The repo is the source of truth.
Each update starts where the work happened: pull requests, issues, commits, releases, work items, CI runs, and declared metrics. Repository evidence outranks memory, meetings, and vibes.
The AURA Protocol manifesto
The AURA Protocol is a lightweight method for turning repository activity into trustworthy weekly project status reports. It keeps every claim tied to a source signal, separates facts from recommendations, and preserves the final brief as Markdown in the repo.
Definition
What is the AURA Protocol?
The AURA Protocol defines how OpenAURA creates evidence-backed engineering updates from GitHub activity. It favors pull requests, issues, commits, releases, CI runs, and delivery metrics over memory or meeting notes, then turns those signals into a concise weekly Markdown report.
Every claim needs a signal.
If a brief says something shipped, slipped, blocked, improved, or regressed, it should identify the signal behind that claim so the reader can trace the conclusion.
Missing data is not zero.
No signal means unknown, not nothing happened. OpenAURA separates measured inactivity from missing coverage so teams know whether the project is quiet or the instrumentation is thin.
Updates must be repeatable.
The same repository, configuration, and time window should produce the same kind of brief every run. The ritual works because it is small enough to survive every week.
Keep the brief human-sized.
A useful project report is short enough to read and specific enough to act on. It says what changed, what matters, what is blocked, and what decision is needed.
Separate facts from recommendations.
Findings describe what the signals show. Next focus describes what the team should do about it. Keeping those layers separate makes the reasoning visible.
Risks stay visible.
Blockers, failed pipelines, stale pull requests, and unresolved decisions belong in the weekly brief even when they are uncomfortable. OpenAURA reports delivery reality, not optics.
Shared metrics need local context.
Common delivery metrics help, but each repository should declare what healthy means for its own domain. A KPI without a local threshold is decoration.
Markdown is the artifact.
The canonical update should live beside the work as versioned Markdown. Dashboards can help, but the durable project history should be reviewable, diffable, and owned by the repo.
Humans decide.
OpenAURA gathers signals, scores delivery health, drafts the summary, and recommends next focus. It does not replace the team; it makes the evidence clearer.
Questions
AURA Protocol FAQ
What is the AURA Protocol?
The AURA Protocol is a lightweight method for turning repository activity into trustworthy weekly status reports. It keeps claims tied to source signals and stores the final brief as Markdown in the repo.
Which GitHub signals does OpenAURA use?
OpenAURA uses pull requests, issues, commits, releases, CI runs, work items, and declared delivery metrics as source material for each weekly project report.
Where do OpenAURA reports live?
OpenAURA writes Markdown briefs to aura-docs so project updates remain reviewable, editable, diffable, and versioned beside the code.