PlugWiki

open-standards-strategy skill (samber): decide how to engage a named standard

Decides how a company should engage one named open standard or protocol: posture, venue, patent terms, conformance plan and kill rule.

Installs
12.7K
on skills.sh
Stars
7
on GitHub
Files
4
besides SKILL.md
Updated
Nov 2026
last repo commit

open-standards-strategy makes your agent decide a posture toward one named specification, not "open standards" in general. It builds a landscape page, runs four tests, walks a seven-rung ladder from ignore to drive, picks a venue and patent-licensing mode, and writes a decision record.

It triggers on standards body engagement, protocol strategy, joining versus competing with an emerging protocol, donating a spec to a foundation, or a competitor's rival spec. SKILL.md says it is not a lawyer. The folder holds SKILL.md and three reference files and bundles no scripts.

Good for

  • Product and platform leaders deciding whether to join a working group or ship their own format
  • Teams facing a rival specification from a competitor while buyers stall
  • Engineers asked by procurement whether the product is certified against a standard

Install open-standards-strategy

Claude Code

  1. 1

    Copy this prompt.

    Install the open-standards-strategy skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.
  2. 2

    Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and open-standards-strategy names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Decides how a company engages a named open standard or protocol - ignore it, consume it, certify conformance, extend it, contribute upstream, co-found a spec with peers, or drive its own as a de facto standard - plus the venue (Git-based spec, foundation, consortium, IETF/W3C/OASIS, ISO transposition), the patent-licensing mode, the conformance plan and the kill rule. Use whenever someone raises open standards participation, protocol strategy, standards body engagement, standards wars, joining versus competing with an emerging protocol, donating a specification to a neutral foundation, whether to standardize an interface at all, or a competitor's rival spec - even if they never say "standard". Not project governance - use samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-governance.

Sections in SKILL.md

  1. Interview
  2. Step 1 - Establish the facts before opinions
  3. Step 2 - Run the four tests
  4. Step 3 - Brainstorm postures, do not jump to an answer
  5. Step 4 - Pick the venue and the IPR mode
  6. Step 5 - Plan conformance before publication
  7. Step 6 - Write the decision record
  8. Invocation examples
  9. Measure it, and set the threshold before starting
  10. Failure modes
  11. B2B versus B2C
  12. References

Key facts

Author
Samuel Berthe (samber)
License
MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md, plugin.json and README all say MIT)
Installs on skills.sh
12,697 (as of Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars
8 for the whole collection repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last commit
Nov 1, 2026 (whole repo)
skills.sh audits
Gen Agent Trust Hub pass, Socket pass, Snyk pass
What is inside
5 files including SKILL.md: 3 reference files and evals/evals.json
Version in SKILL.md
1.0.2
Needs
SKILL.md lists nothing to install. Anything touching patents, an acquisition or a live dispute is sent to counsel
Works in
Claude Code, Claude.ai (plugin marketplace), Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other Agent Skills-compatible tools
Part of
The developer-relations-skills plugin (one plugin in marketplace.json)
Collection size
93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree)

What it includes

  • Asks up to twelve questions one at a time; the first two name the standard and trigger.

    Questions 7 to 10 (effort, irreversibility, date, one-off or compounding) re-rank the ladder before anything is shown.

    Interview

  • Builds a one-page landscape of specs, venue, patent mode, implementations and demand.

    It refuses to argue posture while the venue, patent mode or implementation count is unknown.

    Step 1 - Establish the facts

  • Applies a demand, commoditization, control and cost test to cut postures.

    The control test scores the seven key assets from Shapiro and Varian. A rival spec triggers a classification of the standards fight.

    Step 2 - Run the four tests

  • Walks a seven-rung ladder and presents two or three candidate bundles.

    Ignore, Extend, Consume, Conform, Contribute, Co-found and Drive. It deletes rungs your answers rule out.

    Step 3 - Brainstorm postures

  • Chooses among six venues and makes the two irreversible charter-time decisions.

    Git-based community spec, foundation-hosted project, industry consortium, IETF, W3C, ISO transposition. The irreversible choices are the patent-licensing regime and trademark owner.

    Step 4 - Venue and patent mode

  • Decides the certified version, public registry, who runs tests and what passing costs.

    A spec with no test suite bound to a trademark is called a paper standard in the failure modes.

    Step 5 - Plan conformance

  • Writes a short record: landscape, posture, venue, conformance, owner, KPIs, kill rule.

    Every threshold is tagged sourced or baseline, and every rejected posture names the test it failed.

    Try: “Should we join the working group standardizing agent tool-calling, or ship our own format?”

    Step 6 - Decision record

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

The agent can save notes about your company or project to a file called devrel-context.md, so check that file before you commit or share the folder.

What it can do

  • Read your data
  • Create and change things
  • Delete things
  • Read-only mode

Watch out for

  • It may keep notes in devrel-context.md

    SKILL.md tells the agent to store a few details about the current task or project, and to use a file called devrel-context.md when its memory lives in a file. Our advice: open that file before you commit or share the folder. github.com

  • The plugin route installs the whole collection

    The README's plugin and extension routes add every skill in the repo; its git tree holds 93. The repo has no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Our advice: use the skills CLI command for this skill if you want only it. github.com

Security advisories

No published security advisories as of Nov 2, 2026.

Technical details
Turning on read-onlySKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Scopes

  • May store the standard, posture, venue and kill rule in devrel-context.md when its memory lives in a file

Questions

How do I install open-standards-strategy?

The README says to install every skill in the collection, because its skills reference each other. In Claude Code that is the plugin route in the install box above, which adds all 93 skills in the repo. The skills CLI can add just this one. Our advice: pick one route per agent.

What do I get at the end?

A one to two page decision record covering the standard and landscape, the chosen posture with rejected alternatives, venue and patent mode, conformance plan, named owner, KPIs and a kill rule.

Is this legal advice?

It is not. SKILL.md says "You are not a lawyer" and describes patent-licensing modes and contributor agreements as mechanics with consequences, with anything touching a real patent portfolio, an acquisition or a live dispute going to counsel.

open-standards-strategy vs oss-governance?

Use this skill for how to engage a named spec, and oss-governance for how an open-source project makes decisions. SKILL.md says "Not project governance", and the README describes oss-governance as choosing and documenting a project's governance model.

What counts as proof that a spec is real?

SKILL.md uses two independent interoperating implementations as the bar and cites RFC 6410 and the W3C Process document for it. The twelve-month clock and the non-customer implementer test are labelled as its own baseline.

Does open-standards-strategy need an API key, and where does it work?

SKILL.md names no API key, account or environment variable. The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai (add the repo as a plugin marketplace), Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and any Agent Skills-compatible tool through the skills CLI. The install box has the steps for each.

Is open-standards-strategy safe to install?

It is instructions plus three reference files, and the folder bundles no scripts. SKILL.md tells the agent to keep notes about the standard, posture, venue and kill rule in memory, with devrel-context.md as the file when memory is a file. Our advice: send any patent, contributor agreement or live dispute question to counsel, as SKILL.md itself says.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository
samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder
skills/open-standards-strategy

samber/developer-relations-skillsskills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 2
  1. developer-relations-skills README · github.com
  2. open-standards-strategy SKILL.md · github.com

Updated Nov 2, 2026.