contribution-norms

Contribution Norms

To surface a project's contribution norms, follow these steps:

1. Locate Governing Documents

Direct the oss-researcher agent to fetch:

• CONTRIBUTING.md (or CONTRIBUTING.rst) at the repository root.
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md at the repository root.
• .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md and .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ directory.
• Any DCO file or sign-off instructions.
• The project's README for any "contributing" section.

Use mcp__plugin_agentic-contributor_github__get_file_contents for each, or fall back to gh api repos/<owner/repo>/contents/<path> if the MCP token is absent.

2. Surface Legal Prerequisites

Report clearly:

• Whether an ICLA (Individual Contributor License Agreement) is required and how to sign it.
• Whether a DCO sign-off (Signed-off-by: in each commit) is required.
• What action the user must take before their first PR can be merged.

State what is missing rather than guessing — if the documents do not address ICLA/DCO, say so.

3. Describe Where Decisions Happen

Report which channel(s) the project uses:

• GitHub Issues / PRs (default for many modern projects).
• Apache JIRA (common in ASF projects — see references/apache-governance.md).
• dev@ mailing list (mandatory for major design decisions in ASF projects).
• Confluence / Wiki for design docs.
• Voting and lazy-consensus rules if applicable.

4. Commit and PR Title Conventions

Extract and present:

• Required PR title format (e.g., [SPARK-NNNN][COMPONENT] Title or [AIRFLOW-x] Title).
• Required commit message format.
• Any automated bot that checks title format (mention that a mismatch will fail CI).
• Whether issues must be linked in the PR description.

5. Code of Conduct

Note the project's code of conduct and link to it. For ASF projects, reference the ASF Code of Conduct.

6. Apache-Specific Notes

For projects under the Apache Software Foundation (e.g., apache/airflow, apache/spark), refer to references/apache-governance.md for detailed notes on ICLA, DCO, lazy consensus / voting, JIRA vs. GitHub workflows, and [PROJECT-NNNN]-style title conventions.

7. State What's Missing

If any governance document cannot be found, explicitly state:

"Could not locate in <owner/repo>. You may need to check the project's website or mailing list archives for this information."

Never fabricate norms, processes, or requirements. Accuracy matters more than completeness.

Output Format

Return the briefing to the orchestrating /oss command. The orchestrator saves it to .oss-drafts/norms-<owner>-<repo>-norms-<UTC>.md and shows the user the file path with the notice: "Saved to <path>. Review and edit this report file as needed before using it."

Structure the briefing as:

## Contribution Norms: <owner/repo>

### Legal Prerequisites
<ICLA / DCO requirements and action items>

### Where to Engage
<GitHub / JIRA / mailing list — what each is used for>

### PR and Commit Conventions
<title format, commit format, bot checks, linking>

### Code of Conduct
<summary + link>

### What Could Not Be Found
<list any missing documents>

References

See references/apache-governance.md for Apache-specific governance details.