# Draft governance

Ad+Card v0.1 is a creator-led community draft stewarded by Trent McNelly. This document describes the current working process; it does not claim that a nonprofit foundation, standards body, or certification authority already exists.

## Decision order

When proposals conflict, the draft favors:

1. human ownership and legibility;
2. truthful, narrow receipts;
3. privacy and unlinkability;
4. independent implementability;
5. operational usefulness;
6. backwards compatibility within a published version.

## Change process

- Editorial fixes can merge with maintainer review.
- Normative changes need an issue, examples, and conformance tests.
- Privacy-boundary changes need an explicit threat analysis.
- A released object cannot be reinterpreted in place; incompatible semantics require a new `spec` version.
- Open questions remain visibly open until evidence and implementation experience justify closure.

## Conformance language

Until a public conformance suite and release process exist, implementations should say “implements the Ad+Card 0.1 draft,” not “Ad+Card certified.”

The protocol does not certify that an instrument’s sensors, business, identity, or settlement system are trustworthy. It defines how claims and assurance must be represented without exaggeration.