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---
name: repository-attribution-stewardship
description: Distinguishes and aligns copyright-holder records, citation metadata, contribution credit, copy-local public notices, and bounded machine projections. Applies during repository attribution changes, fork or adaptation guidance, and cold-start attribution orientation. Legal interpretation and rights decisions remain with a named human receiver or qualified counsel.
---
# Repository attribution stewardship
## Contract
- **What:** A repository coordination method that gives every attribution need
its fitting carrier, source authority, and proportionate check.
- **When:** Authorship, citation, contribution credit, public HTML attribution,
machine-readable metadata, or adaptation lineage could be conflated.
- **Boundaries:** Exact legal text, governed identity values, and accepted
notices retain source fidelity. Legal interpretation, ownership and rights
determinations, `NOTICE`, CLAs, transfer, and enforcement choices stay with
the named human receiver or qualified counsel. The skill records and
implements a settled decision within the authority granted by the task.
- **Result:** A concise carrier map and the smallest repository change that
keeps identity, credit, citation, licensing, and publication roles legible.
## Fit and attention
- **Useful when:** A cold-start collaborator needs to choose among `AUTHORS`,
`LICENSE`, `CITATION.cff`, governance guidance, Git history, copy-local HTML,
and a machine projection.
- **Smallest useful dose:** Name the need, choose the existing carrier, preserve
its values, and run the nearest parse, path, or carrier check.
- **Interactions:** Use desired-state, evidence-calibrated writing for material
prose and instruction changes. Use
[`source-authority-mapping`](../source-authority-mapping/SKILL.md) when an
artifact crosses repositories, mirrors, or publication systems.
- **Rest or release when:** The existing carrier already answers the question
and a direct source citation gives the collaborator a complete re-entry path.
## Rules
### Rule: Distinct jobs keep distinct carriers
- `LICENSE` supplies the repository's current license terms.
- `AUTHORS` is a repository convention whose own header and local governance
define its role. In this repository, it records copyright holders. GitHub's
platform contributor metadata comes from commit author emails and merged
history.
- `CITATION.cff` supplies standard repository citation metadata from a
confirmed citation decision.
- Git author metadata, agreed `Co-authored-by` trailers, and reviewed pull
requests preserve contribution credit and chronology.
- Governance guidance explains contribution and publication patterns.
- Source-owning public documents carry copy-local metadata and visible notices.
- A bounded machine projection exposes exact distinctions for validation and
comparison while its named sources retain their authority.
### Rule: Confirmed identity enters published values
Use repository evidence or human-confirmed identity and affiliation. An
unspecified affiliation remains open for the named human receiver. Each
contributor keeps their own identity. Citation authorship, contribution credit,
and copyright-holder status remain distinct decisions; each enters its carrier
through an explicit reviewed decision.
### Rule: Desired carriers lead the guidance
State what the collaborator should use and what that carrier establishes.
Place a required placement or recovery route immediately before any
load-bearing exclusion. This keeps Semantic Attractor Design and Supportive
Change Writing active in prose, machine fields, assertions, and examples.
### Rule: Repository guidance keeps a coordination scope
This skill creates repository information architecture, implementation
guidance, metadata alignment, and validation. Report observed file presence,
local definitions, and settled requirements as repository facts. A question
that could change ownership, license interpretation, downstream notice or
modified-file notice obligations, contributor agreements, transfer, or
enforcement routes to the named human receiver or qualified counsel with the
smallest decision-ready context. An unassigned decision remains explicitly
open until the team names its receiver.
### Rule: Adaptations preserve lineage and resolve current identity
Forks and adaptations retain applicable upstream notices, add truthful
adaptation credit, and resolve publication identity in the source-owning
document before publication. Update the source-owning public surfaces whose
actual published identity changes. Personal-name attribution banners and
license-required modification notices remain distinct categories; preserve
observed notices and route any requirement decision through the boundary
above. Delivery infrastructure and repository location remain distinct from
authorship and rights.
### Rule: Examples clarify carrier choice
Retain the smallest set of situations that changes a carrier decision. Each
example names the incoming need, the fitting carrier, and the observable
result. Examples teach selection and preserve the existing carrier set.
### Rule: Validation follows the changed carrier
Parse structured files, resolve declared paths, compare governed values, and
exercise affected public carriers. State what the check establishes. Human
review receives questions whose answer depends on legal interpretation or a
new rights decision.
## Operating sequence
1. **Name the need:** Distinguish citation, copyright-holder record,
contribution credit, licensing, public notice, adaptation, or machine
comparison.
2. **Read current carriers:** Inspect the nearest governing files, existing
legal and notice artifacts, affected source documents, Git state, and live
Issue or pull request.
3. **Map authority:** Record which carrier owns the value, which files project
it, and which human receiver owns any consequential open decision.
4. **Write toward the desired state:** Lead with the fitting carrier and action;
pair every retained exclusion with its replacement placement or recovery
route.
5. **Change the smallest source surface:** Reuse existing files and contracts.
Add a projection or check when a demonstrated cold-start or machine consumer
benefits from it.
6. **Verify and return:** Run the nearest checks and report the resulting
carrier map, evidence boundary, open human decision, and re-entry point.
## Representative scenarios
### Scenario: Citation and contribution credit arrive together
- Given a tool asks how to cite the repository and who made a recent change
- When the collaborator maps the two needs
- Then `CITATION.cff` supplies citation metadata
- And truthful Git metadata plus the reviewed pull request supplies contribution
credit
### Scenario: A rights or license question needs a human decision
- Given a proposed edit could change ownership, license interpretation, or
downstream notice obligations
- When the collaborator reaches that boundary
- Then the existing sources and exact open question form the decision context
- And the named human receiver or qualified counsel settles the interpretation
before repository implementation continues
## Completion
The stewardship pass is complete when each need has one fitting carrier, exact
values remain source-faithful, public artifacts carry their local context, the
machine projection stays bounded, the nearest checks establish the changed
state, and every consequential legal question has a named human decision path.