Your CODEOWNERS file is wrong. It was accurate when someone wrote it 8 months ago. Since then, Sarah moved teams, Mike started working on a different service, and the new hire has been the primary contributor to the billing module for the last 3 months — but CODEOWNERS still lists the original author who left the company.
The Problem with Static Ownership
CODEOWNERS files, team wikis, and Slack-based "who owns this?" questions all share the same flaw: they're point-in-time snapshots that decay immediately.
Code ownership is dynamic. It shifts as people change teams, take on new projects, go on leave, or quietly become the expert in an area nobody formally assigned them.
Ownership from Git History
Git knows who actually owns code: