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Contributing to ACES

ACES is a community standard. Contributions of all kinds are welcome — from fixing typos to proposing major schema changes.

How the Spec Evolves

ACES uses a lightweight RFC process:

  1. Discuss — open a GitHub Discussion for any idea or question
  2. Propose — open a GitHub Issue tagged proposal with the change and rationale
  3. Draft — submit a Pull Request with spec changes and updated examples
  4. Review — community review period (minimum 7 days for non-trivial changes)
  5. Merge — maintainer merges after consensus

Types of Contributions

Specification Changes

  • Schema additions or modifications
  • New evidence types
  • Scoring model refinements
  • MCP protocol extensions

Framework Mappings

  • New framework support (e.g., ISO 27001, HIPAA)
  • Corrections to existing mappings
  • Mapping metadata improvements

Documentation

  • Clarity improvements
  • New examples
  • Translated content

Implementations

  • Reference implementations in any language
  • Validator tools
  • Integration guides

Pull Request Process

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Create a branch: feature/your-change-description
  3. Make your changes
  4. Update relevant examples and documentation
  5. Submit a PR with a clear description of what changed and why

Code of Conduct

Be constructive. Focus on the technical merits of proposals. Compliance is serious work — keep discussions professional and evidence-based.

Maintainers

ACES is maintained by Compliance Scorecard.

Contact: tim@compliancescorecard.com