Protocol governance

This implementation strictly adheres to the durable streams protocol specification. This page summarizes the governance policies defined in full in docs/protocol-governance.md.

Default stance

• The spec and conformance tests are the source of truth.
• When ambiguous, take the least-committal interpretation that preserves forward compatibility.
• Never invent semantics because they "feel reasonable". If it is not in spec or tests, it is a gap.

Decision hierarchy

1. Conformance tests -- behavioral truth. If a test asserts it, we implement it.
2. Pinned PROTOCOL.md -- textual truth at a specific spec commit SHA.
3. Maintainer clarification -- linked issue or PR in the spec repo.
4. Conservative fallback -- recorded as a spec gap. No unrecorded guesses.

Spec pinning

The protocol spec is pinned by git commit SHA, not by branch. The conformance test suite is pinned by npm package version. See SPEC_VERSION.md for current pins:

• Spec SHA: a347312a47ae510a4a2e3ee7a121d6c8d7d74e50
• Conformance: @durable-streams/server-conformance-tests@0.2.2

Traceability

Every externally observable behavior (paths, headers, status codes, framing) must link to:

• A spec section URL with anchor, or
• A conformance test that asserts it, or
• An explicit gap in docs/gaps.md

Conservative fallback rules

• Paths: Follow conformance defaults exactly.
• Headers: Emit only headers required by spec/tests.
• Status codes: Use only codes defined by spec/tests.
• Ordering: Preserve monotonicity, avoid replay/gap surprises.
• Security: Auth stays out of the server. Auth behavior lives in proxy config.

Required artifacts

These files are maintained and checked in CI: