GitHub only supports a single CODEOWNERS file in a repository, which is fairly limiting. This tool allows OWNERS files to be distributed throughout the code base, and provide more localized semantic meaning.

Benefits of distributed files:

The primary benefit, in my view, is around ownership of the CODEOWNERS file. Having a single file means that you either have a small number of people who own the CODEOWNERS file, through which all updates must pass, or you have the CODEOWNERS file open broadly, possibly to anyone’s reviews. In the former, you have a bottleneck, and people approving changes they may not be familiar the implications of, especially cross team ownership. In the latter, people could add themselves as an owner without the current owners being aware. By having the distributed OWNERS files, the teams/people who own the code also own the OWNERS file. This means the right people will have to approve changes.

It’s easier to find who the experts on a group of code is, which is helpful when people have questions, or are otherwise seeking to engage more about it.

It’s generally better practice to have many smaller scoped files, rather than monolithic ones. This applies to code, of course, but it also applies to metadata, such as ownership.

Feedback is welcome, I hope some find this helpful. :)

https://github.com/andrewring/github-distributed-owners

Note this includes support for pre-commit.