CIP-108 Amendment: Adding Project Manager / Responsible Party Fields

Governance General Governance Conversation
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Hi Cardano Community,

I would like to propose a practical enhancement to the CIP-108 (Governance Actions Metadata) specification.

The Problem

Generally speaking, the “Author/Submitter” (the entity that technically files a request) and the “Project Manager/Executor” (the party responsible for the actual execution) are inherently distinct roles. Treating them as the same creates a significant gap in accountability.

Currently, CIP-108 only defines the author field, which indicates who technically submitted the proposal. However, in our practical governance workflows, we are already seeing cases where organizations like Intersect submit proposals (especially Treasury Withdrawals) on behalf of other entities or working groups.

When this happens, the actual person or team responsible for executing the project and managing the funds becomes completely invisible in the on-chain metadata. It is difficult for DReps and the community to know who is the actual lead driver, who takes responsibility for the outcomes, and who to contact for questions.

Currently, some thoughtful proposers already voluntarily include information about the responsible party or executing organization in their descriptions. However, this relies entirely on the individual proposer’s sense of initiative and lacks formatting. Because there is no standardized field, the data is inconsistent, making it hard for community members and tooling to easily locate or verify this crucial information.

The Solution: Introduction of “Project Manager” Field

To solve this without complicating constitutional discussions, I propose adding optional fields to CIP-108 to explicitly identify the “Project Manager” or “Responsible Party”, separate from the “Author”.

By keeping it optional for now, we can avoid over-regulation while providing a standardized framework for honest proposers to demonstrate accountability.

Proposed Structure (Draft)

We can add a projectManager (or executor) object into the metadata layout:

  • Name (Optional: For real-name accountability)
  • Handle (Optional: For privacy-conscious leads)
  • Contact (Optional: Free text/URI for Email, X, Discord, etc.)

This will help the community clearly distinguish between the “Submitter” (Author) and the “Executor” (Project Manager).

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

  • Do you think this field should be introduced to improve transparency?
  • What are your thoughts on the field names or structure?

Thank you!

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