Principle
Public by default
Specification changes and design discussions should happen in public issues and pull requests. The history is the record.
Community · Governance
Governance
How the Open Agent Specification evolves in the open. The goal is a process that is auditable, contract-driven, and friendly to independent implementers — so trust comes from transparency, not from brand.
Discussions
Public
Decisions
Recorded
Stance
Vendor-neutral
§ 01Principles
What governance is optimizing for
Governance isn't ceremony. It's a set of constraints that keeps the standard legible, implementable, and secure as it grows.
Principle
Contract-first
A standard earns trust when it is precise: invariants, verifier rules, and failure modes are explicit.
Principle
Vendor-neutral
The standard should be implementable by anyone. Decisions should not depend on proprietary services or closed platforms.
Principle
Security as a requirement
Security concerns are treated as first-class input for any change that affects verification or authority.
§ 02The pipeline
From proposal to shipped contract
The repository is the record: discussions, reviews, and the final merged diff are what implementers can rely on.
01
Propose
Open an issue or RFC pull request that states the problem and the desired contract change.
02
Review
Discuss in public. Reviewers focus on invariants, verifier behavior, and compatibility impact.
03
Decide
A decision is recorded in the repository: approvals, comments, and the merged diff are the canonical record.
04
Ship
Accepted changes land with documentation and, where applicable, conformance coverage and reference implementations.
01
Propose
Open an issue or RFC pull request that states the problem and the desired contract change.
02
Review
Discuss in public. Reviewers focus on invariants, verifier behavior, and compatibility impact.
03
Decide
A decision is recorded in the repository: approvals, comments, and the merged diff are the canonical record.
04
Ship
Accepted changes land with documentation and, where applicable, conformance coverage and reference implementations.
§ 03People
Roles in the ecosystem
Authority should be understandable: who reviews changes, who ships releases, and how implementer feedback becomes part of the standard.
Role
Maintainers
Steward the standard and repositories. They review changes, manage releases, and ensure the contract remains coherent.
Role
Reviewers
Provide technical review, challenge unclear authority assumptions, and help keep proposals precise and testable.
Role
Contributors
Submit PRs: specification text, SDK improvements, docs, tests, and tooling. Anyone can propose an RFC.
Role
Implementers
Build real systems against the spec. Their feedback is the strongest signal about clarity and interoperability.
Next
Want to influence the standard?
Write an RFC with clear invariants and verifier rules, then open it in public so implementers can review it early.