The Gathering
Together, we can set open standards for Machine Experience, so content stays readable for people and predictable for machines.
The Gathering is an open standards body for Machine Experience (MX). We develop practical conventions for content that must work for two audiences, humans and AI systems. Drafts are authored in public, reviewed in the open, and ratified as versioned standards through Stream.
Our goal is to make content easier to publish, easier to reuse, and easier to interpret, without locking anyone into a single vendor or platform. Everything we publish is designed to stay readable for people whilst remaining discoverable and predictable for machines.
We publish and maintain MX standards as living documents. Work starts as public drafts, moves through structured review and a call for consensus, then becomes versioned standards that teams can implement. Alongside the standards themselves, we provide guidance, examples, and test cases so the conventions are easy to adopt and verify in real systems.
Machine Experience (MX) is the practice of designing content so it works cleanly for two audiences, humans and AI systems. It focuses on structure and metadata that keep information readable for people whilst making it discoverable, predictable, and reusable for machines, across different platforms and tools.
There is no membership in The Gathering. Participation is open to anyone who supports the mission. You can take part by following drafts and standards, leaving review notes and suggestions, or proposing changes in Stream. Editors are also welcome to help keep structure, terminology, and versioning consistent.
We need people who can write clearly, review carefully, and keep decisions traceable. That includes writers and editors, developers who can validate feasibility and build examples, and researchers and practitioners who can bring real constraints into the process. If you are good at tightening definitions and adding test cases, you will fit well here.
We are committed to open standards that are community-governed, vendor-neutral, and usable across platforms. The Gathering exists to publish conventions that anyone can adopt, without permission, without lock-in, and without relying on a single commercial actor.
We are committed to a drafting process that happens in public and leaves a traceable record. Proposals are discussed in the open, changes are reviewed, and decisions are documented, so the community can understand what changed, why it changed, and who endorsed it.
We are committed to content that serves two audiences without sacrificing either. Standards should remain readable for people, whilst providing the structure and metadata that make information discoverable, predictable, and reusable for machines.
We are committed to practical outcomes, not abstract theory. Each standard should be backed by examples, test cases, and clear versioning, so teams can implement with confidence and verify conformance in real systems.
