Please read these other parts of the solution before this doc:

Solution 1 - Implementation

We believe that the implementation of the solution is either straightforward or warrants a separate design doc, so we are not proposing any technical implementation details here, but instead collect a list of technical questions that will have to be answered:

  • Where is the attention set stored?
  • Scalability, replication and multi-site consistency of the attention set storage.
  • Will updates be atomic with other metadata changes (reviewer and cc changes)?
  • What is the data structure for the attention set and its entries?
  • How does the REST API look like for attention set related operations?
  • Will there be dedicated plugin extension points for the attention set?
  • How is the attention set indexed and what are the supported search operators?
  • How are hosts migrated from assignee/reviewed based workflow to being attention set based?
  • Who should be allowed to change the attention set? Do we need another permission?
  • How can we support tools like Go’s maintner tool that rely on email notifications about uploaded patchsets?

Alternatives Considered

We could have tried to write the attention set as a plugin, but we believe that tracking whose turn it is is so fundamental to the code review process that we need to build the fundamental concepts into core.

Implementation Plan and Time Estimation

Will be implemented by Google and be ready for the 3.2 release.