Developers Meeting on Thurs, September 25, 2025

Time/Location

25 Sep 2025 from 14:00-15:00 UTC

Location: https://lyrasis.zoom.us/my/dspace?pwd=RTk4QUhISnhPRi9YenVrTFJKbDllQT09 (Meeting ID: 502 527 3040). Passcode: dspace

More connection options available at DSpace Meeting Room

New Feature Development Deadlines
- Feature PR Creation Deadline: Friday, February 20, 2026
- Feature PR Review/Test Deadline: Friday, March 13
- Feature PR Merge Deadline: Friday, March 27
10.0 Release Candidate: Friday, April 3
10.0 Testathon: April 6-17 (two weeks)
10.0 Translation updates: April 6-17 (during Testathon)
Bug Fix Deadlines
- Bug Fix PR Creation Deadline: Friday, May 1
- Bug Fix PR Merge Deadline: Friday, May 15
Documentation & Release Week: May 18-22
10.0 Release Announced: Tuesday, May 26, 2026

There will be no meeting next week on Thursday, September 18 because Tim and Holger will be at the Lyrasis All-Staff Retreat. Next meeting is Thursday, September 25.

Agenda

Discussion Topics - If you have a topic you'd like to have added to the agenda, please just add it.
1. DSpace & DSpace-CRIS potential merger discussions
  1. "Exploring the Potential Merger of DSpace and DSpace-CRIS" (Q+A webinar) next Tues, Sept 30 at 14:00UTC
  2. DSpace and DSpace-CRIS Planning Groups - wiki pages to follow along with ongoing discussions.
  3. DSpace-CRIS and DSpace Differences - List of known feature/architectural differences between DSpace 8 and latest version of DSpace-CRIS
2. Demo / Overview of the new "Audit Trail" feature submitted by 4Science (Stephano).
  1. REST PR: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/11072
  2. Angular PR: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4576
3. Spring Shell for DSpace (work in progress effort by Paulo Graça )
  1. Related ticket: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/10054
4. Other topics
  1. PR that fixes common+annoying submission validation bug: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4725
  2. Dynamic forms / future of forms in dspace-angular: any more updates or thoughts? (Kim Shepherd asking)
Board Review:
- 10.0 Project Board - Review PRs collaboratively or Assign new PRs to volunteers to code review and/or test.
- Backlog Board - Are there any tickets here stuck in the "Triage" column? We'd like to keep this column as small as possible.
- Maintenance Board (9.x, 8.x, 7.6.x) - Known bugs can be found here, along with any backported bug fixes.
Upcoming Topics: (Let us know if there are topics you want to discuss in future weeks)
- Updates on Nx / modularization discussion. Prototyping Nx vs Angular CLI Workspaces?
  - Preparation PR (preparing for possible Nx migration): https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4629
  - Original PR (example full migration): https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4019
- Restore Angular dynamic decorators: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4528 (somewhat dependent on Nx / modularization discussions)
- Follow-up on "aggressive bot" discussion: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/4565
  - PR to update our built-in "rate limiter": https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4620

Attendees

Current Work

Project Boards

DSpace 10.0 board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/32
DSpace 9.x, 8.x and 7.6.x maintenance board: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects/29

To quickly find PRs assigned to you for review, visit https://github.com/pulls/review-requested (This is also available in the GitHub header under "Pull Requests → Review Requests")

Goals for 10.0

To be decided by DSpace Steering Group with feedback from Leadership Group.

Priorities listed at DSpace Release 10.0 Status.

Goals for 9.2 / 8.3 / 7.6.5

Deadline is TBD for 9.2, 8.3 and7.6.5. Bug fix releases do not have fixed/scheduled deadlines. Instead, the developer team will determine when to create a release based on the significance of the issues to solve. (e.g. If major issues are fixed, then a bug fix release will occur more rapidly. If minor issues are found, then a bug fix release may be delayed until sufficient fixes have been made to warrant a release)

Bug/security fixes only. These minor releases will not include any new features.
- New "themeable components" (for dspace-angular) are allowed in bug fix releases, provided that they don't significantly modify component behavior or similar.
- Accessibility fixes are also allowed in bug fix releases, provided they don't significantly modify component behavior or similar.
Bug fix PRs should be created against "main" branch where possible. The "main" branch has the most strict code style rules. (i.e. PRs created against dspace-7_x are becoming more difficult to port forward.)
Per our support policy, bug fixes are only guaranteed to be ported back to 9.x. That said, where possible, we'll try to backport bug fixes (especially significant ones) to 8. x and 7.6.x.

