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      Web Machine Learning Community Group Charter
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    <header>
      <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/webmachinelearning/webmachinelearning.github.io/refs/heads/main/logos/webml/logo-webml-white.svg" alt>
      <h1>
        Web Machine Learning Community Group Charter
      </h1>
    </header>
    <ul>
      <li>This Charter: <a href=
      "https://webmachinelearning.github.io/charter/">https://webmachinelearning.github.io/charter/</a>
      </li>
      <li>Previous Charter: <a href="https://github.com/webmachinelearning/charter/blob/a4da99c571e0dde143a508a1844b4aca7384b5f3/index.html">
        a4da99c</a>
      </li>
      <li>Start Date: 2025-05-19
      </li>
      <li>Last Modified: <a href=
      "https://github.com/webmachinelearning/charter/commits/master">commits/master</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <h2 id="goals">
      Goals
    </h2>
    <p>
      Machine learning (ML), and especially its subset deep learning, are being
      successfully used in native platforms in advanced computationally-heavy
      areas such as image recognition, speech recognition, and natural language
      processing. The mission of the Web Machine Learning Community Group (WebML
      CG) is to make Machine Learning a first-class web citizen by incubating
      Web APIs for machine learning inference in the browser and in products using
      modern web engines.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Community Group will
      develop Web APIs to enable the creation of machine learning web
      experiences that are embeddable in the Web of today, and enable
      progressive enhancement of existing web applications and frameworks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Historically, the Web has been unable to support advanced on-device
      machine learning use cases in a performant manner due in part to lack of
      optimized low-level APIs for machine learning. Recent advancements in the
      hardware-accelerated <a href="#neural-network-inference">low-level APIs</a>
      for neural network inference have demonstrated feasibility and informed
      work on complementary higher-level <a href="#task-specific-apis">
      task-specific APIs</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
      Following the precepts of the <a href=
      "https://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/">Extensible Web Manifesto</a>,
      higher-level task-specific APIs can be implemented in terms of the
      low-level APIs that use custom models downloaded over the network.
      To complement this approach, the Community Group will incubate selected
      task-specific APIs to enable reuse of the built-in models that are
      distributed as part of the browser or the underlying software platform.
    </p>
    <h2 id="scope-of-work">
      Scope of Work
    </h2>
    <p class="note">
      The scope of work for this Community Group extends beyond the current
      scope of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/webmachinelearning/">
      Web Machine Learning Working Group</a>. Deliverables incubated in this
      Community Group may graduate to the Working Group for standardization.
    </p>
    <p>
      The APIs in scope of this group will not be tied to any particular
      platform and will be implementable on top of existing major platform
      APIs, such as Android Neural Networks API, Windows DirectML, and
      macOS/iOS Metal Performance Shaders and Basic Neural Network Subroutines.
    </p>
    <p>
      Each specification should detail all known security and privacy
      implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.
    </p>
    <h3 id="neural-network-inference">
      Neural network inference
    </h3>
    <p class="note">
      <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/webnn/">Web Neural Network API</a> has
      graduated to the <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/webmachinelearning/">
      Web Machine Learning Working Group</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
      A low-level Web API for neural network inference hardware acceleration that:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>Allow to construct a neural network computational graph by common
      building blocks, including constant values and base operations such as
      convolution, pooling, softmax, normalization, fully connected,
      activation, recurrent neural network (RNN) and long short-term memory
      (LSTM);
      </li>
      <li>Allow to compile the neural network to native optimized format for
      hardware execution;
      </li>
      <li>Allow to setup input from various sources on the Web, e.g. array
      buffers, media streams, schedule the asynchronous hardware execution, and
      retrieve the output when hardware execution completes.
