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add a minimal GOVERNANCE.md for discussion#11

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Davanum Srinivas (dims) wants to merge 3 commits into
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dims:add-governance
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add a minimal GOVERNANCE.md for discussion#11
Davanum Srinivas (dims) wants to merge 3 commits into
agent-substrate:mainfrom
dims:add-governance

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@dims Davanum Srinivas (dims) commented May 20, 2026 •
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Howdy folks! Thanks for the awesome work :) I hear you may be open to some of us eager to help out. Here's my bit to get started.

thockin
Tim Hockin (thockin) reviewed May 20, 2026
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thockin
Tim Hockin (thockin) reviewed May 20, 2026
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@thockin Tim Hockin (thockin) left a comment

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I am OK with this.

Benjamin Elder (@BenTheElder) Dmitry Berkovich (@dberkov) ?

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Tim Hockin (thockin) commented May 20, 2026

To clarify, AIUI we have two distinct places where we can apply "authority":

Org: Member / Owner

Repo: Read / Triage / Write / Maintain / Admin

I think we should distinguish "project administration" from "development" from the beginning, so Org:Owner, Repo:Maintain, and Repo:Admin are put aside for now.

This doc proposes 3 tiers: Contributors, Reviewers, Maintainers. There's an implicit tier below contributors ("contributor to be").

Default: not an org member or repo collaborator

Contributor:

  • Sent 1 PR and is known to other org members: +Repo:Read
  • Sent "enough" PRs (TBD among org members): +Repo:Read
  • Sent "enough" PRs and vouched by 2 org members: +Org:Member

Reviewer:

  • Sent "enough" PRs and vouched by 2 org members: +RepoTriage

Maintainer:

  • Sent "enough" PRs and vouched by 2 org members: +RepoWrite

Does that map? Eventually we will want to use OWNERS or CODEOWNERS

dberkov
Dmitry Berkovich (dberkov) reviewed May 20, 2026
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@BenTheElder Benjamin Elder (BenTheElder) added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label May 21, 2026
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Tim Hockin (thockin) commented May 21, 2026 •
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Thinking more, let's ignore org membership for now, until we figure it out a bit more.

Default: not an org member or repo collaborator

Contributor:

  • Made at least 1 non-trivial contribution and is known to / vouched for by other maintainers: +Repo:Read
  • Made "enough" contributions (decided among maintainers): +Repo:Read

Reviewer:

  • Made "enough" contributions (decided among maintainers) and vouched for by 2 maintainers: +RepoTriage

Maintainer:

  • Made "enough" contributions (decided among maintainers) and vouched for by 2 maintainers: +RepoWrite

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Tim Hockin (thockin) commented May 21, 2026

Do we need to codify those rules in this doc instead of "voting"?

@dims
add GOVERNANCE.md
ac62041 
Signed-off-by: Davanum Srinivas <davanum@gmail.com>
@dims
add initial .github/CODEOWNERS
31e7dcc 
Signed-off-by: Davanum Srinivas <davanum@gmail.com>
@dims
address review: drop CODEOWNERS, codify role tiers, fix mailing list
8a8d524 
- Drop .github/CODEOWNERS — defer to a separate discussion per
  agent-substrate#11 (comment)
- Fix mailing list address: groups.google.com -> googlegroups.com per
  agent-substrate#11 (comment)
- Codify a four-tier role model (Default / Contributor / Reviewer /
  Maintainer) with Read / Triage / Write permission mapping and a
  "enough contributions + 2 Maintainer vouches" promotion criterion,
  per thockin's 2026-05-21 proposal in
  agent-substrate#11 (comment)
- Replace "majority / 2/3 supermajority of Maintainers" language with
  "Maintainer support / approval" and note that authority will be
  delegated to per-subsystem owners as the project grows, per
  agent-substrate#11 (comment)
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@thockin Tim Hockin (thockin) thockin left review comments

@dberkov Dmitry Berkovich (dberkov) dberkov left review comments

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@BenTheElder Benjamin Elder (BenTheElder)

@thockin Tim Hockin (thockin)

@dberkov Dmitry Berkovich (dberkov)

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