[Proposal] Maintainer Approvals and SKARA

[Guoxiong Li]

Hi all,

I re-read your comments about this enhancement recently.
And I also made a mistake when I backport a patch to
jdk11u-dev [1] although I have backported several times.
So SKARA must direct the developers accurately and help
developers complete the duplicated work to avoid the unnecessary mistakes.

Now I propose the following dev flow. Please only focus on the dev
flow instead of the code implementation here.

*- When a backport PR is created in Github.*
1. A new checkbox item `[ ] Change must be properly approved by the
maintainers`
will be added to the `Progress` part of the current PR body.
2. A comment is posted by the bot like below (the italic content) to direct
the developers:

*This is a backport pull request. Please add a comment to the main issue
[JDK-XXXX](link)*
*to state the related condition (the backport reason, the risk of the
patch, the amount of*
*work and so on). Below is an example for you:*
*```*
*Fix Request(jdk17u-dev)*
*The code applies cleanly and the test in this change fails without the
patch and succeeds after applying it.*
*The risk of this backport is low because the change is little and the
issue fixed by this change also exists in jdk xy.*
*```*
*If you don't have permission to add a comment in JBS. Please use the
command `request-approval` to provide*
*the related content, then the bot can help you add a comment by using the
content you provided. Below is an example for you:*
*```*
*/request-approval*
*Fix Request(jdk17u-dev)*
*The code applies cleanly and the test in this change fails without the
patch and succeeds after applying it.*
*The risk of this backport is low because the change is little and the
issue fixed by this change also exists in jdk xy.*
*```*
*Please note you have to contact the maintainers **directly **in the
issue [JDK-XXXX](link)*
*or by using the command **`request-approval` **repeatedly** instead of in
this pull request.*
*And you don't need to add the fix request label manually to the issue like
before,*
*now the bot can help you add the label automatically when this pull
request is ready **for maintainers to approve.*

*- When the backport PR is ready for approval *(other checks have succeeded
and other progresses have been done)
1. The bot adds a label named `jdkXXu-fix-request` to *all the issues* of
the PR
2. The bot adds a blocked label named `approval` in PR, like `csr` or other
blocked labels
These two labels are convenient for maintainers to filter the issues and
PRs which need to be handled now.

*- It is time for maintainers to approve*
The maintainers can add the label `jdkXXu-fix-yes` or `jdkXXu-fix-no` in
the issue or use the command
`/approval yes|no|y|n` in the PR to approve or object the patch. This newly
added command `approval`
can be very convenient if one backport PR has many corresponding issues.
After using this command,
the bot will add the related label to *all the issues* just like the label
`jdkXXu-fix-request` it had added.

*- Then the commit or sponsor flow will continue as usual.*
After approval, if the maintainer said 'yes', the PR will become ready to
be integrated.
If the maintainer said 'no', the PR can be closed by the bot with a comment
like
"The maintainers disapproved of this patch so this pull request will be
closed automatically".
No matter 'yes' or 'no', the label `approval` in the PR will be removed.

Above is all the dev flow. And next, I will give more information about the
new commands `*request-approval` and `approval`.*

*- "request-approval" command*
It is similar to the `summary` command which permits multiline content. And
this command can be used
multi times if the author of the PR wants to. Each time this command is
used, the bot will post the content
to a new comment in the issue. Because the author who has no permission may
want to contact/talk with the maintainers.
The related record will be recorded in the issue instead of PR which is
your intention in your previous comments.

*- "approval" command*
The command `/approval yes` or `/approval y` mean `approved`.
And the command `/approval no` or `/approval n` mean `dispproved`.
This command can be used multiple times and only the last time is valid.
Please note when the `/approval no` or `/approval n` is used, the bot will
close the PR,
and when the `/approval yes` or `/approval y` later is used, the bot will
open the PR automatically.


That is all. Thanks for reading and providing feedback.
And I will try to implement these features if I have time and hear no
objection after discussion.

[1] https://github.com/openjdk/jdk11u-dev/pull/1218#issuecomment-1184235601

Best Regards,
-- Guoxiong
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