Taylor Dolezal
@onlydole.dev
Helping developers navigate the CNCF ecosystem and build smarter OSS workflows. Head of OSS @dosu.dev ⛰️ LA-based. https://onlydole.dev
The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund is a concrete example of putting money behind “maintenance.” Code review, refactoring, and release work are the parts that keep ecosystems reliable. Paying for that work is aligned with reality.
January 11, 2026 at 10:12 PM
The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund is a concrete example of putting money behind “maintenance.” Code review, refactoring, and release work are the parts that keep ecosystems reliable. Paying for that work is aligned with reality.
A good contributor experience is mostly about time-to-first-yes. Fast feedback, clear labels, and friendly review turn strangers into teammates. People keep showing up when they feel seen.
January 11, 2026 at 4:28 PM
A good contributor experience is mostly about time-to-first-yes. Fast feedback, clear labels, and friendly review turn strangers into teammates. People keep showing up when they feel seen.
Foundations are often misunderstood as branding clubs. In practice, they are dispute resolution mechanisms. When two vendors disagree, a neutral process is cheaper than a fork war.
January 11, 2026 at 12:12 AM
Foundations are often misunderstood as branding clubs. In practice, they are dispute resolution mechanisms. When two vendors disagree, a neutral process is cheaper than a fork war.
It's one of the best questions 😄
January 10, 2026 at 4:07 PM
It's one of the best questions 😄
Engineering leadership is often deciding where ambiguity is allowed. Early exploration can be messy, but production work needs crisp constraints. Mixing the two creates chaos.
January 10, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Engineering leadership is often deciding where ambiguity is allowed. Early exploration can be messy, but production work needs crisp constraints. Mixing the two creates chaos.
Burnout sneaks in when work has no edges. Healthy teams protect focus with small rituals, scope boundaries, and “not this quarter” lists. Saying no is a maintenance move.
January 9, 2026 at 8:12 PM
Burnout sneaks in when work has no edges. Healthy teams protect focus with small rituals, scope boundaries, and “not this quarter” lists. Saying no is a maintenance move.
Deprecations are where projects show their values. Clear timelines and good docs say, “we respect your time.” Surprise removals say, “Good luck.”
January 9, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Deprecations are where projects show their values. Clear timelines and good docs say, “we respect your time.” Surprise removals say, “Good luck.”
Training data is turning into a first-class asset, with price tags and provenance questions. That pressure might push better attribution habits. Datasets need governance too.
January 8, 2026 at 9:27 PM
Training data is turning into a first-class asset, with price tags and provenance questions. That pressure might push better attribution habits. Datasets need governance too.
Release notes are an expression of trust. When projects are honest about tradeoffs, users can make sense of breaking changes. When they read like marketing, users assume the worst.
January 8, 2026 at 2:47 PM
Release notes are an expression of trust. When projects are honest about tradeoffs, users can make sense of breaking changes. When they read like marketing, users assume the worst.
Docs are the closest thing open source has to a product manager. They decide who can succeed without a private Slack channel. Good docs are inclusive infrastructure.
January 7, 2026 at 11:12 PM
Docs are the closest thing open source has to a product manager. They decide who can succeed without a private Slack channel. Good docs are inclusive infrastructure.
Python’s steady cadence of patch releases is the quiet backbone of the ecosystem. The interesting work is less the features, more the coordination across package maintainers who make upgrades boring. Stability scales when we can rely on each other.
January 7, 2026 at 2:29 PM
Python’s steady cadence of patch releases is the quiet backbone of the ecosystem. The interesting work is less the features, more the coordination across package maintainers who make upgrades boring. Stability scales when we can rely on each other.
Investing effort on development runtimes and CI pipelines is worth it. When a malicious package infiltrates your dependency tree, it doesn't care that production is “locked down.” Treat development environments like production because attackers already do.
January 6, 2026 at 10:12 PM
Investing effort on development runtimes and CI pipelines is worth it. When a malicious package infiltrates your dependency tree, it doesn't care that production is “locked down.” Treat development environments like production because attackers already do.
Docker making hardened base images freely available and licensed under Apache is a powerful boost for the ecosystem. The real game-changer is cultural. When secure defaults are just a single pull away, industry leaders no longer have the excuse that security is too costly to implement from day one.
January 6, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Docker making hardened base images freely available and licensed under Apache is a powerful boost for the ecosystem. The real game-changer is cultural. When secure defaults are just a single pull away, industry leaders no longer have the excuse that security is too costly to implement from day one.
Opportunistic batching in the Kubernetes scheduler is the kind of work that rarely trends and often pays off. Better scheduler throughput benefits everyone, especially in clusters where scheduling becomes a bottleneck.
