Written before the community opens.

Code of conduct

Kensora exists to support human life. The project's community spaces will be part of that work, and many of the people in them, contributors included, will be people who live with the conditions this app serves. This page sets the floor for how we treat each other, and what happens when someone is struggling.

The public repository and its community spaces, meaning issues, pull requests, discussions, and review threads, do not exist yet. This code of conduct is published ahead of them so that it governs those spaces from their first day, not as a repair after something goes wrong.

Why this page carries extra weight here

Most projects can treat a code of conduct as boilerplate. This one cannot. Kensora is an ambient health app, and the people most likely to show up here, to file an issue, translate a string, or argue about a design, are often the same people the app is for. A careless sentence in a review thread can land harder here than it would almost anywhere else. So the rules below are short, and they are serious.

The floor

Be kind, be honest, be specific. Disagree with work, not with people. That is the whole baseline, and most days it is all anyone needs. Then, because of what this project is, four rules carry special weight.

Never speculate about anyone's mental state or diagnosis

Not a contributor's, not a user's, not in jest. "This code is wrong" is always available; a comment about a person's mental state never is.

No method detail, ever

Do not post content describing methods of self-harm or suicide anywhere in project spaces, including bug reports and test cases. If reproducing a safety issue genuinely requires that content, use the private reporting channel described on the security page. Safe messaging is a project surface, and it applies to us first.

Respect chosen identity

Pseudonyms are first-class here. Do not attempt to identify a pseudonymous contributor, connect accounts, or reveal that anyone uses this app or lives with any condition. Someone's participation is theirs to disclose, and no one else's.

Lived experience is expertise

It is not a vulnerability to argue against. When someone shares how a feature lands for them, that datum outranks your intuition about how it should land.

The standard expectations apply as well: no harassment, no discrimination, no sexualized content, no doxxing, no sustained disruption.

If someone appears to be in distress

Kensora is not a crisis service, and it does not detect or prevent any medical or mental-health condition or emergency. Community members are not expected to be crisis responders either. What follows is what to do, not what you owe.

Respond with kindness and with resources, not with therapy, diagnosis, or debate. The resources are the same ones this site names everywhere: contact your local emergency number or find a helpline at findahelpline.com.
Flag the thread to the maintainer rather than crowding it. One warm reply and a quiet flag helps more than ten alarmed ones.
Flags go to the maintainer. A written distress-response protocol, the steps that follow a flag, is an open item, and community spaces will not open before it exists. Part of its design is that an exchange may move out of public view for the person's privacy.

It is always okay to step back from this project for your own well-being. The work will be here when you return.

Enforcement

Reports go to the maintainer. The exact reporting route publishes with the repository, alongside the community spaces it covers.

Reports are handled privately. Retaliation against anyone who reports in good faith is itself a violation of this code. Consequences scale with the behavior: from a conversation, to editing or removing content, to a temporary or permanent ban from project spaces. The maintainer's decision is final.

The maintainer holds themselves to this document too. If the maintainer is the problem, say so in the report; it will still be read honestly.

Scope

This code applies in all project spaces and anywhere you are representing the project. This document is written for Kensora's mission; where it is silent, we look to widely adopted community standards such as the Contributor Covenant for guidance.

If you are ready to build under this standard, the contributing page explains how the work will flow.