Phase 19 — Deep Dive: Capstone — Maintainer & Startup
Read this with
upstream/open. Every path is relative toupstream/at the pinned commitv0.22.1 @ 0decac0(UPSTREAM_PIN.md). If a line number ever drifts, search for the named symbol instead.
Contents
Guided reading list
Work through these in order. This is a scaffold: the reading targets and the questions are real; fill in the line-by-line annotations as you go (this is exactly the muscle a maintainer uses — reading unfamiliar code and extracting its contract).
AGENTS.md— vLLM's literal contribution policy (read it before any PR). Note: no pure code-agent PRs; disclose AI use; include tests + results; check for duplicates.- Read it, then write 3 sentences in your lab notebook: what data structure, what invariant, what edge case.
docs/contributing/— The contributing guides.- Read it, then write 3 sentences in your lab notebook: what data structure, what invariant, what edge case.
- [
.buildkite/ and tests/](../upstream/.buildkite/ and tests/) — How CI is structured and what your PR must pass.- Read it, then write 3 sentences in your lab notebook: what data structure, what invariant, what edge case.
docs/design/— Design docs / the kind of thinking RFCs require.- Read it, then write 3 sentences in your lab notebook: what data structure, what invariant, what edge case.
Questions to answer as you read
- The contribution workflow: finding good-first-issues, duplicate checks, RFCs?
- vLLM's actual rules for AI-assisted contributions (read upstream/AGENTS.md!)?
- Writing a PR that gets merged: scope, tests, benchmarks, description?
- Code review etiquette and how trust accrues to maintainers?
- The staff competency map and the mock interview loop (see CAREER.md)?
- The startup playbook: where cost/moats live; build vs buy vs upstream?
Cross-references
- Intuition: 00-guide.md
- Build it yourself: 02-mini-build.md
- The gold-standard depth to emulate: Phase 02 deep-dive.