FOCUS Spec KB

Contribution Process

3 min read

Contribution Process

Contributing to FOCUS requires signing the Membership Agreement via EasyCLA, then working through GitHub issues, pull requests, and Focus Groups using a hybrid contribution model.

Prerequisites

Before contributing to FOCUS, you must:

  1. Sign the FOCUS Membership Agreement — this is managed through EasyCLA (Electronic Contributor License Agreement). To initiate the signing process, open a PR against the EasyCLA repository. The EasyCLA bot will block merges if your membership agreement hasn’t been signed.

  2. Understand the governance — read the foundation repository documents, including the charter, operating procedures, and guiding principles.

The Hybrid Contribution Model

FOCUS uses what it calls a hybrid contribution model, which combines two input channels:

GitHub-First Contributions

The official record of the specification lives in GitHub. Direct contributions include:

  • Issues — report bugs, propose new columns, suggest improvements, ask questions
  • Pull requests — propose spec text changes, fix errors, add supporting content
  • Discussions — longer-form conversations about design decisions

The working_draft branch on the FOCUS_Spec repository is where active development happens between releases.

Focus Groups

Focus Groups are specialized working teams that tackle specific areas of the specification. Members participate in regular meetings, discussions, and reviews. Input from Focus Groups is ultimately entered into GitHub — GitHub remains the authoritative record.

Focus Groups provide a venue for:

  • In-depth discussion of complex topics (e.g., SaaS billing models, commitment discount edge cases)
  • Building consensus among practitioners and providers
  • Reviewing proposed changes before they become PRs

Contribution Workflow

1. Sign EasyCLA (one-time)
       ↓
2. Identify contribution (via issues, Focus Groups, or personal observation)
       ↓
3. Fork the FOCUS_Spec repository
       ↓
4. Create a branch and make changes
       ↓
5. Open a Pull Request against working_draft
       ↓
6. EasyCLA bot verifies membership
       ↓
7. Community and maintainer review
       ↓
8. Revisions based on feedback
       ↓
9. Merge by maintainers
       ↓
10. Changes ship in next release after Steering Committee ratification

Roles

Contributing Members

Any member organization that has signed the CLA may contribute issues, content, or pull requests. This is the broadest participation level.

Maintainers

Maintainers are a subset of Contributing Members who advance the day-to-day evolution of the specification. Their specific responsibilities:

  • Ensure documents accurately reflect group decisions
  • Verify adherence to formatting and content guidelines
  • Review and merge pull requests
  • Manage the working draft branch

Steering Committee

The ultimate decision-making body. They ratify releases and provide strategic direction. See governance-and-charter for details.

FinOps Foundation Staff

The FinOps Foundation (working for the Linux Foundation) provides operational support: coordinating contributor workflows, facilitating Focus Groups, managing communications, and handling publishing.

IDE Integration

The FOCUS_Spec repository includes:

  • .claude/commands — Claude AI assistant integration for contribution workflows
  • .cursor/commands — Cursor IDE integration

These indicate that AI-assisted contribution workflows are recognized as part of the development process.

Key Points

  • Membership agreement (via EasyCLA) is mandatory before any contributions
  • GitHub is the authoritative record, but Focus Groups are a valid input channel
  • The working draft branch has 607+ commits and 232 open issues — the project is actively developed
  • Contributions follow standard open-source patterns (fork → branch → PR → review → merge)
  • FinOps Foundation staff handles operational logistics, not specification decisions

Connections

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks