docs: retire the fixed-assignee rule (it names a former code owner)

[LukasWodka]

Summary

CLAUDE.md instructed every author to assign every PR in this repo to saadqbal, unconditionally:

Every PR you create must be assigned to saadqbal (Asad). … No exceptions

That was accurate when Asad was the de-facto code owner here. It is legacy now, and it conflicts with two things that supersede it:

• RFC-BACKEND-0008 D31 — the assignee is whoever is doing the work, set by the author when the PR is opened. Assignee and reviewer are different roles.
• The org-level CLAUDE.md, which says the same.

It also has a practical cost: a fixed assignee re-creates the bystander effect the author-picks model was adopted to remove. If every PR is assigned to the same person, nobody owns any of them — which is the opposite of the rule's stated intent ("orphaned PRs fall through the review queue").

Surfaced while an agent working in this repo hit the contradiction directly: repo CLAUDE.md said saadqbal, the task said the actual worker.

Change

One paragraph in CLAUDE.md → the D31 rule, plus a note on why the old line existed so nobody restores it.

Test plan

Documentation only. No workflow, script, chart or installer file touched.

Refs: tracebloc/backend#1405

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

---

Note

Low Risk
Documentation-only change to contributor guidance; no workflows, scripts, or runtime behavior.

Overview
PR conventions in CLAUDE.md no longer require every PR to be assigned to saadqbal. The rule now matches RFC-BACKEND-0008 D31: the author assigns whoever is doing the work, and assignee (merge ownership) is separate from reviewer.

A second paragraph explains why the old fixed assignee existed and warns against restoring it, since a single default assignee undermines the author-picks model and recreates bystander effects. Reviewer choice stays with the author; there is no automated reviewer pick.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 5865e76. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

[LukasWodka]

👋 Heads-up — Code review queue is at 49 / 30

Above the WIP limit. The team convention is to review existing PRs before opening new work.

Open PRs currently in Code review (oldest first):

• .github#124 — chore(promote): develop → main — fr-pass exit codes, fail-closed mutators, caller comment (backend#1412, #1413) · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• averaging-service#263 — docs(changelog): add missing fragment for bug: dataset rm cannot delete staging files — ingestor (uid 65534) vs jobs-manager uid mismatch, no shared fsGroup #259 · author: @divyasinghds · no reviewer assigned
• averaging-service#273 — docs(ci): /fr-pass advances staging → prod only (backend#1405 D6) · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• averaging-service#274 — release-train: staging -> main · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• backend#1146 — docs(rfc): platform cost & autoscaling architecture · author: @saadqbal · reviewer: @LukasWodka, @saqlainsyed007
• backend#1201 — docs(rfc): Data spaces & federated dataset composition (draft) · author: @LukasWodka · reviewer: @saadqbal
• backend#1217 — docs(rfc): Dataset integrity & score reproducibility (draft) · author: @LukasWodka · reviewer: @saadqbal
• backend#1261 — RFC-BACKEND-0008: board & process reset (decision RFC — for markup) · author: @LukasWodka · reviewer: @saadqbal
• backend#1284 — docs(deploy): backend deploy runbook skeleton (#1263) · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• backend#1332 — feat(check-model): allow KNN/GaussianProcess on a single-edge owned dataset (#923 follow-up) · author: @divyasinghds · no reviewer assigned

Pull from review before opening new work. (This is a nudge from the kanban WIP check, not a block.)

[LukasWodka]

/fr-pass