Welcome to the MCP Governance Working Group — a collaborative community focused on refining, documenting, and stewarding Model Context Protocol (MCP) governance processes and community values.
The Governance Working Group exists to refine, document, and steward MCP's governance processes and community values, providing a single home for revising the project's governance documentation as the project grows.
It also serves as an advisory voice channel — surfacing community concerns to Core Maintainers and stewarding the contribution culture that helps people advance through the contributor ladder. Over time the WG aspires to evolve into a standing consultation forum for contested governance decisions and, longer-term, to support representative community participation in the broader MCP organization.
The full charter lives in the specification repository: Governance Working Group Charter.
- Governance documentation stewardship — content under
docs/community/covering governance, contributor ladder, SEP guidelines, working and interest groups, communication, antitrust, and project policies - Decision recording — defining what counts as a project decision, who ratifies it, and how it is recorded
- Code of Conduct stewardship — drafting, revising, and maintaining the Code of Conduct text and adjacent reporting/escalation documentation
- Community values — stewarding MCP's stated community values and landing the values workshop as a public artefact
- Contribution culture and mentorship — encouraging mentorship as a culture and stewarding movement across contributor ladder tiers
- Voice channel — surfacing community concerns to Core Maintainers in an advisory, non-binding capacity
- Cross-cutting coordination — coordinating with other WGs and IGs on governance processes that affect them
- Specification authorship — protocol changes go through the SEP process and the relevant spec-producing Working Group
- Maintainer selection and succession — the WG may recommend process improvements but does not pick people
- Individual Code of Conduct moderation decisions — incident handling lives elsewhere; the WG seeks aggregated, anonymised trend reports
- Per-SDK governance — owned by the SDK Working Group
- Per-WG/IG internal operations — the WG sets framework only
- Maintainer disputes and interpersonal conflict resolution outside the Code of Conduct — out of scope for v0.1
- Primary Channel: MCP Discord →
#governance-wg - Meetings: Monthly working session, 60 minutes
- Agendas published in
#governance-wgat least 48 hours ahead when items are known
- Agendas published in
- Meeting Notes: GitHub Discussions →
Meeting Notes - Governance WG - Work Tracking: GitHub Issues and Discussions in this repository
- Reporting: The Lead carries concerns needing Core Maintainer attention to the monthly Core Maintainer plus WG/IG leads meeting
Cadence: Monthly Duration: 60 minutes Format: Virtual
Note: See meet.modelcontextprotocol.io for meeting links and calendar.
The monthly working session is a standing slot and is not cancelled for lack of an agenda. The WG does not run office hours; open Q&A happens in #governance-wg and at project-wide Core Maintainer office hours.
All meetings include:
- Published agenda (48h prior, when items are known)
- Open attendance for all interested participants
We welcome participation from anyone interested in MCP's governance processes and community values!
- Join the
#governance-wgchannel on MCP Discord - Attend the monthly working session (no approval needed!)
- Contribute by opening issues, submitting PRs, or providing feedback
- Review the CONTRIBUTING guide for detailed guidelines
See GOVERNANCE.md for current members, roles, and how to become a WG Member.
| Item | Status | Target Date | Champion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision-recording convention: what is decided, who ratifies, where | Planning | 2027-01-31 | Sarah Novotny |
Community values doc public under docs/community/ |
In progress | 2027-02-28 | Sarah Novotny |
| Code of Conduct reporting and handling path formalised | Planning | 2027-03-31 | TBD |
| Onboarding & mentorship culture doc | Planning | 2027-04-30 | TBD |
| "State of MCP Community" cadence + first published post | Planning | 2027-05-31 | TBD |
| "Ways to contribute beyond code" page | Planning | 2027-05-31 | TBD |
/
├── README.md # This file - Quick start guide
├── CHARTER.md # Coming soon
├── GOVERNANCE.md # Governance model, roles, and members
├── CONTRIBUTING.md # Contribution guidelines
├── proposals/ # Proposals and governance documentation drafts
├── docs/ # Guides and documentation
└── meetings/ # Agendas and notes from working group meetings
We welcome contributions of all kinds! Please review:
- CONTRIBUTING.md — Detailed contribution guidelines
- MCP Code of Conduct — Community standards
- MCP Antitrust Policy — Required compliance
Quick Start:
- Open an issue to propose ideas or report problems
- Submit a PR for proposals, documentation, or improvements
- Join discussions in Discord or GitHub
- Model Context Protocol
- MCP Specification
- Governance Working Group Charter
- Working and Interest Groups
- Contributor Ladder
- MCP GitHub Organization
- MCP Discord Community
- MCP Events Calendar
- Discord:
#governance-wgchannel - GitHub Issues: For proposals, questions, and discussions
- Lead: Sarah Novotny (@sarahnovotny)