Here’s the last in my series of articles from Open Source Summit in Minneapolis. To round things out, the following is my conversation with Adam Kaplan, a maintainer of the Shipwright project. Adam explains what Shipwright does, walks through the process of becoming a CNCF Sandbox project, and shares his thoughts on AI in coding. Here’s a quick overview of each.
Shipwright. Shipwright extends Kubernetes to build container images from source code. Its key feature is build strategies: developers can use their preferred build tools or choose from a curated set provided by the community. The project grew out of OpenShift’s original build API, replacing a black-box approach with an open, pluggable framework.
Get involved. Shipwright is looking for contributors, particularly in documentation and community building. Check out the project on GitHub.
Joining the CNCF. Drawing on his experience with Shipwright, Adam explains what it takes to become a CNCF Sandbox project. According to Adam, the bar is relatively low compared with Incubation, but there are requirements. Projects apply through the CNCF Sandbox repository and follow a checklist that includes an OSI-compliant license, committed maintainers, and trademark restrictions. A TAG sponsor also needs to confirm that the project fits the CNCF mission. As he puts it, the philosophy is “the more the merrier.”
AI in coding. Adam’s advice is to give bots the tedious work and long-standing hard problems, but preserve the “good first issues” for people so new contributors still have a way into open source.
Chapters
00:00 Intro and what is Shipwright
00:45 Build strategies: bring your own tool
01:30 Origins in OpenShift and escaping the black box
02:45 Why the CDF first, then the move to CNCF
04:00 What the CNCF provides (runners, Project Control Center, dashboards)
05:30 How to become a Sandbox project
06:45 The TOC and TAG sponsor role
08:00 What else you get, plus the Copilot agreement
09:15 Where Shipwright is headed
10:30 CLO Monitor, OpenSSF badge, and SBOMs
12:30 AI in open source: coaching agents, human in the loop
14:00 The junior-contributor problem and how to get involved
Links
Open Source Summit Articles
- Beyond Hardened Images: Edera’s Approach to Production Security
- When Hardware Matters Again: Jonathan Bryce on AI Infrastructure
- Exodos Labs: The SBOM is where security starts, not where it ends
- Open Source, AI and the Bear — Where We’re Winning (and Where We’re Not)
Shipwright project
- Site: https://shipwright.io
- GitHub: https://github.com/shipwright-io
- CNCF project page: https://www.cncf.io/projects/shipwright/
CNCF Sandbox program
- Landing page: https://www.cncf.io/sandbox-projects/
- Application repo: https://github.com/cncf/sandbox
- TOC governance repo: https://github.com/cncf/toc
Pau for now…
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