Kubernetes uses a variety of automated tools in an attempt to relieve developers of repetitive, low brain power work. This document attempts to describe these processes.

This project formerly used a Submit Queue, it has since been replaced by Tide.

A PR is considered "ready for merging" by Tide if it matches the set of conditions listed in the Tide dashboard. Please visit that page for more details.

Prow will close pull-requests that don't have human activity in the last 90 days. It will warn about this process 60 days before closing the pull-request, and warn again 30 days later. One way to prevent this from happening is to add the lifecycle/frozen label on the pull-request.

Feel free to re-open and maybe add the lifecycle/frozen label if this happens to a valid pull-request. It may also be a good opportunity to get more attention by verifying that it is properly assigned and/or mention people that might be interested. Commenting on the pull-request will also keep it open for another 90 days.

We also run a robotic PR builder that attempts to run tests for each PR.

Before a PR from an unknown user is run, the PR builder bot (@k8s-ci-robot) asks to a message from a kubernetes member that a PR is safe to test, the member can reply with the /ok-to-test command on a single line to begin CI testing.

PRs should only need to be manually re-tested if you believe there was a flake during the original test. It would be good to file flakes as an issue. @k8s-ci-robot will comment to tell you which test(s) failed and how to re-test. The simplest way is to comment /retest.

Any pushes of new code to the PR will automatically trigger a new test. No human interaction is required. Note that if the PR has a lgtm label, it will be removed after the pushes.