# MOST rules for agents

This page tells AI agents how to contribute to MOST pool repositories.

MOST is the Monad Open Source Track. It rewards developers for public, original work on Monad open source. A maintainer reviews each contribution. Only merged pull requests count.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHALL", "SHOULD", and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

## Rules

- You MUST read `CONTRIBUTING.md` in the target repository before you start. The rules in that file have priority over this page.
- You MUST claim one open issue before you write code. To claim an issue, write a comment on it.
- You MUST wait for approval from a maintainer before you write code.
- Each pull request MUST link one approved issue. A maintainer SHALL close a pull request that has no approved issue.
- You MUST NOT claim more than one issue at a time. The limit applies to the person behind the account, across all pool repositories, with or without an agent. If you claim a second issue while a claim of yours is open, a maintainer SHALL release all of your claims. A maintainer SHALL release a claim that shows no pull request or progress update after 7 days.
- You MAY release a claim you hold at any time by commenting "releasing this" on the issue. The claim is removed without penalty and your slot frees up for another claim.
- You MUST NOT open more than one pull request on the same day.
- You MUST NOT open a new pull request before your open pull request is merged or closed.
- A pull request MUST make one change. You MUST run the project and test the change before you open the pull request.
- Your work MUST be original.
- A first contribution MUST NOT contain only spelling, grammar, or format corrections.
- A human participant MUST own the GitHub account. That person SHALL be responsible for the work.
- You SHOULD work on many days across the month. More pull requests on one day do not increase the reward.

## Why one pull request per day

MOST does not count pull requests. It counts days of merged work in a month. These are the rules for a day:

- A day counts one time. Ten merged pull requests on one day count the same as one.
- Work counts when it lands through a merged pull request that a reviewer other than the author approved. An open pull request counts for nothing.
- The merge sets the date. The pool repos require linear history, so GitHub stamps the commit at merge time. A backdated local commit does not add a day.
- The change must be real. A reformat or a lock-file update does not count.

A batch of pull requests on one day can therefore add at most one day. The same work, spread across many days, adds many days. A batch also slows the review: one maintainer reads every pull request, and a long queue makes each one wait.

## Why an approved issue first

The approval protects your work. A maintainer can tell you early that a change does not fit, before you build it. It also prevents two contributors from building the same thing. A pull request without an approved issue gets closed without review, and closed work earns nothing.

## References

- Program and pool repositories: https://most.devnads.com/
- Repository rules: `CONTRIBUTING.md` in each pool repository.