*2024 UPDATE: Please refer to the latest style guide on GitHub.
A style guide is used to establish voice and tone for the content you create. The contents of a style guide can be logos, fonts, colors, and text. The style guide establishes a consistent format that sets standards for writing. These are guidelines rather than strict rules. The style guide serves as a tool to use through various communication channels.
Online and in print media, the phrases “cloud native” and “open source” are written both with and without the hyphen. Merriam-Webster lists the phrase as “open-source,” as an adjective and the Chicago Manual of Style recommends a hyphen in noun + adjective compounds used as an adjective in front of a noun.
“Cloud native technology” is so integral to its meaning that the entire phrase serves as a noun. The same is said for an “open source project.” Following this logic, “cloud native” and “open source” are not compound adjectives that need to be hyphenated. Thus, going forward, for all CNCF publications online and in print, we are establishing “open source” and “cloud native” as the proper style.
The words should be lowercase, except in organization names like the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Open Source Initiative. Standard capitalization rules apply at the beginning of a sentence and in titles.
Capitalization of CNCF Projects: CNCF houses 26 projects and each project has its capitalization method. You can access the projects at https://www.cncf.io/projects/
Logos for all CNCF-hosted projects and programs are available at https://github.com/cncf/artwork/. We prepare artwork in three formats (PNG/SVG/AI), three layouts – horizontal (also known as landscape format), stacked (which is closer to square), an icon (which does not include the name and is square), and three versions (color/black/white). So, that’s at least 27 versions of most logos.
You can access the CNCF style guide at https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/master/style-guide.md. We are excited to share the CNCF Style Guide with the community. We welcome your feedback about the CNCF Style Guide; you can contact us at info@cncf.io.