Contribute

The agent-native CLI spec is status: active because the contracts are stable enough to cite, not because anything is locked. The pressure-test mechanism is how the spec revises a position when a finding warrants it. This page is the navigation across the four repos that make up the project, plus the honest expectations on response time.

What kinds of contribution are welcome

Three tiers, all welcome, none required. The shape of the contribution determines the intake.

Tier	What	Where	Time
1. Signal	A finding against a principle's wording, a missing citation, a contradiction between two principles, a false positive in `anc`, a broken link on the site, a bundle content issue	A repo-specific issue template (see "Per-repo intake" below)	~5 min
2. Proposal	A new principle the spec is missing, a MUST/SHOULD tier change with rationale, a counter-example that breaks an applicability clause, a new language checker design, a new host runtime for the skill bundle	An issue with the full case in the body, against the relevant repo	~1-2 hrs
3. Code	A new language checker for `anc`, a tool scoring submission for the leaderboard, a site or skill-bundle improvement, a governance or workflow PR	A pull request against the relevant repo's `dev` branch	Variable

Per-repo intake

Each repo handles a different layer of the project. File against the one that matches the contribution's shape.

Spec: agentnative

The principle text, the requirement IDs, the versioning policy. Pressure-tests against the standard live here.

Pressure-test a principle (Tier 1 or 2)
Ask a spec question (Tier 1)
Submit a grading finding (Tier 1 or 2): spec-feedback derived from scoring a real CLI against the standard
CONTRIBUTING.md · principles/AGENTS.md § Pressure-test protocol

Linter: agentnative-cli

anc, the Rust linter that scores any repo against the spec. The scoring engine, the registry, the language checkers.

Report a false positive (Tier 1)
Request a feature (Tier 1 or 2)
Report a scoring bug (Tier 1)
Add a tool to the registry (Tier 3): propose a CLI for the anc.dev/scorecards leaderboard
Source repo

Site: agentnative-site

This site. The leaderboard renderer, the live-scoring loop, the per-tool scorecard pages, the Worker.

File a site bug (Tier 1)
Source repo

Skill bundle: agentnative-skill

The agent-native-cli bundle that agents discover via filesystem convention. The install paths, the host-runtime detection, the SKILL.md prose.

Source repo + intake

Response expectations (the honest part)

This is a solo-maintainer project. The honest framing:

Tier 1 and 2 are welcome and get a substantive reply when time allows. A pressure-test that names a specific failure mode, with the reasoning behind it, is the contribution shape that lands fastest.
Tier 3 PRs are reviewed when scope and time permit. Real PRs land. No merge-window promise; the queue is what the maintainer can actually read.
Status flips are how the spec records work in progress on a finding. A principle moves to status: under-review when a substantive pressure-test is being processed, then back to status: active once the next MINOR release lands. Visible in the principle file's frontmatter.

The standard takes positions because positions are useful. Positions held without willingness to revise them are dogma. Both halves of that are intentional.

How the revision mechanism works

For a Tier 2 proposal that changes a MUST/SHOULD/MAY tier or adds a new principle:

The pressure-test issue lands with a specific finding: which requirement, which direction, what failure mode argues for the change.
If the finding is substantive, the relevant principle file's status flips from active to under-review.
The next MINOR spec release resolves the finding: the prose is revised, last-revised updates, status returns to active. Or the finding is closed with a documented [wontfix] rationale appended to the principle's pressure-test notes section.

Full description lives at principles/AGENTS.md § Pressure-test protocol.

Adjacent reading

Spec status lifecycle — the draft → under-review → active → locked flow
BRAND.md: voice and identity
CHANGELOG.md: what landed when

The leaderboard at /scorecards is the running answer to "what does the spec catch in practice."