January 6, 2026 at 1:12 AM
Opportunistic batching in the Kubernetes scheduler is the kind of work that rarely trends and often pays off. Better scheduler throughput benefits everyone, especially in clusters where scheduling becomes a bottleneck.
One unexpected benefit of agent-driven PRs is that issue hygiene starts to pay off. Clear reproduction steps and acceptance criteria become the agent’s interface, and a cleaner interface helps humans too.
January 5, 2026 at 7:28 PM
One unexpected benefit of agent-driven PRs is that issue hygiene starts to pay off. Clear reproduction steps and acceptance criteria become the agent’s interface, and a cleaner interface helps humans too.
Open source stays weird and wonderful because humans keep choosing to share. Supporting that choice can be as simple as reviewing one PR, sponsoring one maintainer, or writing one page of docs. Those small actions compound.
January 4, 2026 at 11:42 PM
Open source stays weird and wonderful because humans keep choosing to share. Supporting that choice can be as simple as reviewing one PR, sponsoring one maintainer, or writing one page of docs. Those small actions compound.
Here the report if you want to check it out! dora.dev/research/202...
DORA | State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025
DORA is a long running research program that seeks to understand the capabilities that drive software delivery and operations performance. DORA helps teams apply those capabilities, leading to better ...
dora.dev
January 4, 2026 at 8:12 PM
Here the report if you want to check it out! dora.dev/research/202...
AI tools are transforming into mirrors that reflect our workflows. The 2025 DORA report describes AI as a powerful amplifier. When processes are disorganized, an AI assistant can accelerate the chaos. Though, when your platform is solid, it becomes a source of genuine productivity and innovation.
January 4, 2026 at 8:12 PM
AI tools are transforming into mirrors that reflect our workflows. The 2025 DORA report describes AI as a powerful amplifier. When processes are disorganized, an AI assistant can accelerate the chaos. Though, when your platform is solid, it becomes a source of genuine productivity and innovation.
Reposted by Taylor Dolezal
I finally sat down to write about technical debt serving as TDD for an organization.
riffingonsoftware.com/posts/202601...
riffingonsoftware.com/posts/202601...
Tech Debt as TDD
Good tech debt can be test driven development for an engineering org
riffingonsoftware.com
January 2, 2026 at 5:07 PM
I finally sat down to write about technical debt serving as TDD for an organization.
riffingonsoftware.com/posts/202601...
riffingonsoftware.com/posts/202601...
Reposted by Taylor Dolezal
My new year's resolution is 480i. @cathoderaydude.com
December 31, 2025 at 11:49 PM
My new year's resolution is 480i. @cathoderaydude.com
If knowledge isn’t searchable, it’s not knowledge. It’s a secret we keep from ourselves.
December 30, 2025 at 2:59 PM
If knowledge isn’t searchable, it’s not knowledge. It’s a secret we keep from ourselves.
Documentation is a love letter to a future engineer that reads like a ransom note from a past one.
December 29, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Documentation is a love letter to a future engineer that reads like a ransom note from a past one.
Reposted by Taylor Dolezal
I’ll take them books over those cardboard tasting CHEESE STICKS THEY FED US AND I KNOW YALL KNOW WHICH ONES TOO😭😭😭😂
I saw this the other other day and while the idea of reading 100 books to get a tiny little pizza seems silly on its face, that shit worked and we are all worse off for it going away. It was a win win on so many levels.
December 29, 2025 at 3:40 AM
I’ll take them books over those cardboard tasting CHEESE STICKS THEY FED US AND I KNOW YALL KNOW WHICH ONES TOO😭😭😭😂
Reposted by Taylor Dolezal
It's Dosu Drop Day! ❄️ This month, we have doc review diffs, image uploads, style guidelines, shareable links, and a CNCF case study to share! dosu.dev/blog/december-2025-dosu-drop
December 17, 2025 at 6:29 PM
It's Dosu Drop Day! ❄️ This month, we have doc review diffs, image uploads, style guidelines, shareable links, and a CNCF case study to share! dosu.dev/blog/december-2025-dosu-drop
This was a BLAST to work on with the @cncf.io team! I love that @dosu.dev can help people navigate their cloud native journey whether they’re at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon…AND also when they return home from all those incredible talks!
We worked with @cncf.io to launch ask.cncf.io at KubeCon Atlanta. 765 questions later, we learned a lot about what the cloud native community is trying to figure out. Check out the case study to get the whole story: dosu.dev/blog/cncf-do...
https://dosu.dev/blog/cncf-dosu-case-study
December 16, 2025 at 10:25 PM