# Credits

Keep a Roadmap borrows from the work below. Each source is credited by name and
linked to its primary source. Every attribution was checked against the source
itself on 2026-11-14. The "Checked" line says which page was read and what it
says.

No text was copied from any of these sources. The page and the example are
written in our own words, so no source's license conditions on copies apply.
Where our page follows a source's structure closely, this file says so.

## Keep a Changelog

- **By:** Olivier Lacan and contributors. Designed by Tyler Fortune.
- **Link:** <https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/>
- **License:** MIT. "Copyright (c) 2014 Olivier Lacan".
- **What we took:** the whole idea of a plain Markdown file with a fixed shape,
  explained on one page with guiding principles, a section on bad practices, an
  FAQ, and versions of its own. Our "Finished work leaves" principle hands off
  to its Unreleased section. Our use of `YYYY-MM-DD` dates follows its lead too.
- **Where we follow it closely:** the page's order of sections follows Keep a
  Changelog 1.1.0's order. Its sections are "What is a changelog?", "Why keep a
  changelog?", "Who needs a changelog?", "How do I make a good changelog?" (with
  "Guiding Principles"), "Can changelogs be bad?" and "Frequently Asked
  Questions". Ours are "What is a roadmap?", "Why keep a roadmap?", "Who needs a
  roadmap?", "How do I keep a good roadmap?" (with "Guiding principles"), "What
  makes a roadmap bad?" and "Frequently asked questions". The example shown near
  the top of the page follows its layout as well. The prose under each heading
  is ours.
- **How it asks to be credited:** it doesn't. Neither the site, the README nor
  CONTRIBUTING.md says anything about credit or reuse. We credit it anyway, on
  the page and here.
- **License conditions:** MIT requires the copyright and permission notice in
  "all copies or substantial portions of the Software". We copy none of its
  text or code, so the condition doesn't arise. If anyone later copies a
  passage, its MIT notice must come with it.
- **Checked:**
  - <https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/>. The footer reads "Keep a Changelog
    is MIT licensed, created and maintained by Olivier Lacan, and designed by
    Tyler Fortune." The guiding principles include "Mention whether you follow
    Semantic Versioning." Its own changelog says "this project adheres to
    Semantic Versioning".
  - <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/main/LICENSE>.
    This is the MIT License, "Copyright (c) 2014 Olivier Lacan".
  - <https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog> and its CONTRIBUTING.md.
    Neither says anything about attribution.

## Now / Next / Later

- **By:** Janna Bastow and Simon Cast, ProdPad.
- **Links:**
  - The origin story: "The Birth of the Modern Roadmap", Janna Bastow,
    December 31, 2019.
    <https://www.prodpad.com/blog/the-birth-of-the-modern-roadmap/>
  - The canonical explanation: "Why I Invented the Now-Next-Later Roadmap",
    Janna Bastow, October 18, 2022.
    <https://www.prodpad.com/blog/invented-now-next-later-roadmap/>
- **License:** none stated. The pages carry only the site footer
  "© CreateShift Limited 2026". We found no trademark or usage notice on the
  term. We didn't search trademark registers directly.
- **What we took:** the three time horizons, and the idea of planning by horizon
  instead of by date.
- **What the sources say about who made it.** We kept the credit as broad as
  the sources are:
  - The 2019 post dates the first sketch to "the end of 2012". It says it was
    Simon (Simon Cast, ProdPad's co-founder) who "sketched out three columns",
    named "'Current', 'Near Term', and 'Future'".
  - The 2022 post says "I invented the Now-Next-Later roadmap" and "So I dropped
    the dates and drew three columns: Now, Next, and Later."
  - In a comment on that post (March 15, 2023), Bastow writes that "the original
    version that Simon and I sketched out in 2012 was titled Current/Near
    Term/Future", and that "it was actually an early customer who dropped in the
    terms Now-Next-Later".
  - ProdPad's glossary
    (<https://www.prodpad.com/glossary/now-next-later-roadmap/>) says "Janna
    Bastow and Simon Cast created the Now-Next-Later roadmap in 2012".
  - We found no earlier primary source by Bastow, such as a talk or slide deck,
    than the 2019 post.
- **Independent prior use:** Peter Gillard-Moss described a backlog board with
  "three columns: Now, Next and Later" at Thoughtworks on September 10, 2012.
  <https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-de/insights/blog/now-next-and-later>. In the
  comments on her 2022 post, Bastow says she hadn't seen it and that the two are
  "not related at all". We mention it on the page as independent prior use.
- **What's ours, not theirs:** the Not planned section, and the rules for a
  `ROADMAP.md` file.