Try "Pull Request Trading" for a quicker review

Do you have a PR stuck in "under review" that you really want to see move forward? Or maybe it's someone else's PR but you want to get it more attention?

See Trading reviews on Pull Requests for how to get immediate attention to that PR!

Notes

Opening and Updates

Merger Discussions:
- Upcoming webinar next Tuesday at 14:00 UTC to provide updates on the potential DSpace / DSpace-CRIS merger.
- Webinar will include live Q&A; registration link available in the agenda.
- Technology Planning Group continues to draft a roadmap for possible product integration.
- More updates expected during the webinar.

Main Agenda Items

Audit Trail Feature (Stefano Maffei, 4Science)
- Demo Overview:
  - Feature tracks changes to items, bundles, bitstreams, and related repository objects.
  - Provides both a global overview and item-level audit log.
  - Tracks metadata additions, modifications, deletions, and file checksum changes.
- Technical Implementation:
  - Audit data stored in Solr (audit core).
  - No current persistence layer beyond Solr. Export to CSV possible.
  - Similar approach to statistics storage, raising concerns about upgrade/migration complexity.
- Discussion Points:
  - Persistence concerns: risks of only storing in Solr; discussion about possible database storage or file persistence (JSON lines).
  - Performance: confirmed feature handles bulk imports/updates without slowdown.
  - Deleted items: logs remain in global overview, but not visible in item-level audit once deleted.
  - UI considerations:
    - Item-level audit log accessible via dropdown.
    - Request to add links from community/collection pages.
    - Need for search/filter functionality in audit overview for scalability.
  - Scalability: appears stable, but will generate large volumes of logs.
- Next Steps:
  - Summarize feedback into existing PRs (REST + Angular).
    - https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/11072
    - https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/4576
  - Community members encouraged to test and review PRs.
  - Consider adding persistence/export tooling and UI improvements.
Spring Shell Proposal (Paulo Graça, FCCN|FCT)
- Motivation:
  - Requested by community; also informed by work with La Referencia project.
  - Provides structured way to implement CLI commands in DSpace.

- Key Features:
  - Annotation-based commands.
  - Interactive and non-interactive modes.
  - Built-in features: help, history, autocomplete (tab), validation, default values.
  - Can auto-generate documentation pages directly from commands.
  - Potential to replace/modernize current CLI.
- Demo Highlights:
  - Showed example commands (database test, database info).
  - Demonstrated auto-complete, help system, and auto-doc generation.
  - Draft PR exists, tests in progress: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/11320
- Future Opportunities:
  - Migrate existing commands to Spring Shell.
  - Provide Docker image / standalone executable.
  - Bridge with current “dispatcher” runnable scripts.
  - Potential installer command for DSpace setup.
  - Improve CLI documentation by automating updates.
- Discussion Points:
  - Positive reception: autocomplete, history, auto-doc seen as major improvements.
  - Extensibility: possible to add new commands in modular packages.
  - Technical approach: currently implemented in DSpace API module (not yet separate Maven module).

Closing

General agreement:
- Audit trail is a much-needed feature, now ready for community review.
- Spring Shell proposal seen as a positive direction for modernizing CLI tools and documentation.

Action Items

Community members to register for merger webinar and bring questions.
Developers to test/review Audit Trail PRs (REST + Angular).
Tim Donohue to summarize feedback into PR comments (esp. persistence, UI, search).
Explore persistence/export options for audit trail beyond Solr.
Consider adding item/community/collection-level links to audit UI.
Continue development of Spring Shell PR and address test failures.
Evaluate migration plan for existing CLI commands to Spring Shell.