How to contribute

What you can propose

How to submit a contribution

1. 1

   Fork the repository — fork ihoward/4thgen_standards on GitHub.

2. 2

   Copy the template — copy contributions/FGC-template.md to contributions/FGC-<next-number>.md. Use the next sequential number.

3. 3

   Fill in the template — complete all required fields describing your proposed change.

4. 4

   Create practice files — if proposing a new practice, create the concept and version YAML files (see formats below).

5. 5

   Open a pull request — title format: [FGC-XXXXX] Brief description.

Practice file formats

Concept file

practices/concepts/FGP-xxxxxx.yaml — one file per practice concept.

id: FGP-xxxxxx
normalized_name: "lower case whitespace normalised name without punctuation"

title: Human-readable title

description: |
  What this practice means and why it matters
  for fourth generation standards.

Version file

practices/versions/FGP-xxxxxx-v1.yaml — one file per practice version.

id: FGP-xxxxxx-v1
concept_id: FGP-xxxxxx

compliance_level: foundational  # foundational | extended | full

criteria:
  required: |
    What a standard must demonstrably implement.
    Observable and verifiable, not aspirational.

  recommended: |
    Additional implementation details that strengthen
    compliance but are not required.

rationale: |
  Why this practice is necessary for fourth generation
  status. What problem it solves.

citations:
  supporting:
    - >
      Author, A. (Year). Title. Journal/Source.
      https://doi.org/...
  dissenting: []

Identifier generation

Practice concept IDs are deterministic. Two independent contributors who describe the same practice arrive at the same identifier without coordination.

import hashlib, base64

def make_id(normalized_name):
    h = hashlib.sha256(normalized_name.encode()).digest()
    b32 = base64.b32encode(h).decode().lower().rstrip('=')
    return f'FGP-{b32[:6]}'

The normalized_name is the lower-case, whitespace-normalised (single spaces), punctuation-stripped version of the concept title.

Review timeline