## Semantic Versioning

- **By:** Tom Preston-Werner.
- **Link:** <https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html>
- **License:** Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0), as stated on the
  page.
- **What we took:** the convention's own version numbers follow SemVer 2.0.0.
  The page explains what a major, minor and patch change means for a roadmap
  convention.
- **License conditions:** CC BY 3.0 requires attribution when the work is
  reproduced or adapted. We don't reproduce its text, but we credit it by name
  and link anyway.
- **Checked:** <https://semver.org/>. It reads "Semantic Versioning 2.0.0",
  "originally authored by Tom Preston-Werner", and "Creative Commons ― CC BY
  3.0".

## GitHub's "not planned" close reason

- **By:** GitHub.
- **Link:**
  <https://github.blog/changelog/2022-05-19-the-new-github-issues-may-19th-update/>
- **License:** GitHub Docs content is CC BY 4.0
  (<https://github.com/github/docs/blob/main/LICENSE>). The GitHub Blog has no
  separate license statement that we checked. We use only the two-word name, so
  no conditions arise.
- **What we took:** the name of our fourth section.
- **Checked:** the changelog post dated May 19, 2022. It says "When closing, you
  can opt to close as `complete` (default option) or `not-planned`."

## GitHub's public roadmap

- **By:** GitHub.
- **Link:** <https://github.com/github/roadmap>
- **What we took:** confirmation that "every item links to where it's tracked"
  works in practice. Its README says "Every item on the roadmap is an issue",
  and "The roadmap is arranged on a project board to give a sense for how far
  out each item is on the horizon." It arranges items by quarter. We chose
  horizons without dates instead.
- **Checked:** the repository README, quoted above. It also says "the roadmap is
  subject to change, especially further out on the timeline."

## llms.txt

- **By:** Jeremy Howard. The repository is kept by Answer.AI.
- **Link:** <https://llmstxt.org/>
- **License:** the site states none. Its repository,
  <https://github.com/AnswerDotAI/llms-txt>, is Apache 2.0. Its LICENSE file
  is the unfilled Apache template ("Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright
  owner]"), so it names no copyright holder.
- **What we took:** the format of our `/llms.txt`: an H1 with the site's name,
  a blockquote summary, a paragraph, then H2 sections of `[name](url): notes`
  links, with secondary links under `## Optional`. We also followed its advice
  to publish a Markdown version of each page, at `index.md` for a URL with no
  file name, and to point to it with `<link rel="alternate"
  type="text/markdown">` and to `llms.txt` with `rel="describedby"`.
- **What we left out:** an `llms-full.txt`. The proposal doesn't mention one,
  and `index.md` already holds the whole convention.
- **License conditions:** we follow the format and copy none of its text or
  code, so Apache 2.0's conditions don't arise.
- **Checked:**
  - <https://llmstxt.org/> and <https://llmstxt.org/index.md>. The page is
    titled "The /llms.txt file", with "Author: Jeremy Howard" and "Published:
    September 3, 2024". It says the H1 "is the only required section", and
    that the "Optional" section is "for secondary information: links an agent
    can skip when a shorter context is needed". It doesn't say whether links
    must be absolute. Its examples use absolute URLs, so ours do too. It says
    nothing about `llms-full.txt`, `llms-ctx.txt` or `llms-ctx-full.txt`.
  - <https://github.com/AnswerDotAI/llms-txt> and its LICENSE file, as above.

## AI Hero's "Agent discovery" footer

- **By:** AI Hero.
- **Link:** <https://www.aihero.dev/>
- **What we took:** the idea of a short "Agent discovery" list at the bottom
  of the page, linking the files agents can read. AI Hero's list covers an
  MCP server, OpenAPI documents, an API catalog, `llms.txt` and a Markdown
  sitemap. Keep a Roadmap has no API, so ours links only the content files:
  `llms.txt`, `index.md`, `ROADMAP.md` and `sitemap.md`.
- **License:** not applicable. We took an idea, not text or code.
- **Checked:** <https://www.aihero.dev/>. Its last section is headed "Agent
  discovery" and lists links such as "LLM orientation" (`/llms.txt`) and
  "Markdown sitemap" (`/sitemap.md`).

## Mentioned, not credited

- **GitHub Projects' roadmap layout**
  (<https://docs.github.com/en/issues/planning-and-tracking-with-projects/customizing-views-in-your-project/customizing-the-roadmap-layout>)
  and **milestones**
  (<https://docs.github.com/en/issues/using-labels-and-milestones-to-track-work/about-milestones>).
  The FAQ names them as tools to use alongside a roadmap. The roadmap layout
  places items "on a timeline" by date and iteration fields. Milestones "track
  progress on groups of issues or pull requests". We took no ideas from either;
  the convention deliberately avoids timelines. So they're described, not
  credited.