Require Code Owner Approvals for www-gitlab-com

In 11.9 we shipped Code Owner Approvals. This feature allows us to specify an owner for a directory or even a specific file. Anyone can make an MR to that file, but the Code Owner will need to approve before it can be merged.

One pain point today is that the website, blog, and handbook can change unexpectedly. There are 110 people who have merge access to the www-gitlab-com repo. Content that should be owned by the DRI can change without you knowing about it.

Another pain point is figuring out who should approve a change you want to make. With greater use of Code Owners it becomes easy to know who to ask for approval and who can Merge your proposed change.

Finally, there is an enormous pain point with our website. Some parts of it are critical and an improper merge can have catastrophic effects such as making content inaccessible and breaking marketing campaigns that are driving revenue. By implementing Code Owners, and requiring approval, we can mitigate against unintentional changes being made to sensitive parts of the site.

How to do it

It's as simple as clicking a box under settings

Caveats

What happens if there is no code owner specified? (Does it default to the existing logic where any of the 110 people can merge?)

cc @sytses @aherrmann @twbarr