DPC Conventions
The repository that writes the organization's standards down, using Medieval Factions as the worked example throughout.
dpc-conventions holds the standards every repository in the organization is measured against. It contains no code — six documents and a ready-to-use prompt.
The documents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
README_STRUCTURE.md |
The sections every plugin README must have, in order |
DOCUMENTATION_PRACTICES.md |
Two-Tier Documentation — repo files versus wiki pages |
CONTRIBUTING_STANDARDS.md |
What a complete CONTRIBUTING.md contains |
TESTING_AND_CI.md |
Testing and CI |
RELEASE_AUTOMATION.md |
Release Automation |
GITHUB_COPILOT_INSTRUCTIONS.md |
The required .github/copilot-instructions.md |
Five of the six point at Medieval Factions as the reference implementation. The standard is not an abstract ideal; it is "look at what the flagship does".
GITHUB_COPILOT_INSTRUCTIONS.md is the exception, and so is the CLAUDE_PROMPT.md at the repository root — neither mentions the flagship at all, because both describe a file each repository must write about itself rather than a shape to copy from elsewhere.
Conventions for coding agents
GITHUB_COPILOT_INSTRUCTIONS.md is the one with no equivalent in most organizations' standards. It requires every repository to carry a .github/copilot-instructions.md describing the plugin's architecture, stack, and community norms, and linking back to dpc-conventions.
The reasoning is stated plainly: without it, an AI contributor has no awareness of the conventions, the architecture, or the branch and issue workflow, and its first suggestion will be inconsistent with the rest of the project. Machine readers are treated as a first-class audience for documentation.
One notable exception
LICENSE is explicitly excluded from the standardisation effort — the documentation practices note says not to add, change, or remove it, because licensing is left to the repository owner. Everything else in a repository root is fair game for alignment; that one file is not.
Related
This zettelkasten applies the same instinct one level up: standards and architecture written down, each claim traceable to a source.