Contributing

This document provides motivated individuals with information on how to contribute and improve the Margo initiative.

Specification Enhancement Requests

The Margo initiative is an open-source project designed to evolve through community input. Whether you’re an initiative member or simply passionate about improving open architecture standards, your ideas matter! We welcome enhancement requests from anyone interested in making Margo more robust, interoperable, and future-ready. Please navigate to the link below and follow the instructions to submit your specification enhancement request:

• Specification Enhancement Repository

Margo Code First Sandbox Feedback

In spec development, "code first" refers to an approach where the implementation of a feature or system is driven by writing code before formalizing the specification. This contrasts with a "spec first" approach, where detailed specifications (e.g., API contracts, data models, and workflows) are designed before implementation begins.

The Margo initiative utilizes this sandbox, in conjunction with the specification, to enable fully thought through proposals that include specification and working code snippets. An additional benefit the sandbox provides is a working replica of the real world architecture to enable demonstrations and plugfest type activities.

To provide feedback towards the Code First Sandbox, whether bug reports or features requests, please navigate to the link below:

• Sandbox Repository

Contribution Checklist

• Contributions to the Specification must be covered by a Corporate CLA or Individual CLA
• Any code changes must be accompanied with automated tests
• Add the required copyright header to each new file introduced if appropriate, see licensing information
• Add signed-off to all commits to certify the "Developer's Certificate of Origin", see below
• Structure your commits logically, in small steps
  • one separable functionality/fix/refactoring = one commit
  • do not mix those there in a single commit
  • after each commit, the tree still has to build and work, i.e. do not add even temporary breakages inside a commit series (helps when tracking down bugs). This also applies to documentation commits processed by, e.g., mkdocs
• Base commits on top of latest pre-draft branch

Signing the CLA for Contributions to the Specification

If you have not yet signed the Individual CLA, or your organization has not yet signed the Corporate CLA, or if your account has not yet been authorized by your organization to contribute to Margo, the LFX EasyCLA bot will prompt you to follow the appriopriate steps to authorize your contribution.

To ensure your contribution is covered before you make a pull request or to sign the CLA, open a PR at https://github.com/margo/EasyCLA.

Sign your work

The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the patch, e.g.

Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>

This lines certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to pass it on as an open-source patch. Check with your employer when not working on your own!

Tip: The sign-off will be created for you automatically if you use git commit -s (or git revert -s).

Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

    (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
        have the right to submit it under the open source license
        indicated in the file; or

    (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
        of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
        license and I have the right under that license to submit that
        work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
        by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
        permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
        in the file; or

    (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
        person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
        it.

    (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
        are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
        personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
        maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
        this project or the open source license(s) involved.

Licenses

Margo contributors contributing to this draft specification have made those contributions subject to the Open Web Foundation Contributor License Agreement Contribution Copyright Grant, available at Open Web Foundation - CLA Copyright Grant 0.9.

Copyright ©️ 2025 Margo.