Governance

Current status

The Open Backtest Format (OBTF) is currently single-vendor authored. The specification is written and maintained by the QuantOS project (formerly investing-algorithm-framework) under the Quant-Commons GitHub organisation.

This is a deliberate, temporary state. The intent is to move OBTF to a multi-vendor governance structure as soon as at least one external implementation (reader or writer) exists and its author wants a seat at the table.

Until that transition, decisions rest with the maintainers of this repository. All decisions and their rationale are recorded in issues or pull requests.

Scope of governance

Governance covers:

• The on-disk envelope (magic bytes, version integer, compression, framing).
• The data model (top-level Bundle, Study, Run, Metrics, Summary shapes).
• Reserved field names and their semantics.
• Reserved sample_type values, method values, and model type names.
• Reader and writer conformance contracts.
• Versioning policy for the format itself.
• Conformance test vectors.

Governance does not cover:

• The reference implementation's internal APIs or its release cadence.
• How producers compute individual metric values (Sharpe, drawdown, etc.).
• Third-party tooling, dashboards, or converters built on top of OBTF.

How to propose a change

1. For clarifications, typos, or unambiguous errors — open a pull request directly.
2. For any change to a MUST-level requirement, field addition, field removal, field rename, or version bump — open a "change proposal" issue first. Describe:
   • The problem the change solves.
   • The proposed change, in terms of the on-disk bytes.
   • Impact on existing bundles (backwards compatibility).
   • Impact on existing readers and writers.
   • At least one concrete use case that motivates the change.
3. Maintainers respond within a reasonable time. If the proposal is accepted in principle, a PR follows.

Versioning cadence

• The format uses semver (see spec/9-versioning.md).
• No fixed release cadence — versions are cut when a coherent set of changes is ready.
• The current pre-1.0 phase permits breaking changes with clear changelog entries. Once 1.0.0 ships, the compatibility rules in spec/9-versioning.md apply strictly.

Path to multi-vendor governance

When the following conditions are met, this document will be replaced with a proper multi-vendor governance charter (steering committee, voting rules, code of conduct enforcement, trademark policy):

• At least one external implementation exists (i.e. a reader or writer authored by a group other than the QuantOS maintainers).
• The authors of at least one external implementation have expressed interest in co-maintaining the specification.

Interested implementers should open an issue titled governance: interest in co-maintainership.

Maintainers

• @marcvanduyn — original author, QuantOS

Code of conduct

Contributors are expected to be respectful. Substantive disagreements about the specification are welcome; personal attacks are not. Maintainers may lock or remove threads that cross the line.