- Please use Google Docs, or an equivalent system capable of collaborative editing, with versioned history and threaded comments. Please ensure the document is world-commentable or -editable.
- We do not use Github issues (or Etherpad) for the design process of the proposal, as the document review/commenting capabilities aren't good enough.
- We also don't jump straight to PRing against the spec itself, as it's much faster to iterate on a proposal in freeform document form than in the terse and formal structure of the spec.
- In the proposal, please clearly state the problem being solved, and the possible solutions being proposed for solving it and their respective trade-offs.
- Proposal documents are intended to be as lightweight and flexible as the author desires; there is no formal template; the intention is to iterate as quickly as possible to get to a good design.
- make a new issue at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues (or modify an existing one), whose description should list the metadata as per below.
- A good place to ask for feedback on a specific proposal is `#matrix-spec:matrix.org <https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-spec:matrix.org>`_. However, authors/shepherds are welcome to use an alternative room if they prefer - please advertise it in #matrix-spec:matrix.org though and link to it on the github issue. N.B. that #matrix-dev:matrix.org is for developers using existing Matrix APIs, #matrix:matrix.org is for users trying to run matrix apps (clients & servers); #matrix-architecture:matrix.org is for cross-cutting discussion of Matrix's architectural design.
- Iterating on the proposal and gathering consensus can sometimes be time-consuming; an impartial 'shepherd' can be assigned to help guide the proposal through this process.
- Once the proposal has sufficient consensus and passed review, you **must** show an implementation to prove that it works well in practice, before a spec PR will be accepted. Iterate on the proposal if needed.
- Finally, please make a new spec PR which includes the changes as implemented against https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/tree/master/specification. This will then be reviewed and hopefully merged! Please sign off the spec PR as per the `CONTRIBUTING.rst <https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.rst>`_ guidelines.
Proposals **must** act to the greater benefit of the entire Matrix ecosystem, rather than benefiting or privileging any single player or subset of players - and must not contain any patent encumbered IP. The Matrix core team pledges to act as a neutral custodian for Matrix on behalf of the whole ecosystem, just as it has since Matrix's inception in May 2014.
The above directions are intended to be simple and pragmatic rather than exhaustive, and aim to provide guidelinnes until we have a formal spec governance process in place that covers the whole Matrix community. In order to get Matrix out of beta as quickly as possible, as of May 2018 we are prioritising spec and reference implementation development over writing formal governance, but a formal governance document will follow as rapidly as that allows.
The process for handling proposals is described in the following diagram. Note that the lifetime of a proposal is tracked through the corresponding labels for each stage in the `matrix-doc issue tracker <https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues>`_.
We use labels and some metadata in the issues' descriptions to generate this page. Labels are assigned by the core team whilst triaging the issues based on those which exist in the matrix-doc repo already.
- the MSC (Matrix Spec Change) number is taken from the github issue ID. This is carried for the lifetime of the proposal, including the PR creation phase. N.B. They are not in chronological order!
- Author is the creator of the github issue, but can be overriden by adding a "Author: @username" line in the body of the issue description. Please make sure @username is a github user (include the @!)
- A shepherd can be assigned by adding a "Shepherd: @username" line in the issue description. Again, make sure this is a real Github user.
