[Engineering] New policy: Wikimedia Engineering Architecture Principles

Mon May 6 15:29:12 UTC 2019

Hi all!

Today, TechCom[1] has approved a new policy: the Wikimedia Engineering
Architecture Principles [2]. We have been discussing the Architecture Principles
for about a year, by email, on mediawiki.org, at the hackathon, at the Technical
Conference, and on phabricator. I'm very happy that after a final round through
the RFC process[3] and three weeks of Last Call, we could now approve them as
policy.

The architecture principles guide all Wikimedia engineering endeavors. They are
derived from the Wikimedia movement's strategic direction and the Wikimedia
Foundation's product strategy as well as established best practices of the
software industry. They are informed by past experience as well as present needs
and constraints, and are expected to evolve when these needs and constraints
change.

The architecture principles are intended to guide engineering decisions on all
levels, from detailed core review to high level RFCs. People with merge rights
on software in production on WMF servers, as well as people responsible for
technical decision making and planning for such systems, are expected to know
and apply these principles.

If you haven't read them yet, please do so now!

Regards,
Daniel

[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technical_Committee
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering_Architecture_Principles
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T220657

-- 
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Software Engineer, Core Platform
Wikimedia Foundation