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2025-11-24 Meeting Notes

2025-11-24 Meeting Notes

Attendees

  • @Kevin Day

  • @Olamide Kolawole

  • @Jason Root

  • @Charlotte Whitt

  • @Christie Thomas

  • @Julian Ladisch

  • Christof Kohl

  • @Matt Weaver

  • @Florian Gleixner

  • @Maccabee Levine

  • @Craig McNally

  • @Shelley Doljack

  • @VBar

  • @Tod Olson

  • @Zak_Burke

  • @Jeff Gerhard

Time

Item

Who

Notes

Time

Item

Who

Notes

1 min

Scribe

 

@Jeff Gerhard is followed by @Christie Thomas

Reminder:  Please take attendance. Please paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

5-15 min

Liaison Updates

@Maccabee Levine

@Christie Thomas

@Craig McNally

  • CC:  @Maccabee Levine:

    • Qulto organization are new (returning) FOLIO community members, from Hungary. Involved 7 years ago in FOLIO development. Contributing 20hrs/week development, some development ideas (mobile) but open to others. CC shared PC’s priority dashboard.

      • Tom suggested that RSMG has been matching up developers with teams.

    • Continued discussion of Membership and Value Proposition. Top items: Development priority influence, Technical expertise access & specialized troubleshooting support & training materials & resources

    • CC reviewed action items from the WOLFcon tri-council meeting, asking for updates.

      • Asked TC about “Develop dashboard for tracking Jira points and cost metrics. (TC)“

  • PC: @Christie Thomas

  • RMS Group: @Jenn Colt

  • Security Team:

    • business as usual

  • Eureka Early Adopters:  @Craig McNally:

  • Community Driven Development (@Jenn Colt / @Maccabee Levine):

    • Update from PC above

5 min

Upcoming Meetings

All

  • Nov 24, 2025 - Regular TC meeting

  • Nov 26, 2025 - Cancelled for American Thanksgiving

  • Dec 1, 2025 - Regular TC meeting

  • Dec 3, 2025 - TBD

  • Dedicated Discussion Topics:

    • https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/x/VQBTR

    • FOLIO API Standardization & Documentation

      • Surface current issues with API documentation and discoverability. API versioning ability and access by release/module?

      • Validation standards

      • API usage for bulk operations

      • Breaking changes notifications

        • Dedicated channel for breaking changes announcements (forwarded from #folio-development)

        • Tag breaking changes in Jira; auto-populate wiki page for external monitoring

    • Define FOLIO Core: Establish clear definition of what constitutes “core” FOLIO vs others.

      • what should integrate vs what needs to be in FOLIO

      • Simplification opportunities

    • Cost Reduction & Resource Optimizations

      • Sidecar proliferation

      • Kafka usage visibility and optimization

      • AWS cost analysis

    • wOLFcon Technical Track Planning: Proposal for technical conference track alongside general wolfcon. Ensure non-developer access

      • Format options: virtual conference, two-day technical overlay, hybrid

      • Employer outreach for developer/operations engineer participation

      • FOLIO contribution vehicle

    • Technology Visibility & Scanning: Automated scanning and reporting on FOLIO technology stack

      • leverage existing work by David Crossley

      • Language and framework scanning

      •  

  • Topics from Wolfcon sessions that could get into dedicated discussion

    • Folio “Core” definition

    • Estimating support costs

    • Getting People to contribute to Folio

    • Working costs of supporting modules

    • Costs of development environment (AWS)

  • Security team DR for support periods- Sep 17, 2025

0 min

TCR Board Review

All

  • No new business

3 min

Existing Module Evaluation

ALL

  • @Maccabee Levine created a spreadsheet

    with some information like age of repository on existing modules which could be used to see which modules need review.

  • mod-ebsconet and ui-export-manager has been chosen to be first modules.

  • Existing Module Criteria has been merged:Create WIP criteria doc for existing module evals by maccabeelevine · Pull Request #98 · folio-org/tech-council

Selection of module reviewers by co-chairs : @Florian Gleixner +. @Ingolf Kuss
Perform evaluation

10 min

Technical Council Sub-Groups Updates

All

Licensing

  • Finishing up work based on TC approvals on 2025-11-12. Messaging to TC and CC channels. Decided a few things were out of scope.

  • Final work is implementing comm plan.

