Community Covenant
What it was. The TEC’s foundational social contract — the document that articulated the community’s purpose, values, and mutual pledges, and the basis on which proposals could be challenged or vetoed for violating shared principles. If the Code of Conduct was the rulebook, the Covenant was the constitution.
Who it was for. The whole community. Participating in the TEC was treated as implicitly agreeing to the Covenant; it bound members both to one another and to how they engaged with the protocol.
What it looked like. A narrative charter (2021) built explicitly on Elinor Ostrom’s principles for governing a commons (see Ostrom and the Cultural Build). It opened with a pledge to keep the community welcoming, then described how off-chain and on-chain decisions were made and judged, and framed the TEC as an “ever-evolving social contract” amendable by the community. It emphasized a prosocial, value-driven orientation over short-term profit, and virtues like integrity, curiosity, presence, and gratitude.
Find the original. The full, de-identified document is in the archive’s data repository under Policy & process: browse the folder or the full document bundle. See For Researchers.
Related: Code of Conduct · Ostrom and the Cultural Build · Mission Vision and Values · Governance