      </li>
    </ul>
    <h3 id="task-specific-apis">
      Task-specific APIs
    </h3>
    <p>
      A set of higher-level APIs that:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>Detect the language of the given input text;</li>
      <li>Translate input text to other languages;</li>
      <li>Produce textual summaries of input text;</li>
      <li>Produce new textual material given a writing task;</li>
      <li>Rephrase input text;</li>
      <li>Proofread input text.</li>
    </ul>
    <h3 id="prompt-api">
      Prompt API
    </h3>
    <p>
      A general-purpose API to prompt a language model directly using common
      prompting techniques to accomplish a variety of tasks, including:
    </p>
    <ul>
      <li>Classification, tagging, and keyword extraction of arbitrary text;</li>
      <li>Helping users compose text, such as blog posts, reviews, or biographies;</li>
      <li>Summarizing, e.g. of articles, user reviews, or chat logs;</li>
      <li>Generating titles or headlines from article contents;</li>
      <li>Answering questions based on the unstructured contents of a web page;</li>
      <li>Translation between languages.</li>
    </ul>
    <h3 id="out-of-scope">
      Out of Scope
    </h3>
    <p>
      The scope is limited to development of interfaces that expose inference
      capabilities of the modern platforms beneficial or purpose-built for ML.
      Training capabilities are out of scope due to limited availability of
      respective platform APIs.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Community Group will not define any hardware features or algorithms.
    </p>
    <p>
      To avoid overlap with existing work, generic primitives used by
      traditional machine learning algorithms such as base linear algebra
      operations are out of scope. The WebGL and WebGPU shaders and WebAssembly
      SIMD are expected to address these requirements, see the <a href=
      "#coordination">Coordination</a> section for details.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Community Group does not attempt to mandate a specific neural
      network or Machine Learning model schema or format. Other groups are
      expected to address these requirements of this evolving area.
    </p>
    <h2 id="deliverables">
      Deliverables
    </h2>
    <h3 id="specifications">
      Specifications
    </h3>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        Web Neural Network API
      </dt>
      <dd>
        A dedicated low-level API for neural network inference hardware acceleration.
      </dd>
      <dt>
        Translator and Language Detector APIs
      </dt>
      <dd>
        A set of APIs for translating and detection language of text.
      </dd>
      <dt>
        Writing Assistance APIs
      </dt>
      <dd>
        A set of APIs to help web users with writing text.
      </dd>
      <dt>
       Proofreader API
      </dt>
      <dd>
        An API to help web users perform real-time proofreading of freeform text.
      </dd>
      <dt>
        Prompt API
      </dt>
      <dd>
        An API for prompting browser-provided language models.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <h3 id="non-normative-reports">
      Non-Normative Reports
    </h3>
    <p>
      The group may produce other Community Group Reports within the scope of
      this charter but that are not Specifications, for instance use cases,
      requirements, or white papers.
    </p>
    <h3 id="test-suites">
      Test Suites and Other Software
    </h3>
    <p>
      The group MAY produce test suites to support the Specifications. Please
      see the GitHub LICENSE file for test suite contribution licensing
      information.
    </p>
    <h2 id="coordination">
      Coordination
    </h2>
    <p>
      Technical coordination with the following Groups is expected:
    </p>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/webmachinelearning/">Web Machine
        Learning Working Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The Web Machine Learning Working Group adopted for standardization the
        Web Neural Network API incubated in this Community Group. The work in
        this Community Group will happen in collaboration with this Working
        Group.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/gpu/">GPU for the Web Community
        Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The GPU for the Web Community Group defines a Shading Language that may
        be used to implement traditional machine learning algorithms
        efficiently. The WebML Community Group should coordinate with this
        group to avoid overlap.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/webassembly/">WebAssembly
        Community Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The WebAssembly Community Group incubates a proposal for a 128-bit SIMD
        support in WebAssembly that can be used to implement traditional
        machine learning algorithms efficiently. The WebML Community Group
        should coordinate with this group to avoid overlap.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.khronos.org/webgl/">WebGL Community Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The WebGL Working Group defines a WebGL API that supports the OpenGL ES
        Shading Language (GLSL). The GLSL can be used to implement traditional
