multi-network-policies.md`

Adding a New Area¶

Open a PR proposing the new area — the PR must be approved by the repo Maintainers (see Governance).
Add a new section to CODEOWNERS with the file patterns and the proposed Area Maintainer in the section header comment.
Add an entry to this document describing the area's scope, maintainer(s), and reviewers.
Once merged, the Area Maintainer can begin using /area-maintainer-approved to merge qualifying PRs.