Contribute

Everything here is open source. Choose the kind of contribution below.

Propose a change to the specification

File a proposal as a GitHub issue (or pull request) in the docs repository. The specification requires a proposed change to include:

• a description of the change,
• the rationale for the change,
• the anticipated implementation impact, and
• where applicable, a validation plan or supporting evidence.

The existing proposals show the structure used so far. See Proposals and the accepted proposals.

What happens next, from Governance and Versioning:

• Changes that materially affect Table 2, the framework threshold, approved fields, normalization rules, fuzzy constraints, or required testing are published for public comment for not less than 30 calendar days, unless an emergency update is needed.
• After review of comments and evidence, adopted changes are published with a version increment and an effective date.
• Substantive changes include a transition period of not less than 90 days unless a shorter period is necessary to mitigate immediate risk.

The workgroup decides proposals. That is this project's convention; the specification's governance text does not name who decides.

Add or improve test data

Follow the test set's own rules in its CONTRIBUTING.md. In summary:

• There are two sanctioned paths: synthetic records derived from a member organization's real data, or aggregate statistics. There is no path for contributing raw real records.
• Every record must trace to a disclosed synthesis method.
• Never construct a true-match pair by mutating a record and asserting the mutation is a different person. Non-matches must come from genuinely distinct source identities.
• Any fabricated field value must be unambiguously marked as synthetic.
• Prevalence numbers must be cited from a public source or marked as an unresolved placeholder.
• Every new case needs a rationale.

Contribute code

• Library: cms-hte-patient-matching CONTRIBUTING.md (development setup, quality checks, packaging).
• Test set: cms-hte-patient-matching-test-set CONTRIBUTING.md (adding a test-case category, development setup, code conventions, submitting a change).
• Service: see the service README.

Improve this site

The site's source is the docs repository, which is public. The pages are Markdown files with YAML front matter. Navigation order comes from _order.yaml files in each folder, not from file names.

1. Fork the repository and edit the files.
2. Preview locally with the ReadMe CLI (npx @readme/cli).
3. Open a pull request against the v1.0 branch.

There are no hosted previews of pull requests, and changes merged into v1.0 are published by ReadMe's GitHub sync.

Licensing

By contributing, you agree that your contribution is licensed under the license of the repository it goes to: Apache-2.0 for the library, the test set, and this site and its specification text. See License and Open Source.