        machine learning algorithms efficiently. Furthermore, this group
        incubates a proposal for a WebGL 2.0 Compute specification that aims to
        provide an efficient way to run general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing
        workloads such as machine learning algorithms in the WebGL context.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc/">Web Real-Time
        Communications Working Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The Web Real-Time Communications Working Group defines the MediaStream
        API that is one possible inference input data source. The WebML
        Community Group should coordinate with this group to ensure its future
        work considers <a href=
        "https://w3c.github.io/webrtc-nv-use-cases/#machinelearning*">Machine
        Learning</a> use cases.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/2011/audio/">Audio Working Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The Audio Working Group defines the Web Audio API that is one possible
        inference input data source. The WebML Community Group should
        coordinate with this group to ensure its future work considers Machine
        Learning use cases.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        <a href="https://www.w3.org/das/">Devices and Sensors Working Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The Devices and Sensors Working Group defines Sensor APIs that are
        possible inference input data sources. The WebML Community Group should
        coordinate with this group to ensure its future work considers Machine
        Learning use cases.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <dl>
      <dt>
        Immersive Web <a href="https://www.w3.org/immersive-web/">Working
        Group</a> and <a href=
        "https://www.w3.org/community/immersive-web/">Community Group</a>
      </dt>
      <dd>
        The Immersive Web Working Group and Community Group aim to bring
        high-performance Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)
        (collectively known as XR) to the open Web via APIs to interact with XR
        devices and sensors in browsers. Some of these use cases involve
        machine learning (e.g., object recognition), and so the WebML Community
        Group should coordinate with these groups to ensure its work considers
        XR use cases.
      </dd>
    </dl>
    <h2 id="process">
      Community and Business Group Process
    </h2>
    <p>
      The group operates under the <a href=
      "https://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/">Community and Business
      Group Process</a>. Terms in this Charter that conflict with those of the
      Community and Business Group Process are void.
    </p>
    <p>
      As with other Community Groups, W3C seeks organizational licensing
      commitments under the <a href=
      'http://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/cla/'>W3C Community
      Contributor License Agreement (CLA)</a>. When people request to
      participate without representing their organization's legal interests,
      W3C will in general approve those requests for this group with the
      following understanding: W3C will seek and expect an organizational
      commitment under the CLA starting with the individual's first request to
      make a contribution to a group <a href="#deliverables">Deliverable</a>.
      The section on <a href="#contrib">Contribution Mechanics</a> describes
      how W3C expects to monitor these contribution requests.
    </p>
    <p>
      The <a href="https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/">W3C Code of Ethics and
      Professional Conduct</a> applies to participation in this group.
    </p>
    <h2 id="worklimit">
      Work Limited to Charter Scope
    </h2>
    <p>
      The group will not publish Specifications on topics other than those
      listed under <a href="#specifications">Specifications</a> above. See
      below for <a href="#charter-change">how to modify the charter</a>.
    </p>
    <h2 id="contrib">
      Contribution Mechanics
    </h2>
    <p>
      Substantive Contributions to Specifications can only be made by Community
      Group Participants who have agreed to the <a href=
      "http://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/cla/">W3C Community
      Contributor License Agreement (CLA)</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
      Specifications created in the Community Group must use the <a href=
      "http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2015/copyright-software-and-document">
      W3C Software and Document License</a>. All other documents produced by
      the group should use that License where possible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Community Group participants agree to make all contributions in the
      GitHub repo the group is using for the particular document. This may be
      in the form of a pull request (preferred), by raising an issue, or by
      adding a comment to an existing issue.
    </p>
    <p id="githublicense">
      All Github repositories attached to the Community Group must contain a
      copy of the <a href=
      "https://github.com/w3c/licenses/blob/master/CG-CONTRIBUTING.md">CONTRIBUTING</a>
      and <a href=
      "https://github.com/w3c/licenses/blob/master/CG-LICENSE.md">LICENSE</a>
      files.