Mod-settings

  • No updates

1 min

GitHub RFCs

Wiki RFCs

All

 

0 min

Decision Log

All

Support periods

5 min

Officially Supported Technologies (OST)

Allds

Both Trillium and Umbrellaleaf need an update due to the delay:

10 min

Environment Variables Policy

 

https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TC/pages/1319141429

Enhance environment variable criteria in Module Acceptance document by okolawole-ebsco · Pull Request #112 · folio-org/tech-council

https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AoB2Uw

  • DR approved in meeting via lazy consensus

Create Jira for dev team to update ModuleDescriptor schema. Done: https://folio-org.atlassian.net/browse/OKAPI-1230

30 mins

Guidance on global configuration

 

@Zak_Burke initiated a discussion about where tenant-global values like locale and timezone should be stored, as the migration from mod-config to mod-settings has created challenges around access control and scopes. The team is seeking guidance from the Technical Council on how to proceed.
MODEXPW-611. Cleanup unused permissions from system user by SerhiiNosko · Pull Request #356 · folio-org/mod-data-export-spring

  • Zak provided greater context for the discussion. There are options including adding global settings to mod-settings despite the fact that it is not really in keeping with the intentions. The other option is to create a new module, which even if no-code would be another module to maintain that would be consuming resources.

  • Florian spoke in favor of using mod-settings despite the drawbacks.

  • Zak proposed talking to mod-settings developers about best options.

  • Shelley also suggested that adding permissions to mod-settings is simpler solution.

  • Julian proposed including 'default' API results in mod-settings based on users.

  • Zak: UI already aware of tenant locale or user locale in Stripes and perhaps it is not necessary to add into the module? But other backend modules could use Julian's idea. But it would be fairly complex.

  • No real clarity on who might do new features, even just adding global values to mod-settings. Julian: core platform team would do this work.

  • General consensus: add global permissions to mod-settings is simplest solution. But Olamide discussed option for simplifying a new ‘global-global’ type of module – could it be in mod-settings repo and require minimal new declaration with module descriptor json? Would only do dependency resolution. This is roughly how UI modules work (per Jason). But what about kong and okapi – do they require something more structured?

  • Florian: similar issue came up in Berlin libraries and they solved it via adding scope and variables to front-end module; front end might resolve this. Zak: But didn’t we want to say that back-end modules should not depend on front-end ones? Jason concurs – we need to set this up so that back end modules can work without UI module access

  • Olamide: open to adding to mod-settings with global scope

  • Julian: would prefer a new API

  • This work is required in order to move forward with deprecation of mod-configuration in Trillium. PR that prompted this discussion was reversed

  • Tod: important to look at longer-term solution even if more work

  • General agreement that a decision can wait until after further discussion next week (Zak and Jason agree). Zak: We need t-shirt estimates for these solutions; POs would need to determine prioritization versus other features based on uncertain development resources

  • Charlotte: either reach out to PO Khalilah or else bring to RMS group

  • Discussion will continue next week on Monday. Olamide: we need a packet of options

  •  

NA

Zoom Chat

 

Maccabee Levine 11:02 AM
I posted CC notes.  Please refresh.

Christie Thomas (she/her) 11:09 AM
@Maccabee Levine reach out to Jeremy Huff if you want to be on the new PC working group. I don't see anyone from the TC on the membership list. They are open to membership from outside of the PC.

Christie Thomas (she/her) 11:10 AM
This may be a separate working group altogether from the previous one.

Maccabee Levine 11:13 AM
Thanks.  With Jeremy chairing both groups, and no communication about the old group for quite a while, I am guessing it's a replacement but can't say for sure.

Day, Kevin 11:12 AM
I have a meeting after this and I will not be able to stay. (I may have to leave early for that matter.)

Maccabee Levine 11:15 AM
Sure. I had meant if TC ends early -- but if you have to leave before then, no worries.

Christie Thomas (she/her) 11:11 AM
Maybe the TC should discuss whether we should request representation on the group?

Tod Olson 11:15 AM (Edited)
Just contacting the PC with an offer of volunteering should be enough, I think.

You 11:50 AM
(Everyone please correct/edit my notes about this discussion as needed!)

Julian Ladisch 11:52 AM
okapi/okapi-core/src/main/raml/ModuleDescriptor.json at v6.2.0 · folio-org/okapi

Charlotte Whitt 11:52 AM
Is the mod-settings / configuration channel private?
I can not find it

Julian Ladisch 11:53 AM
Can we use the folio-core-platfrom for this?

Matt Weaver 11:54 AM (Edited)
I believe the meeting was canceled this week

Edit: It’s every other week and the last one was last week; so not canceled, just not scheduled :)

Jason Root 11:54 AM
https://folio-org.atlassian.net/browse/FOLIO-4017

 

 



Topic Backlog

Decision Log Review

All

Review decisions that are in progress.  Can any of them be accepted?  rejected?

Translation Subgroup

All

Since we're having trouble finding volunteers for a subgroup, maybe we can make progress during a dedicated discussion session?

Communicating Breaking Changes

All

Currently there is a PoC, developed by @Maccabee Levine, of a utility to catalog Github PRs that have been labeled with the "breaking change" label. We would like to get developer feedback on the feasibility of this label being used more often, and the usefulness of this utility. 

Officially Supported Technologies - Upkeep

All

Previous Notes:

  • A workflow for these pages. When do they transition from one state to another. Do we even need statuses at all ?

Stripes architecture group has some questions about the Poppy release.

