I created an issue for this over on the python/devguide repository, but I figured it would be worthwhile to open a discussion topic for feedback from the community.
Proposal: Add corresponding GitHub usernames for core developers which are listed on the experts index of the devguide.
Purpose: This seems to be a component of implementing PEP 581 and would provide an improvement to PRs in the meantime. Currently, the experts index only lists the roundup usernames of experts for each category. For several of the experts listed, their GitHub username differs completely from their roundup username.
This can make it difficult for PR authors and reviewers to notify them when they are not automatically added. It’s particularly problematic for documentation related PRs, as the RST files do not have codeowners assigned. Even in other categories though, the original codeowners don’t always correspond with the currently active experts.
Also, while doing this, it might be appropriate to remove currently inactive experts and add new ones. Any core developer with experience reviewing PRs in a given topic and is interested in doing so could potentially qualify as an expert. This would be done in a separate PR, but linked to this issue.
Another benefit of adding the GitHub usernames to the expert index would be eventually having the type labels on PRs such as type-documentation automatically add relevant experts to the list of reviewers. This would be similar to the current feature on the roundup issue tracker which allows for the relevant experts to be added when selecting a label, or when searching for a category on the nosy list. Alternatively, this could also be an @ user group to notify all of the experts of a given category at once.
I think adding GitHub username to expert index is great idea, and something to be addressed for PEP 588.
A couple things to consider:
I think there is a mechanism in bpo to automatically +nosy people in the expert index to the issue. I don’t know if adding GitHub username there will affect anything in bpo side?
Since we were talking about setting up a JSON containing the expert data on the issue discussion, a boolean property could be added such as mention to each expert listed so they could effectively opt out of it.
Also, my idea was going to be to automatically add them as a reviewer for the PR without directly @ mentioning them, similar to how code owners are added as reviewers when their files are changed in a PR. I’m not sure if this is any less bothersome to the core devs than @ mentions.