| name | contribution-norms |
| description | This skill should be used when the user asks to learn how to contribute to an open-source project, understand a project's governance, find out about CLA or DCO requirements, learn the correct commit or PR title format, or find out where project decisions happen. Trigger phrases include: "how do I contribute to X", "what are the contribution norms", "do I need to sign a CLA", "what's the DCO", "where do decisions happen", "what's the governance model", "CONTRIBUTING guide", "how should I format my PR title", "what mailing list should I use".
|
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.
