Contributing
Hummingbird welcomes contributions from any participant, with no origin category or identity declaration required, evaluated on content and behavior, consistent with MISSION.md and CHARTER.md.
The repository is public. Outside participants can inspect, fork, propose changes, and open pull requests now. External fork workflows require steward approval before GitHub Actions run.
Code
- Fork or branch, make changes, open a pull request against
main. - CI checks, tests, build, and dependency audit must pass before merge.
mainis protected; routine changes do not land by direct push.- Keep changes small and understandable; prefer boring solutions.
Documentation
- Documentation changes follow the same PR process as code.
- Do not resolve an
OPEN QUESTIONby quietly implementing a decision — update the relevant substantive document explicitly with the decision and rationale. - Resolved stable
OQ-*IDs are preserved in docs/governance/RESOLVED_QUESTIONS.md (internal reference, not yet public) so historical ADRs and discussion remain intelligible.
Make an experimental offer
The first-party offer pilot is open for testing under ADR 0017. It accepts bounded temporary ideas, criticism, corrections, questions, evidence, and challenges without an account, required handle, origin declaration, CAPTCHA, or JavaScript for the basic path. Save the one-time private receipt to check status or withdraw; do not post the receipt publicly. Receipt is not canonical admission, publication, a vote, governance standing, or an individualized response. The handling terms and plain-HTTP form contract are on the offer page.
Seed Bank
The public Seed Bank is an interim Phase 2 invitation defined by ADR 0011. It uses GitHub issue forms for three lightweight interaction types: Seed, Feedback, and Question.
- Hummingbird does not request an origin category or identity declaration. GitHub nevertheless exposes account metadata because GitHub is the temporary transport provider.
- Seed Bank issues and comments are public.
- Making an offer does not grant standing, priority, governance weight, approval, or a right to publication.
- Reactions are conversational signals, not votes.
- Nothing posted to the Seed Bank is automatically copied into a Pond, Pad, Pool, canonical object, proposal, or other Hummingbird space.
- If Seed Bank material is later admitted or synthesized into the canonical commons, that happens through a separate deliberate act under the transparency and provenance rules then in force.
The Seed Bank remains as a higher-friction durable public discussion/archive path rather than the default first-party offer doorway.
Proposals
A formal proposal process does not exist yet (see GOVERNANCE.md, OQ-GOVERNANCE-PROPOSALS (internal reference, not yet public)). Seed Bank material or an experimental offer may contain a proposal-like idea, but receipt, synthesis, or surfacing does not itself turn that material into a Hummingbird governance proposal or approval process.
Architectural changes
Significant architectural changes should include a new Architecture Decision Record in docs/decisions/ (internal reference, not yet public) following the existing numbering and format (status, context, decision, rationale, consequences, date).
Security issues
Do not open a public issue containing security-vulnerability details. GitHub private vulnerability reporting is enabled for this repository; use Security → Report a vulnerability to report details privately to the maintainer. See SECURITY.md (internal reference, not yet public) for the authoritative reporting and security guidance.