This repository provides a customizable set of documents and templates to help open standards projects establish clear, transparent, and sustainable practices for day-to-day project operations. These templates encourage projects to adopt procedural guidelines that ensure fairness, openness, and due process as promoted by the American National Standards Institute's Essential Requirements and the World Trade Organization's Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations.
This material is further designed to be compatible with projects using governance structures established in the Community Specification License and/or the Joint Development Foundation Membership Agreement version 5.0 or higher. Whether you're starting a new Joint Development Foundation project or refining your existing governance, this template offers a practical starting point for defining how your community collaborates.
- New JDF Projects or affiliated projects looking to establish operational clarity
- Working groups developing technical specifications or open standards
- Maintainers and coordinators formalizing governance and participation processes
- Fork this repository into your organization or working group’s GitHub account.
- Rename your fork to reflect your project name (e.g.,
myproject-operational-process-document). - Customize the templates: Use our Getting Started Checklist to tailor the information for your project.
- Commit your changes and share with your stakeholders for review.
| File/Directory | Description |
|---|---|
/Process_Documents/ |
Core template for project operations |
/Diagrams/ |
Editable diagram sources (draw.io format) |
/Resources/ |
Non-normative links, guides, and material to help you get started |
.github/ |
Optional GitHub configurations like issue templates and actions |
index.yaml |
Optional config file |
getting-started-checklist.md |
Checklist for adapting these templates |
- Membership and IPR Agreements - please contact your Project's legal host for the versions of these agreements that should be made available in your project's workspaces.
- Other legal or compliance policies such as Trademark, Brand, Privacy, Terms of Use, or Code of Conduct - these should also be made available by the Project's hosting organization.
- Read through the whole document first: Before making any edits, read through the document so you get a feel for how it is organized.
- Keep up to date: Regularly check for updates or improvements to these templates and keep your project’s copies in sync.
- Cross-link: Update all internal links after renaming or moving files and directories.
- Remove what you don’t need: Delete any template files, diagrams, or notes that don’t apply to your project, or move them to an archive or errata folder.
We welcome contributions to improve the clarity, accessibility, and utility of these templates.
- Please open an issue or pull request if you have suggestions or improvements.
- If you find an issue that needs to be addressed, please open an issue so we can continue to build a better template together.
- This project operates under a Code of Conduct.
This template is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.