Code Ownership

Definitions

1. The assignment of responsibility for maintaining, reviewing, and evolving particular parts of a codebase to specific people or teams. Clear code ownership improves review quality and incident response, but it works best when ownership guides accountability without becoming a bottleneck for all change.

   In plain English: Knowing which people or teams are responsible for specific parts of the code.

   Example: "The repository used code ownership rules so changes to billing logic automatically requested review from the team that understood the ledger invariants."

Related Terms

• Borrowing
• Lifetime
• Code Owner
• Pet Project
• Equity
• Equity Split
• IP
• Code Ownership Culture