# Scopes and Frameworks

## Overview
A Scope is a broad focus area for Maker Governance and for any developmental work done to improve the protocol. Under the Endgame Plan, all protocol-related work and governance actions must fall under one of twelve Scopes.

Every Scope has a Scope Framework. Scope Frameworks are modifiable subcomponents of the [Maker Constitution](constitution.md). They contain the rules for all work, governance, and other processes under that Scope.

The Maker Constitution's Articles and twelve Scope Frameworks together cover all possible rules and processes of MakerDAO.

## Types of Scopes
Scopes are divided into three categories: Primary, Supporting, and Governance.

Primary Scopes pertain to work done towards customer-facing products of MakerDAO e.g. vault-related work, SubDAO incubation, etc. Supporting Scopes pertain to work that improves Maker Core. Governance Scopes handle arbitration and governance security matters.

Certain Scopes are also tagged as Exclusive Scopes or Mandatory Scopes. The rules for Scopes with these tags has not yet been decided at the time of writing.

## Modification of Scope Frameworks
Scope Frameworks are modifiable within the constraints of Constitutional Boundaries that are immutably defined in the Maker Constitution. An ossification rule is also applied to elements of Scope Frameworks - broadly speaking, an element of a Scope Framework cannot undergo large changes if it has been unchanged for a relatively long period of time. There exist soft clauses that are not required to follow the ossification rule.

Scope Framework changes must be made to improve
- Decentralization
- Autonomous operation
- Future-proofing
- Resilience
- Clarity of instructions
- Simplicity of protocol

## Structure of Scope Frameworks
Scope Frameworks consist of hierarchical elements called Articles, Sections, Clauses, and Subclauses.

A Framework will consist of a list of Articles, each Article consists of a list of Sections, and so on.

## Governance
Each Scope has an Advisory Council. This Council consists of members who must fulfill certain requirements and have been approved by Maker Governance. The Council carries out advisory work related to improving the content of the Scope Framework.

The exception to this process is the Arbitration Scope.

## Example
An example of a Scope is the Decentralized Collateral Scope. Any governance action or work pertaining to vaults holding decentralized collateral e.g. onboarding and offboarding, changing of parameters, research on collateral types, etc. would fall under this Scope.

An example of an item that would belong to the Decentralized Collateral Framework is to define minimum liquidation thresholds for decentralized collateral. Any SubDAO offering the use of vaults with decentralized collateral must ensure that the liquidation threshold parameter used is at least as large as the value allowed by the Framework.

A second example of a Scope is the Growth Scope. Governance actions or work pertaining to marketing, public relations, education or awareness falls under the Growth Scope.

An example of an item that would belong to the Growth Framework is to define a budget for marketing in a specific geographical region. SubDAOs and Ecosystem Actors that are engaged in marketing initiatives in that region would be paid out of that budget.

>Page last reviewed: 2023-03-01
>Next review due: 2023-06-01