Continuing in our Meet the Maintainer series, we have Aadhitya Amarendiran. Aadhitya is a maintainer of the Meshery CLI project. In this interview, we get to know Aadhitya a little better and learn about his journey as an open source project maintainer and with Layer5 community.
Aadhitya, thank you for joining me today. Many people inside and outside of the Layer5 Community have seen the effects of your contributions, but may not know the backstory as to who Aadhitya is and how you arrived at your maintainer role. Indulge us. How did you discover the Layer5 community? What made you stay?
It was around the year 2020 when I was a sophomore and explored many things in the field of open source. I got to know about Meshery via the LFX program and tried applying for it, though I was a newcomer at that time. Later, I learned more about Layer5, started attending the community call, and met the community. The community members helped me a lot wherever I got stuck as a newcomer, which made me learn new things and involve myself in the project, which later helped me grow. Oh, of course, great learning sessions from Lee during development and community calls.
You’re a Meshery Maintainer and have been for some long time now. What does being a Meshery maintainer mean to you?
Three things come into my mind: Learning lots of new things, Challenging yourself to your limits and being a helpful navigator for contributors. During my time as a newcomer, I started out with a simple readme fix PR in the Meshery project, which I thought would cause less impact. But the maintainers accepted my PR though it’s a very small one. That instilled a feeling in me that I should give back to the community by helping newcomers and contributors whenever they are stuck in work.
Have you worked with any other open source project? How does Layer5 compare?
Not a lot, but I worked on quite a few open source projects. Layer5 is one of the best places to start if you are new to open source. By being involved in the community, you will feel and understand the spirit of open source.
Layer5 projects have a number of active, open source projects. You’ve been consistently contributing to a few of them. Which one(s) are you currently focusing on?
I currently work on Meshery, as it piqued my interest during my initial days. I also work on the Meshery-SMP GitHub action project as well.
What’s the coolest Meshery demo you have done/seen?
I’ve seen a lot of demos but the coolest one for me is the Meshery Docker extension where you can start and use Meshery right from DockerHub!
What is your favorite Meshery CLI Command?
Oof! That’s a tricky one. But my favorite one is definitely mesheryctl perf
What is your hot tip for working with Meshery that others may not know?
If you’re starting out with Meshery, make sure to use the Meshery Playground if you want to get hands-on for the first time without the need to deploy Meshery in your system. After you get the basics right, install Meshery and log in to your deployed instance. You’ll see that your designs, performance test results and configurations remain intact in your instance as if they are present exactly the same in the Playground. There’s no need to start from scratch. Just continue where you left off!
Where do you see opportunities for contributors to get involved within Meshery and Layer5 community?
Considering the fact that Meshery is now a part of CNCF (especially the fact that we are aiming for the Incubation status as well!), I feel that Meshery has a wide range of scope for contributors to be involved in. Whether you’re an expert or a newbie, Meshery has lots of subdomains to contribute. Documentation, Frontend, Backend, Adapters… the list goes on.
Your most often used emoji? Your preference: movie or book? Morning person or night owl? What have you worked on in the past six months that you’re particularly proud of?
Most used emoji: 😎. I’m a morning person usually and sleep early, but sometimes I’m a night owl when it comes to intense work. I’d prefer movies compared to books as for some they clearly adapt from books. I’ve worked on refactoring the mesheryctl pattern command to mesheryctl design without losing the core features present. This took me a bit of time as I had to balance my current work as well which caused a bit of inactivity. But I managed to complete it, and I’m proud of doing such great work!
Do you have any advice for individuals hopeful to become Layer5 contributors or potentially maintainers?
Make your presence stand out from the crowd even if you are a beginner, and learn as much as you can. Seek MeshMates and maintainers if you get stuck in something. Ask questions during meets or in Slack, and get feedback on your PRs, doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. Incorporate feedback and improvise. Remember, communication is the key, and be active!
In other words, whether your contribution is big or small, it sounds like aiming for high-quality contributions that add value to the projects is key.
Yes, you got it right! Even the smallest contribution which creates a good impact in a project becomes a great factor in Open source. All that matters is perseverance, challenging yourself to limits and learning. Do these things right and you’ll find yourself growing in the community.
The Meshery project moves at an impressive pace thanks to maintainers like Aadhitya. Be like Aadhitya. Join the Layer5 Slack and say “hi".
