Setup maintainers.csv and OWNERS/MAINTAINERS.md for CNCF

[illume]

Not only should plugin maintainers be able to review / merge PRs they get benefits through the CNCF like copilot enterprise.

https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/main/project-maintainers.csv already.

We also have to set up OWNERS/CODEOWNERS files properly for the repo.

Once people are in there people can be setup for copilot enterprise… details here: https://contribute.cncf.io/blog/2025/12/16/github-copilot-enterprise-for-maintainers/

Probably we should follow the standard procedures for adding maintainers as kubernetes follows.

[iqraurooj111]

Hi @illume, I'd like to help set up OWNERS/CODEOWNERS files for the plugin
directories in this repo. I saw #1157 covers the CNCF project-maintainers.csv
side — I'll focus on the in-repo OWNERS files based on the maintainers already
listed in README.md. Can I take this on?

[iqraurooj111]

Hi @illume , @joaquimrocha

I saw this issue was open and decided to work on it. I've opened a PR that addresses the OWNERS setup part of this issue:

PR: #1178

What the issue asked for

This issue asked for setting up OWNERS/CODEOWNERS files for the repo so that plugin maintainers can be properly recognized (and get CNCF maintainer benefits like Copilot Enterprise access), following the same standard procedure Kubernetes uses for adding maintainers.

What I did

I noticed the maintainers for each plugin were already listed in the README.md table, but there were no per-directory OWNERS files, which is the standard Kubernetes/CNCF convention for tracking approvers and reviewers at the directory level. So I:

1. Added a root-level OWNERS file for the repo overall.
2. Added an OWNERS file to every individual plugin directory (ai-assistant, app-catalog, backstage, cert-manager, cluster-api, flux, karpenter, keda, knative, kompose, kro, kyverno, minikube, opencost, plugin-catalog, prometheus, radius, strimzi, volcano), each listing that plugin's maintainer(s) as approvers and reviewers, based on the README table.

What I did NOT touch

• I checked .github/CODEOWNERS and found it was already complete and up to date (it already lists the global maintainers plus per-plugin extra maintainers), so I left it unchanged to avoid conflicting with existing work.
• I did not touch project-maintainers.csv in cncf/foundation, since I saw that's already being tracked separately in Update maintainers list and headlamp repo cncf/foundation#1157.

Could you please review PR #1178 and merge it if it looks good? This is my first contribution to this repo, so happy to make any changes you'd like. Thank you!