GA4GH Technical Alignment Sub Committee (TASC) 
The Tech Alignment Sub-Committee (TASC) Team provides mechanisms and recommendations to create internal consistency and technical alignment across GA4GH Work Streams and deliverables.
GA4GH aims to balance agility with mechanisms that will allow our teams to develop an interconnected suite of standards and reduce the burden of repeated internal landscape analyses. The alignment-focused Sub-Committee of the GA4GH Steering Committee TASC will function as a central decision-making group, including the documentation and communication of these decisions across multiple stakeholders.
The collective resources in the TASC will help inform the peer review of standards inside of GA4GH but do not by themselves mandate adoption. The benefit of participating in the interoperable GA4GH suite of standards, rather, would drive uptake.
Table of Contents
- TASC members
- What kinds of issues should be submitted to TASC?
- How to submit
- What should be included in the submission
- What to Expect
- Issue labels
TASC members
TASC consists of at least 1 volunteer representative from each Work Stream from members of the Steering Committee or a proxy nominated by the SC member, representing multiple countries and organizations.
| Member | Work Stream |
|---|---|
| Ian Fore & Michael Baudis | Discovery |
| James Eddy & Alex Kanitz | Cloud |
| John Marshall | Large Scale Genomics |
| Jonathan Lawson | DURI |
| Bob Freimuth & Alex Wagner | GKS |
| Francesca Frexia | Clin/Pheno |
| David Bernick | Security |
| Mamana Mbiyavanga | Lead |
| Andy Yates | Lead |
| Susan Fairley | Chief Standards Officer |
Tech Team Support
TASC also enlists support from the GA4GH Staff Technical Team to encourage technical alignment across the Work Streams.
| Member | Github Handle | |
|---|---|---|
| Amreen Mohamed | amreen.mohamed@ga4gh.org | |
| Neerjah Skantharajah | ||
| Jimmy Payyappilly | ||
| Yasmeen Kurdi | ||
| Reggan Thomas | ||
| Angela Page | ||
| Chen Chen | Chen2x | |
| Alex Tsai | alextsaihi |
What kinds of issues should be submitted to TASC?
TASC aids the harmonisation of aspects of GA4GH's various products that would otherwise prevent different products from being used together conveniently.
TASC works on projects that address issues that lower the barriers to organisation-wide harmonisation between GA4GH products.
Some examples of these might be
- Ongoing reviews for proposals either within TASC or in a further subgroup
- Creation of a register (e.g. service info types, schema blocks) together with a management process
- Production of a guideline document
- Update to the Product Approval Process Documentation
TASC will not work on projects that
- Should be a Work Stream product: ie it will be a specification, intended for outside use, is something that would need to go through the approval process.
- Should be decided by the full SC; for example is a matter of GA4GH governance
- Not feasible e.g. too onerous to manage
- Major software development required
- Too imposing on how teams manage their operations
How to submit
Project ideas should be submitted through the Github issues on the TASC repository.
What should be included in the submission
- Clear problem statement
- Explanation of how this impacts alignment between GA4GH standards
- Background research and landscape analysis
- Proposed solution
What to Expect
A project submitted to the TASC will go through several steps.
- New issues: Issues will enter a queue for review.
- Inputs expected from the issue submitter.
- Assessment: After submission, the TASC leadership team will review the issue to ensure that it contains the required elements as stated in the previous section and if it meets the guidelines of what kinds of projects TASC will undertake. If it needs additional information, the submitter will be notified, the issue will be returned to the “New Issues” queue, and it will be tagged for Revision.
- Inputs expected from the TASC leadership and the issue submitter.
- Under Discussion: Once a project has been accepted by TASC leadership, it is passed to the team for discussion. As in the assessment stage, the full team can also request more information or determine if the meets the TASC guidelines as they analyze the issue in more detail. In this stage, the team determines a way forward for the project.
- Inputs expected from the TASC team
- Solution Building: The team works on a solution to the problem.
- Inputs expected from the TASC team
- Blocked: A temporary holding place while we wait for external issues to be resolved.
- Inputs expected from the TASC team
- Resolution: A resolution is proposed and discussed by the team. The team and leadership vote on the solution. If work needs to continue, the project is sent back to the Under Discussion or Solution Building phase.
- Inputs expected from the TASC leadership.
- Complete: The agreed-upon solution is disseminated to the GA4GH workstreams. Note: The Steering Committee has the ability to overrule TASC solutions that they find to be problematic.
- Inputs expected from the TASC leadership and the Steering Committee.
You can track the status of your issue in the TASC’s Github projects board.
Issue labels
By Status (Open)
- CRITICAL: Decision needs to be made soon
By Status (Closed)
- Duplicate: This issue or pull request already exists
- Approach Resolved: Consensus reached or final decision taken by TASC leadership
- Out of Scope: Issue or pull request not a TASC task and will not be looked at
By Area
- Documentation: Improvements or additions to a documentation
- Product Approval Process: Going through GA4GH approval's process
- Update to existing TASC managed process: Improvements or additions to TASC managed process