Can new repository creating be automated?

[berndpfrommer]

Creating a new release repository sometimes happens within a few days, in other cases can take more than a week (my most recent issue has been sitting only for 5 days, so it's still an infant at this point).
I understand there is some manual process involved and the maintainers are busy, but wouldn't it make sense to automate this process? It does kinda disrupt my development flow when I have a step that can take from a few hours to a few weeks, and you don't know when it'll happen. Plus, in the long run you will recoup the development time by not having to manually maintain a repo anymore.

[nuclearsandwich]

I understand there is some manual process involved and the maintainers are busy, but wouldn't it make sense to automate this process?

The short answer is yes. It does make sense. We've talked about wiring this up with ros/rosdistro so that getting included in distribution.yaml automatically creates the release team and repositories.
This isn't a slam dunk because there's missing data in the upstream sources: specifically there's no association between a GitHub username and a maintainer email address in package.xml.

Figuring out how and where best to add this information to the distribution.yaml specification is the main sticking point that prevents this from being a priority for the infrastructure project.

[berndpfrommer]

OK, I'll leave this issue open then as a place holder. No offense if you close it with "Won't Fix" :)