[query] Can a project have multiple maintainers?

[lofidevops]

I couldn't find an answer in the Warehouse / PyPA docs, apologies if it's there but I missed it.

I am the co-maintainer of a project. Both maintainers expect to be able to upload new releases to PyPI. Is this possible?

As a bonus, is it possible to signal a "primary" maintainer, who can add/remove other maintainers?

[ewdurbin]

Hi @kwill!

The management UI:

There are two possible roles for collaborators:

# Maintainer
Can upload releases for a package. Cannot add collaborators. Cannot delete files, releases, or the project.

#Owner
Can upload releases. Can add other collaborators. Can delete files, releases, or the entire project.

This is noted in the collaborator management UI at https://pypi.org/manage/project/<project>/collaboration/

What documentation did you check? We can update it to include this information.

[heuermh]

Ping for update on this issue, I'm having the same trouble. There seems to be no UI for a user to request the maintainer role for a project from the project owner. If the project owner is non-responsive, what is the process for adding alternate project owner(s) and maintainer(s)? The link above is broken.

[di]

@heuermh Correct, you cannot currently request ownership/maintainership. See #4861 for a related feature request.

If the owner is unresponsive, the process is: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0541/

[lofidevops]

@ewdurbin For reference the documentation I was looking at was https://packaging.python.org -- I tried a couple of pages based on their titles, and tried searching for "upload" and "privileges". A new search for "collaborators", "maintainer" and "owner" doesn't turn up anything either.

It should also be clear that this is only available after the project is first uploaded, i.e. I can't designate "subaccounts" from my account, only per (existing) project.

[nlhkabu]

Maybe we should add the following to our FAQ:

Q: I want to become a maintainer of a project on PyPI - how do I request this?
A: Currently, there is no way to request ownership or maintainership of a project via the PyPI interface. Instead you should contact the current owner of the project. Many project owners provide their contact details when uploading their packages; these are exposed in the PyPI interface in the 'author' link.
If an owner is unresponsive, you should follow the PEP 541 process to resolve any conflict.

@di is this accurate? Is there a difference between our 'author' field and ownership?

[di]

Is there a difference between our 'author' field and ownership?

Yes, quite often there is a difference (the author field is not guaranteed to be correct). I would make this:

Q: How do I become a owner/maintainer of a project on PyPI?
A: Only the current owners of a project have the ability to add new owners or maintainers. If you need to request ownership, you should contact the current owner(s) of the project directly. Many project owners provide their contact details in the 'Author' field of the 'Meta' details on the project page.

If the owner is unresponsive, see How do I claim an abandoned or previously registered project name.

[heuermh]

Thank you, @nlhkabu!