    </p>
    <h2 id="transparency">
      Transparency
    </h2>
    <p>
      The group will conduct all of its technical work in public. If the group
      uses GitHub, all technical work will occur in its GitHub repositories
      (and not in mailing list discussions). This is to ensure contributions
      can be tracked through a software tool.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meetings may be restricted to Community Group participants, but a public
      summary or minutes must be posted to the group's public mailing list, or
      to a GitHub issue if the group uses GitHub.
    </p>
    <h2 id="decision">
      Decision Process
    </h2>
    <p>
      This group will seek to make decisions where there is consensus. Groups
      are free to decide how to make decisions (e.g. Participants who have
      earned Committer status for a history of useful contributions assess
      consensus, or the Chair assesses consensus, or where consensus isn't
      clear there is a Call for Consensus [CfC] to allow multi-day online
      feedback for a proposed course of action). It is expected that
      participants can earn Committer status through a history of valuable
      contributions as is common in open source projects. After discussion and
      due consideration of different opinions, a decision should be publicly
      recorded (where GitHub is used as the resolution of an Issue).
    </p>
    <p>
      If substantial disagreement remains (e.g. the group is divided) and the
      group needs to decide an Issue in order to continue to make progress, the
      Committers will choose an alternative that had substantial support (with
      a vote of Committers if necessary). Individuals who disagree with the
      choice are strongly encouraged to take ownership of their objection by
      taking ownership of an alternative fork. This is explicitly allowed (and
      preferred to blocking progress) with a goal of letting implementation
      experience inform which spec is ultimately chosen by the group to move
      ahead with.
    </p>
    <p>
      Any decisions reached at any meeting are tentative and should be recorded
      in a GitHub Issue for groups that use GitHub and otherwise on the group's
      public mail list. Any group participant may object to a decision reached
      at an online or in-person meeting within 7 days of publication of the
      decision provided that they include clear technical reasons for their
      objection. The Chairs will facilitate discussion to try to resolve the
      objection according to the <a href="#decision">decision process</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is the Chairs' responsibility to ensure that the decision process is
      fair, respects the consensus of the CG, and does not unreasonably favour
      or discriminate against any group participant or their employer.
    </p>
    <h2 id="chairs">
      Chair Selection
    </h2>
    <p>
      Participants in this group choose their Chair(s) and can replace their
      Chair(s) at any time using whatever means they prefer. However, if 5
      participants, no two from the same organisation, call for an election,
      the group must use the following process to replace any current Chair(s)
      with a new Chair, consulting the Community Development Lead on election
      operations (e.g., voting infrastructure and using <a href=
      "https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2777">RFC 2777</a>).
    </p>
    <ol>
      <li>Participants announce their candidacies. Participants have 14 days to
      announce their candidacies, but this period ends as soon as all
      participants have announced their intentions. If there is only one
      candidate, that person becomes the Chair. If there are two or more
      candidates, there is a vote. Otherwise, nothing changes.
      </li>
      <li>Participants vote. Participants have 21 days to vote for a single
      candidate, but this period ends as soon as all participants have voted.
      The individual who receives the most votes, no two from the same
      organisation, is elected chair. In case of a tie, RFC2777 is used to
      break the tie. An elected Chair may appoint co-Chairs.
      </li>
    </ol>
    <p>
      Participants dissatisfied with the outcome of an election may ask the
      Community Development Lead to intervene. The Community Development Lead,
      after evaluating the election, may take any action including no action.
    </p>
    <h2 id="charter-change">
      Amendments to this Charter
    </h2>
    <p>
      The group can decide to work on a proposed amended charter, editing the
      text using the <a href="#decision">Decision Process</a> described above.
      The decision on whether to adopt the amended charter is made by
      conducting a 30-day vote on the proposed new charter. The new charter, if
      approved, takes effect on either the proposed date in the charter itself,
      or 7 days after the result of the election is announced, whichever is
      later. A new charter must receive 2/3 of the votes cast in the approval
      vote to pass. The group may make simple corrections to the charter such
      as deliverable dates by the simpler group decision process rather than
      this charter amendment process. The group will use the amendment process
      for any substantive changes to the goals, scope, deliverables, decision
      process or rules for amending the charter.
    </p>
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