Delegation & Spreading Context

Delegation spreads Rust context beyond one expert: module owners, rotating release captains, and briefs that include decision authority. Reducing bus factor means anyone on-call can rollback, interpret tracing dashboards, and continue a migration - not only the tech lead.

Recipe

Quick-reference recipe card - copy-paste ready.

# Delegation brief
 
## Outcome
Ship idempotent export endpoint behind flag by sprint end.
 
## Authority
Chooser may pick sqlx vs batch Polars per RFC-051 spike result.
 
## Constraints
No schema contract phase; MSRV unchanged; must include rollback in PR.
 
## Support
Tech lead available 30 min daily; security review if PII export.
 
## Success metric
Staging synthetic export passes; p95 < 2s at 100 rows.

When to reach for this:

Tech lead is bottleneck on every PR
Single engineer knows all unsafe FFI
Vacation would block release
Squad growing past 6 people

Working Example

# crates/orders-domain/README.md
 
## Owner: @bob (primary), @alice (backup)
 
## Scope
Pure domain types and validation; no sqlx or axum imports.
 
## On-call notes
Panics here are SEV2; see runbook `domain-invariant-violation`.
 
## Recent decisions
ADR-0021: totals use i64 cents, not f64.

Rotate owners quarterly; update after reorganizations.

Deep Dive

What to Delegate

Keep as lead	Delegate
Cross-team RFC arbitration	Feature ownership
Hiring bar / leveling calibration	Release captain week
Incident IC on SEV1	Module documentation
Fleet-wide Rust version policy	Spike execution

Spreading Context

CODEOWNERS - Automatic reviewer routing per path.
Runbook sections - Each owner maintains one scenario.
Lunch learns - 20 min on recent incident or crate API.
Decision logs - ADRs readable by whole squad.

Release Captain Rotation

Weekly captain: promotes staging SHA, watches canary, coordinates rollback drill participation.

Gotchas

Delegate task list without authority - Escalation ping-pong. Fix: Brief includes decision bounds.
Hero lead reviews every line - Team disempowered. Fix: Review direction on RFC, delegate implementation.
Ownership doc stale - Wrong pager target. Fix: Quarterly audit in retro.
Vacation = zero delegates - Fix: Named backup on every CODEOWNERS line.
Context in lead's head only - Fix: Written briefs and ADRs mandatory for M/L work.

Alternatives

Alternative	Use When	Don't Use When
Guild maintainers per crate	Large workspace	Two-person startup
Shared ownership (no primary)	Research spikes	Production on-call modules
EM as task allocator	Lead overloaded with people mgmt	Technical authority unclear
Contractor surge	Time-bound migration	Core domain knowledge transfer

FAQs

How much to delegate as new lead?

Start with release captain and one feature; expand as trust builds.

Delegate to junior?

Yes with smaller authority bounds and closer review on risk areas.

Bus factor metric?

Count modules with single owner; target backup on all tier-1 paths.

When take work back?

If delegate blocked >3 days without escalation; post-mortem delegation gap.

Delegate incidents?

IC role rotates; tech lead advises, does not own every SEV2.

Cross-squad delegation?

RFC defines interface owner; avoid drive-by changes to shared crates.

Document decisions how?

ADR + brief in ticket; link from PR.

Remote delegation?

Written briefs over verbal hallway; async RFC comments.

Polars vs sqlx delegate?

Data path owner decides per spike; document in module README.

Accountability without blame?

Outcome missed -> process fix; not public reprimand.

Mentoring & Leveling - grow delegates
On-Call Health - rotation health
Running Design Reviews - shared context
Contribution Guidelines - ownership norms
Leadership Best Practices - summary

Stack versions: This page was written for Rust 1.97.0 (edition 2024), Tokio 1.x, Axum 0.8, serde 1.0, sqlx 0.8, clap 4, and Polars 0.46+.

Recipe

Quick-reference recipe card - copy-paste ready.

# Delegation brief
 
## Outcome
Ship idempotent export endpoint behind flag by sprint end.
 
## Authority
Chooser may pick sqlx vs batch Polars per RFC-051 spike result.
 
## Constraints
No schema contract phase; MSRV unchanged; must include rollback in PR.
 
## Support
Tech lead available 30 min daily; security review if PII export.
 
## Success metric
Staging synthetic export passes; p95 < 2s at 100 rows.

When to reach for this:

Tech lead is bottleneck on every PR
Single engineer knows all unsafe FFI
Vacation would block release
Squad growing past 6 people

Working Example

# crates/orders-domain/README.md
 
## Owner: @bob (primary), @alice (backup)
 
## Scope
Pure domain types and validation; no sqlx or axum imports.
 
## On-call notes
Panics here are SEV2; see runbook `domain-invariant-violation`.
 
## Recent decisions
ADR-0021: totals use i64 cents, not f64.

Rotate owners quarterly; update after reorganizations.

Deep Dive

What to Delegate

Keep as lead	Delegate
Cross-team RFC arbitration	Feature ownership
Hiring bar / leveling calibration	Release captain week
Incident IC on SEV1	Module documentation
Fleet-wide Rust version policy	Spike execution

Spreading Context

CODEOWNERS - Automatic reviewer routing per path.
Runbook sections - Each owner maintains one scenario.
Lunch learns - 20 min on recent incident or crate API.
Decision logs - ADRs readable by whole squad.

Release Captain Rotation

Weekly captain: promotes staging SHA, watches canary, coordinates rollback drill participation.

Gotchas

Delegate task list without authority - Escalation ping-pong. Fix: Brief includes decision bounds.
Hero lead reviews every line - Team disempowered. Fix: Review direction on RFC, delegate implementation.
Ownership doc stale - Wrong pager target. Fix: Quarterly audit in retro.
Vacation = zero delegates - Fix: Named backup on every CODEOWNERS line.
Context in lead's head only - Fix: Written briefs and ADRs mandatory for M/L work.

Alternatives

Alternative	Use When	Don't Use When
Guild maintainers per crate	Large workspace	Two-person startup
Shared ownership (no primary)	Research spikes	Production on-call modules
EM as task allocator	Lead overloaded with people mgmt	Technical authority unclear
Contractor surge	Time-bound migration	Core domain knowledge transfer

FAQs

How much to delegate as new lead?

Start with release captain and one feature; expand as trust builds.

Delegate to junior?

Yes with smaller authority bounds and closer review on risk areas.

Bus factor metric?

Count modules with single owner; target backup on all tier-1 paths.

When take work back?

If delegate blocked >3 days without escalation; post-mortem delegation gap.

Delegate incidents?

IC role rotates; tech lead advises, does not own every SEV2.

Cross-squad delegation?

RFC defines interface owner; avoid drive-by changes to shared crates.

Document decisions how?

ADR + brief in ticket; link from PR.

Remote delegation?

Written briefs over verbal hallway; async RFC comments.

Polars vs sqlx delegate?

Data path owner decides per spike; document in module README.

Accountability without blame?

Outcome missed -> process fix; not public reprimand.

Mentoring & Leveling - grow delegates
On-Call Health - rotation health
Running Design Reviews - shared context
Contribution Guidelines - ownership norms
Leadership Best Practices - summary

Stack versions: This page was written for Rust 1.97.0 (edition 2024), Tokio 1.x, Axum 0.8, serde 1.0, sqlx 0.8, clap 4, and Polars 0.46+.

Delegation & Spreading Context

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Delegation & Spreading Context