What’s on our mind: Koha development – From idea to implementation
Last updated on: 27th August 2025|27th August 2025 | Martin Renvoize | Community
Your library’s journey through the Koha development process
Where development ideas begin
Development work flows into our ecosystem from everywhere – and that’s what makes it so exciting:
Sponsored development sees libraries funding solutions for specific needs. But here’s what I love: your sponsored work doesn’t just solve your problem – it becomes part of the global Koha system, helping libraries you’ve never met.
Community contributions come from developers, librarians, and vendors who spot opportunities for improvement. I’ve seen simple observations turn into features that transform how thousands of libraries work.
Bug reports often become the catalyst for major improvements. Some of my favourite Koha enhancements started as a librarian saying “this doesn’t work the way I expected.”
Collaborative projects happen when libraries discover they’re facing similar challenges and decide to pool resources. These partnerships often become lasting relationships.
The heart of our community: Bugzilla and beyond
Every piece of work goes straight into Bugzilla, our collaborative development platform, where the entire global community can see, comment, and contribute.
I use Bugzilla daily, and through it you can:
- Track progress on work you’ve sponsored
- Discover brilliant solutions other libraries have funded
- Find fixes for problems you didn’t even know were being addressed
- Connect with librarians and share practices.
Getting started: The community dashboards are your gateway to understanding what’s happening. They transform Bugzilla’s comprehensive data into clear, visual representations that make sense at a glance. Create a Bugzilla account, explore these dashboards, and start following bugs using the ‘cc’ option. Your personalised dashboard will become your window into the community’s work.
Bug wrangling: Connect to the community
This is where I encourage every library interested in getting involved with the development community to start engaging. Bug wrangling doesn’t need programming skills, it needs people who understand libraries, and that’s you.
Bug wranglers triage submissions, identify duplicates, and ensure work has proper documentation. The dashboards make this incredibly approachable by showing exactly where attention is needed most.
What I love about bug wrangling is how it connects you to the community. You’ll start recognising names, understanding different libraries’ priorities, and spotting patterns in development. It’s genuinely rewarding work that helps everyone.
Development: Where code comes to life
When developers start coding, they follow our established standards and practices. For sponsored work, you’ll work with your chosen developer, but the magic happens when that work joins the broader codebase.
Stay engaged not just with your developer but with the community discussions around your enhancement. Other libraries might build on your ideas, propose tweaks or novel applications that will benefit you too and expand the impact if your work.
Testing: Everyone can make a difference
This is where our community truly shines. Once code is submitted, we all test it together.
Public sandboxes have revolutionised how we do this. These pre-loaded Koha installations let you apply patches directly from Bugzilla and test immediately—no technical setup required. You can even sign off directly from the sandbox.
I regularly use sandboxes to test work other libraries have sponsored, and it’s incredibly satisfying to help improve code that will benefit the entire community. Your testing perspective as a working librarian catches things developers might miss.
Quality Assurance: The technical guardians
Our QA team performs detailed technical review, ensuring code meets standards and integrates properly. Whilst this requires some technical expertise, the team welcomes mentorship opportunities for those interested in developing these skills.
Even if you never join QA directly, your thorough testing reports make their work more efficient and effective.
Release Management: Shepherding code home
Our release manager and maintainers integrate approved code into Koha’s main codebase. The release manager oversees major releases, whilst maintainers backport fixes to stable branches, ensuring your production systems stay secure and stable.
Understanding our release cycle helps you understand when your sponsored enhancements will be available and plan your upgrades accordingly.
Why I love this community (and why you will too)
Working with Koha, identifying improvements, undertaking or sponsoring development work, and participating in that development process take you beyond a one-direction system and user relationship. Through engagement, you unlock a community of libraries and developers committed to quality software developed for libraries, by libraries.
You discover developments that benefit your library before they’re officially released. Your expertise helps improve other libraries’ sponsored work. You build genuine relationships that lead to collaborations you never expected.
Most importantly, you become part of a supportive global community that celebrates each other’s successes and helps solve each other’s challenges.
Your journey starts here
Start by browsing the dashboards to see what’s currently happening. Create your Bugzilla account and begin following issues relevant to your work. Join our community chat on Mattermost and introduce yourself – I promise you’ll receive a warm welcome.
Consider attending KohaCon or participating in online events. The relationships you’ll build and the knowledge you’ll gain will transform your entire Koha experience.
Here’s what excites me most: The next feature that transforms your library’s workflows might come from code you tested, a bug you helped triage, or a conversation you started in our community channels. You’re not just using Koha – you’re helping build its future alongside friends from around the world.
This community has given me years of rewarding collaboration, lasting friendships, and the satisfaction of knowing that our collective work serves libraries and communities globally. I’d love for you to experience that same joy and sense of purpose.
The library is open, join the community today.