Linux Foundation 2025

Linux Foundation 2025 Program Timeline

About Layer5 and its projects

The Layer5 community embraces developer-defined infrastructure. We empower developers to change how they write applications, support operators in rethinking how they run modern infrastructure, and enable product owners to regain full-control over their product portfolio. Our cloud native application and infrastructure management software enables organizations to expect more from their infrastructure.

Our inclusive and diverse community stewards projects to provide learning environments, create and implement cloud native industry standards, deployment and operational best practices, benchmarks and abstractions, and more. Our pay-it-forward mentality with every contributor (mentee or not) is a shared commitment by all maintainers (and MeshMates - contributor onboarding buddies) to the open source spirit that pushes Layer5 projects like Meshery forward. New members are always welcome.

About Meshery

Meshery is the open source, service mesh management plane for enabling the adoption, operation, and management of any service mesh and their workloads. There are many service meshes available. Software-defined networking is difficult to understand. Meshery’s aim is to make the power of the network available to the rest of us.

About our Community

Layer5 is all about its community of contributors. We have designed an onboarding program customized to meet newcomers where they’re at and developed an onboarding buddy program, MeshMates with individuals dedicated to assisting contributors. The Layer5 community and its open source projects are thriving.

Technical writers and other contributors are what comprise Layer5 - an open organization, built by the community for the community. Our vibrant community has seen many talented student contributors go on to secure exciting job opportunities with renowned technology companies such as Red Hat, Microsoft, and VMware, just to name a few. At Layer5, we have high expectations from our interns, and in return, we provide them with incredible opportunities to showcase their work on prestigious stages like DockerCon and KubeCon. We actively promote and uplift our interns, and many of them have gone on to become project maintainers. There are many, many examples of this on the layer5.io websites.

LFX Mentorship 2025 Spring Projects

Meshery

Meshery Model Support for kro ResourceGraphDefinitions (RGDs)

Description: Enhance Meshery's existing orchestration capabilities to include support for kro ResourceGraphDefinitions (RGDs) as first-class Meshery Models. This involves enabling Meshery to manage and orchestrate RGDs, similar to how it handles other Kubernetes resources. The project will also include generating support for ResourceGraphDefinition in Meshery's Model generator.

• Expected Outcome:
  • Meshery will be able to orchestrate and manage kro RGDs. This includes the ability to deploy, configure, and manage the lifecycle of RGDs through Meshery.
  • The Meshery Model generator will be updated to automatically generate models for kro RGDs, simplifying their integration and management within Meshery. This will be an officially supported feature of Meshery.
• Recommended Skills:Golang, Cuelang, Well-written and well-spoken English, Kubernetes, DevOps
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote, Mia Grenell
• Upstream Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/13521
• LFX URL: https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/2ce4cf0b-05e0-430a-b9e1-3df46d917ef6

Hands-on tutorials using Meshery Playground

Description: Learning paths with hands-on labs are a crucial resource for DevOps engineers and cloud-native practitioners. The Meshery Playground provides a live cluster environment, making it an ideal platform for learning every kind of cloud and cloud native technology. Meshery Docs is in need of comprehensive tutorials and scenarios covering common infrastructure management use cases. Mission is to create and publish a series of hands-on tutorials using Meshery Playground. Each tutorial will include step-by-step guides, live demonstrations, and interactive labs using the Playground allowing learners to apply their knowledge directly without the hassle of any configuration.These tutorials will be reviewed by various project maintainers and then published in guides/tutorials.

• Expected Outcome:
  • 10+ new tutorials published in Meshery Docs.
  • Each tutorial should be interactive, guiding users through infrastructure.
  • Tutorials should vary in complexity, catering to beginners and advanced learners.
• Recommended Skills: written English, Markdown, Kubernetes, DevOps, and hands-on experience with cloud-native tools
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote, James Hortison
• Upstream Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/13521
• LFX URL: https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/4cca92b8-ede6-4396-8d3f-68cfa2ec911c

Expanding end-to-end test coverage in Meshery using Playwright

Description: Meshery integrates with many other CNCF projects and technologies. Sustaining those integrations is only possible through automation. To automate functional integration and end-to-end testing, Meshery now uses Playwright as one of the tools for browser testing. End-to-end tests run with each pull request to ensure that changes do not break existing functionality. Expanding the coverage of E2E tests is crucial to improving the reliability of Meshery’s UI and workflows. This project focuses on writing Playwright-based tests for more Meshery components, ensuring robust test coverage across the platform.

• Expected Outcome: Development of comprehensive E2E test cases for additional Meshery components using Playwright.
• Recommended Skills: JavaScript, Playwright, GitHub Workflows, familiarity with React or Nextjs would be helpful, CI/CD
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote,Aabid Sofi
• Upstream Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/13514
• LFX URL: https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/abd10fed-e03f-4425-863e-157accfe354f

LFX Mentorship 2025 Summer Projects

Meshery

Model relationships for Azure services

Description: Meshery Models are declarative representations of infrastructure and applications. Within these models, Relationships define how different Components (e.g., Kubernetes resources, Cloud services) interact and depend on each other. These relationships are crucial for visualizing, understanding, and managing complex cloud native systems.

This internship focuses on significantly expanding the breadth and depth of Meshery Relationships across a wide array of technologies supported by Meshery. As Meshery continues to integrate with more cloud-native technologies (Kubernetes, public clouds, and all CNCF projects), there's a growing need to accurately model the intricate relationships between their components - vital for providing users with comprehensive insights and control over their deployments.

