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Introducing .project: Standardized Project Metadata, Rolled Out for You

· 3 min read
Jeffrey Sica
Jeffrey Sica
Head of Projects

CNCF staff will soon begin rolling out a new repository called .project into project GitHub organizations. If you see a new repo appear, do not be alarmed: this is expected, and there is no action required from maintainers for the initial rollout.

The short version is that .project is a standardized metadata repository for CNCF projects. It gives each project a clear, machine-readable home for information like project details, repositories, maintainers, governance references, security contacts, and other metadata that CNCF systems rely on.

What is .project?​

.project is an open source utility that creates and validates a standardized metadata repository for CNCF projects. In practice, that means each project gets a dedicated repo that can hold structured information about the project in a consistent format.

This gives projects a single source of truth for metadata that often ends up spread across multiple repositories, documents, and manual processes. Rather than relying on ad hoc updates, CNCF automation can read from this repo and use the data consistently.

Why it matters​

Many project details are needed in more than one place. With .project, CNCF can validate and consume that metadata for tasks like Landscape updates, governance audits, maintainer roster checks, and other automation workflows.

That improves consistency, reduces manual follow-up, and makes it easier for project information to stay current over time.

No action required for rollout

The initial rollout is being handled by CNCF staff. You do not need to create, bootstrap, or configure your project's .project repository yourself.

What maintainers should expect​

For maintainers, the main thing to know is that CNCF staff will create and bootstrap the .project repository for your project. In other words: no migration to plan, no setup to perform, and no immediate work to do. The main request is simply not to be surprised when a new .project repository shows up in your organization.

Some projects have already had .project rolled out, including @grpc/.project and @project-dalec/.project. These examples show what the generated repository looks like in practice.

When metadata changes need to flow downstream, the automation can also open Landscape updates automatically. You can see one example in this generated @cncf/landscape pull request.

Open source and open to contributions​

.project is open source, and pull requests are welcome. If you have ideas for improvements or see something that could work better, contributions are encouraged.

Questions

If you have questions about the rollout, contact projects@cncf.io.

References​