Zak: A handshake between developers, dev ops and the TC. Who makes that decision and how do we pass along that knowledge ? E.g. changes in Nodes and in the UI boxes. How to communicate this ? We have a large number of teams, all have to be aware of it.  TC should be alerted that changes are happening. We have a couple of dedicated channels for that. Most dev ops have subscribed to these channels. How can dev ops folk raise issues to the next level of community awareness ? There hasn't been a specific piece of TC to move that along.

Craig: There is a fourth group, "Capacity Planning" or "Release Planning". Slack is the de facto communication channel.  There are no objections to using Slack. An example is the Java 17 RFC. 

Craig: The TC gets it on the agenda and we will discuss it. The TC gets the final say.

Marc Johnson: We shouldn’t use the DevOps Channel. The dev ops folks have made it clear that it should only be used for support requests made to them.

Jakub: Our responsibility is to avoid piling up technical debt.

Marc: Some set of people have to actually make the call. Who lowers the chequered flag ?

Craig: It needs to ultimately come to the TC at least for awareness. There is a missing piece. Capacity Planning needs to provide input here. 

Marc: Stakeholders / Capacity Planning could make that decision. Who makes the decision ? Is it the government or is it some parts of the body ?

Marc: the developers community, the dev ops community and sys ops are involved. For example the Spring Framework discussion or the Java 17 discussion. But it was completely separate to the TC decision. It is a coordination and communication effort.

Marc: Maybe the TC needs to let go that they are the decision makers so that they be a moderating group.

Jakub: I agree with Marc. But we are not a system operating group. Dependency management should be in the responsibility of Release management. There are structures in the project for that.

Jason Root: I agree with Jakub and with Marc also. Policies should drive operational/release/support aspects of Folio.

Jason Root: If the idea of “support” is that frameworks are supported, then of course the project should meet that.

Marc Johnson
Some group needs to inform OleksAii when a relevant policy event occurs.
These documents effectively ARE the manifestation of the policy.

Craig: This is a topic for the next Monday session.

Craig to see if Oleksii Petrenko could join us to discuss the process for updating the officially supported technologies lists.



Dev Documentation Visibility

All

Possible topic/activity for a Wednesday session:

Discuss/brainstorm:

  • Ideas for the type of developer-facing documentation we think would be most helpful for new developers

  • How we might bring existing documentation up to date and ensure it's consistent 

  • etc.

API linting within our backend modules

All

https://folio-project.slack.com/archives/CAQ7L02PP/p1713343461518409



Hello team, I would like to discuss API linting within our backend modules. Some time ago, we transitioned our linting process from Jenkins to GitHub Actions as outlined in https://folio-org.atlassian.net/browse/FOLIO-3678. I am assuming that this move was done via some technical council decision. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In my observations, I've found two problems:

  1. Schema linting does not occur if the schemas are in YAML format.

  2. There are issues with resolving some deeper references during API linting.

Although I'm unsure about how to improve the existing linting implementations within Folio, I propose to consider an open-source solution that handles OpenAPI linting effectively and allows us to define custom rules. For your reference: https://stoplight.io/open-source/spectral A test of this solution can be found in this PR: https://github.com/folio-org/mod-search/pull/567. The same PR also provides an example of custom rule definition: https://github.com/folio-org/mod-search/pull/567/files#diff-d5da7cb43c444434994b76f3b04aa6e702c09e938de09dbc09d72569d611d9ab.Also, by employing 'Spectral', I discovered AsyncAPI (https://www.asyncapi.com/en), an API design tool similar to OpenAPI but for asynchronous interactions. I suggest that we consider using AsyncAPI in FOLIO to generate documentation for Kafka interactions.



PR Templates

All

https://folio-project.slack.com/archives/CAQ7L02PP/p1713445649504769

Hello team, Small request to consider.
Regarding pr templates.

  1. From my perspective, pr template is not good idea. Even the biggest open source projects that are contributed by many people don't have any pr template. Currently what we have for acq modules https://github.com/folio-org/mod-orders-storage/blob/master/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md

  2. These pr template is inconsistent in different teams.

What I suggest is that, pr template shouldn't be any instructions, because most developer who are creating pr have already understand the rules. If we put just two section into template, it will encourage developers to write more about their work and that lead to knowledge  sharing among developers.

Proposed Mod Kafka

All

https://folio-project.slack.com/archives/CAQ7L02PP/p1714471592534689

Mike Taylor

Proposal. If and only if a FOLIO instance is running Kafka, it should insert and enable a module called mod-kafka, which consists entirely of a module descriptor that says it provides the interface kafka. The purpose is so that other modules can use the standard <IfInterface> and similar tools to determine whether they should attempt Kafka operations. Rationale: the FOLIO ILS depends absolutely on Kafka, but other uses of the platform will not. One such example: a dev platform that includes only mod-users, used as a source of change events for Metadb.