• Recommended Skills: DevOps, systems administration, solutions architecture. Experience with Kubernetes, Azure and its services.
• Responsibilities:
  • Research and Analyze Technologies: Dive deep into various cloud-native technologies (e.g., different compute services, databases, messaging systems, network services, etc.) to understand their components and how they interconnect.
  • Develop Relationship Definitions: Create and contribute relationship definitions, typically in JSON or YAML format, to the Meshery models.
  • Model Inter-Technology Interactions: Focus particularly on defining relationships between components from different technologies (e.g., how a Kubernetes deployment relates to an AWS RDS instance, or how a Linkerd service interacts with a Prometheus monitoring component).
  • Document New Relationships: Clearly document the newly defined relationships, their purpose, and how they are represented within Meshery designs, contributing to the official Meshery documentation.
• Expected Outcome:
  • A multitude of new relationships defined both intra and inter Azure services.
  • Policy Contribution: For advanced interns, there may be opportunities to contribute to the Rego policies that evaluate and enforce these relationships.
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote, Sangram Rath, Mia Grenell
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14793

Model relationships for AWS services

• Description: Meshery Models are declarative representations of infrastructure and applications. Within these models, Relationships define how different Components (e.g., Kubernetes resources, Cloud services) interact and depend on each other. These relationships are crucial for visualizing, understanding, and managing complex cloud native systems.

This internship focuses on significantly expanding the breadth and depth of Meshery Relationships across a wide array of technologies supported by Meshery. As Meshery continues to integrate with more cloud-native technologies (Kubernetes, public clouds, and all CNCF projects), there's a growing need to accurately model the intricate relationships between their components - vital for providing users with comprehensive insights and control over their deployments.

• Recommended Skills: DevOps, systems administration, solutions architecture. Experience with Kubernetes, AWS and its services.
• Responsibilities:
  • Research and Analyze Technologies: Dive deep into various cloud-native technologies (e.g., different compute services, databases, messaging systems, network services, etc.) to understand their components and how they interconnect.
  • Develop Relationship Definitions: Create and contribute relationship definitions, typically in JSON or YAML format, to the Meshery models.
  • Model Inter-Technology Interactions: Focus particularly on defining relationships between components from different technologies (e.g., how a Kubernetes deployment relates to an AWS RDS instance, or how a Linkerd service interacts with a Prometheus monitoring component).
  • Document New Relationships: Clearly document the newly defined relationships, their purpose, and how they are represented within Meshery designs, contributing to the official Meshery documentation.
• Expected Outcome:
  • A multitude of new relationships defined both intra and inter AWS services.
  • Policy Contribution: For advanced interns, there may be opportunities to contribute to the Rego policies that evaluate and enforce these relationships.
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote, Sangram Rath, Mia Grenell
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14793
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14794

Meshery Model Support for kro ResourceGraphDefinitions (RGDs)

• Description: Enhance Meshery's existing orchestration capabilities to include support for kro ResourceGraphDefinitions (RGDs) as first-class Meshery Models. This involves enabling Meshery to manage and orchestrate RGDs, similar to how it handles other Kubernetes resources. The project will also include generating support for ResourceGraphDefinition in Meshery's Model generator.
• Expected Outcome:
  • Meshery will be able to orchestrate and manage kro RGDs. This includes the ability to deploy, configure, and manage the lifecycle of RGDs through Meshery. The Meshery Model generator will be updated to automatically generate models for kro RGDs, simplifying their integration and management within Meshery. This will be an officially supported feature of Meshery.
• Recommended Skills: Golang, well-written and well-spoken English, Kubernetes, DevOps
• Mentors: Lee Calcote, Aabid Sofi,
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14793
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/13520

Workflow Engine in Meshery

• Description: Integrate a new architectural component into Meshery: a workflow engine, using Temporal. This project involves shifting Meshery off of sqlite over to postgres using gorm (golang). Interns will familiarize with concepts of orchestration engines, including chaining workflows, and content lifecycle management.
• Recommended Skills: Golang, Temporal, ReactJS
• Mentor(s): Lee Calcote, Rian Cteulp
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14795

Solutions Architecture of Popular Cloud Native Deployments

• Description: Learning paths with hands-on labs are a crucial resource for DevOps engineers and cloud-native practitioners. The Meshery Playground provides a live cluster environment, making it an ideal platform for learning every kind of cloud and cloud native technology. Meshery Docs is in need of comprehensive tutorials and scenarios covering common infrastructure management use cases. Mission is to create and publish a series of hands-on tutorials using Meshery Playground. Each tutorial will include step-by-step guides, live demonstrations, and interactive labs using the Playground allowing learners to apply their knowledge directly without the hassle of any configuration.These tutorials will be reviewed by various project maintainers and then published in guides/tutorials.
• Expected Outcome:
  • 10+ new solution architectures (designs) published in Meshery Catalog
  • Each design is ideally adjoined with an interactive tutorial (using Meshery Playground), guiding users through infrastructure.
  • Tutorials should vary in complexity, catering to beginners and advanced learners.
• Recommended Skills: written English, Markdown, Kubernetes, DevOps, and hands-on experience with cloud-native tools
• Mentor(s): Sangram Rath, Lee Calcote
• Issue: https://github.com/meshery/meshery/issues/14796

Additional information

Previous experience with technical writers or documentation

Our mentors have managed teams of technical writers working on documenting enterprise-grade software at large technology companies (Cisco, Seagate, SolarWinds). During the span of time, they have worked with technical writers in DITA and post-DITA environments (from Word to FrameMaker, structured writing, online help, various CMSes, git). Our mentors have worked with technical writers on documentation strategy, creating document sets, covering the full spectrum of reader personas.

We interact daily over Slack, and have an open source project meeting everyday, which are posted to the community YouTube channel.