The Big Picture - thanos-io/thanos - Design Philosophy

Thanos is an open-source project focused on creating a highly available Prometheus setup with long-term storage capabilities. The project values community involvement and collaboration, as evidenced by its active participation in events like PromCon and the availability of various communication channels for users, developers, and maintainers. Thanos’ design philosophy is centered around simplicity, reliability, and openness.

The team follows a lazy consensus decision-making process, where technical decisions are made through discussions on GitHub issues and, when necessary, by majority vote. Thanos also encourages external contributions, including code, documentation improvements, and design proposals. The project’s codebase adheres to a consistent coding style, with a focus on simplicity, narrow interfaces, and avoiding shallow functions.

Thanos’ governance model aims to maintain the project’s independence and focus on shared interests, limiting the number of votes from a single organization or company to ensure a diverse and inclusive community. The project also values transparency, with public discussions and decision-making processes.

The Thanos community is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment, following the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. The team encourages feedback, issues, and improvements, making it easy for contributors to propose fixes and enhancements. Overall, Thanos’ design philosophy emphasizes simplicity, reliability, and openness, fostering a collaborative and inclusive community of developers and users.