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AutomotiveMCP

Governance

How the standard is governed.

A standard is only as trustworthy as the process behind it — so here is exactly who runs this one, how it stays neutral, and how the specification changes.

The founders

The people accountable for the specification and how the council runs.

Alex Oleynik

Alex Oleynik

Co-founder · Specification

Leads the technical direction of the specification and the working-group process. Focused on making conformance objective and the protocol genuinely interchangeable across dealer systems.

Elijah Surratt

Elijah Surratt

Co-founder · Partnerships & certification

Leads partnership and the certification program. Works with DMS, CRM, website and AI-agent vendors to align the standard with the realities of retail automotive.

How it’s organized

The council is the governing tier — its founders and founding members. They steward the specification and ratify releases. Around them, participation is open to the whole industry.

THE COUNCILFOUNDERS + FOUNDING MEMBERS · GOVERNS & RATIFIESWorking groupsDRAFTEditorsMAINTAINContributorsPROPOSE

Explore each — click to read more

The councilFounders and founding members. Governs the standard and ratifies releases.Working groupsOne per domain, plus a cross-cutting Security & Privacy group. They draft and review; anyone with relevant expertise can join.EditorsMaintain the spec text and versioning, and merge accepted changes. They execute decisions, not make them.ContributorsAnyone can propose a change or join a working group, without membership.

How a change is made

Every change to the specification moves through the same open path, from proposal to ratified release.

  1. 01

    Propose

    Anyone can submit a change to a spec section; working groups and members raise proposals directly.

  2. 02

    Working-group review

    The relevant group reviews it for correctness, interoperability, and compliance impact.

  3. 03

    Public comment

    Substantive changes open for comment so implementers and dealers can weigh in before adoption.

  4. 04

    Adopt & version

    Accepted changes merge under semantic versioning; breaking changes need a MAJOR bump and a deprecation window.

  5. 05

    Ratify

    Once feature-frozen and reviewed, the council ratifies the release. Ratified versions change only by the rules above.

The full lifecycle and versioning rules live in Conformance & Versioning §2.

Staying neutral

The council’s only asset is trust, so neutrality is structural rather than a promise. These rules are non-negotiable.

No favorites
No vendor — including the backer — gets preferential treatment in the spec or in certification.
Recusal
Members recuse from any decision touching their own commercial interests.
Open certification
Criteria are public and identical for everyone; there is no pay-to-pass tier.
Worked in the open
Proposals, working-group membership, and decisions are recorded publicly.

Affiliations. The founders also operate Creative Code.Digital, which provides the council’s operational backing. It is not the brand, holds no special seat, and recuses from decisions touching its commercial interests — the rules above apply to it like any other party.

Partners & endorsers

The standard earns its name as the industry attaches to it. We’re assembling a founding cohort across DMS, CRM, website platforms, AI-agent vendors, dealer groups, and agencies. Partners and endorsers are listed here as they sign — never before they’re real. To put your name forward, apply to the founding cohort.

Want a seat at the table?

Founding partners shape the spec and the certification program before ratification. Anyone can propose revisions in the open today.

Become a Founding PartnerSuggest a revision