Chromium drops 10-patch bar for new committers

Chromium is replacing its long-standing rule that new committers must land at least ten patches with a lighter process: three vouches from existing committers, at least one of whom must be an OWNER somewhere in the main source tree.

Nico Weber and Rick Byers announced the shift on behalf of ATL_OWNERS. Existing committers keep their rights. The change applies only to newcomers and reframes committer status as a security and community trust decision rather than a scorecard of historical contribution. The stated motivation is that AI code-generation tools have made a ten-patch threshold easier to meet, weakening it as a signal of experience or intent.

By vouching, a committer accepts personal accountability for helping the person meet community standards and the code of conduct. Members of organizations already established in Chromium may vouch for coworkers whose project work is part of their job, without certifying code quality. Personal relationships that establish aligned intent, such as meeting at conferences or repeated video calls, are also acceptable. Component OWNERS remain responsible for code correctness in their areas.

Feedback on chromium-dev was cautious. Matt Menke said the mentoring language sounded like an open-ended future obligation and that he would be more reluctant to vouch under that reading. Byers clarified the intent was narrower: a way to involve vouchers in extreme cases of abuse or conduct problems, and called the policy an experiment the project expects to refine.

Independent contributor Eldar Pulatov backed dropping the mechanical patch count but worried three vouches could harden into a barrier for people who work across many reviewers and never build a deep relationship with any one OWNER. Weber replied that the path is still to contribute repeatedly, earn support, and that Chromium wants independents to keep contributing.

Christian Biesinger and Dirk Pranke argued against granting committer status with no landed changes at all. Even a small number of CLs, they said, still shows that someone can follow Chromium’s technical process, handle review, and work with others, insight that pure personal vouching may not provide.