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18. Launch OpsDev.nz as a fiscally-hosted collective

Date: 2026-06-17

Status

Accepted

Context

StartMeUp.nz committed to becoming a fiscal host on Open Collective in ADR-0011, and established OpsDev.nz as an R&D lab under that umbrella in ADR-0012. Since then, OpsDev.nz has existed as a project within the StartMeUp.nz collective — a flat sub-account with no independent budget structure, no mechanism to accept contributions directly, and no ability to model the hosting relationship we intend to offer other ventures.

We are now at a point where OpsDev.nz needs to operate as the first real collective hosted by StartMeUp.nz — what we are calling "collective0." This serves three purposes:

  1. Prove the hosting model. Before offering fiscal hosting to external ventures, we need to walk through the process ourselves: apply to the host, configure projects, model budgets, reconcile transactions, and publish transparent reports. OpsDev.nz is the natural pilot — it is our own initiative, the stakes are low, and the learning is directly transferable.
  2. Enable independent contribution and budgeting. As a collective, OpsDev.nz can receive contributions, track event budgets separately from platform engineering, and publish its own transparent ledger — independent of StartMeUp.nz's own operating funds. This separation is essential for the event projects already planned (DevOpsDays Wellington 2027, Software Freedom Day 2026) and for any future modules or services that attract dedicated funding.
  3. Model the structure for future hosted collectives. By going through the process ourselves we turn a list of unknowns into a repeatable process. Creating a collective, setting up projects under it, separating budgets, testing in staging before touching production. Collective0 is the pilot. When a prospective founder or group asks to be hosted, the answer is not "we'll figure it out" but "here is how it works."

The event projects under OpsDev.nz (DevOpsDays Wellington 2027, Software Freedom Day 2026) start as projects by design. If an event proves successful and a community forms around it, the same promotion path applies: the event project can become its own fiscally-hosted collective under StartMeUp.nz. This is not a near-term requirement, just the pattern collective0 is establishing.

Open Collective Discover Plan

Open Collective offers a free "Discover" plan for organizations starting out (see Open Collective pricing). This gives us time at zero platform cost to:

  • Configure the collective and its projects
  • Run at least one event cycle
  • Establish reconciliation workflows (Beancount ↔ Open Collective)
  • Decide whether the platform earns its keep before any fees apply

The Discover plan includes the same feature set as the paid plans, so there is no functional compromise. This removes cost as a barrier and lets us focus on operational readiness.

Relationship to the StartMeUp.nz Sustainability Fund

The founder has contributed over $10,000 NZD in seed funding to StartMeUp.nz (documented in Operating Costs). That fund covers shared infrastructure (domains, hosting, DNS, email) and operational expenses for the fiscal host itself. OpsDev.nz, as a fiscally-hosted collective, will carry its own budget for module development, events, and direct expenses — drawing on allocations from the sustainability fund when appropriate, but structured so that external contributions can also land cleanly in the right budget.

Fiscal hosting terms

StartMeUp.nz will host OpsDev.nz without fees for the first year. This is StartMeUp.nz Limited policy, not an Open Collective term. It gives OpsDev.nz time to establish itself, run events, and build a contributor base.

After one year, OpsDev.nz is expected to pay a fiscal hosting fee. The fee structure will be agreed before the year ends — likely a percentage of funds raised, on a sliding scale. This is the same model that will apply to all future fiscally-hosted collectives: a grace period to get established, then a contribution back to the host that makes the infrastructure possible.

OpsDev.nz intends to build its own sustainability fund, similar to the one StartMeUp.nz maintains. This fund is separate from project-level budgets (Platform Engineering, events). Fiscal hosting fees will be drawn from the sustainability fund, not from project budgets, so that contributions to a specific project remain dedicated to that project's purpose. OpsDev.nz retains the same options any collective has after the grace period: continue under StartMeUp.nz hosting, incorporate independently, or seek another fiscal host.

Production vs Staging Configuration

The staging configuration exists in opencollective/staging-collectives.yaml and opencollective/staging-projects.yaml under the startmeup.nz repository. These define:

  • OpsDev.nz as a collective (slug: opsdevnz) managed by StartMeUp.nz, hosted by startmeup-nz, with apply_to_host: true
  • Platform Engineering as the primary project under OpsDev.nz. Covers module development (oc-opsdevnz, op-opsdevnz, worklog-opsdevnz, octodns-metaname, and any future modules) as well as broader infrastructure and automation work, including the RAMP reconciliation effort. How StartMeUp.nz funds RAMP and how OpsDev.nz Platform Engineering draws from that funding is still being worked out and is not decided by this ADR.
  • DevOpsDays Wellington 2027 and Software Freedom Day 2026 as event projects with their own budgets
  • Legacy projects (GetJJobs.NZ, NIMHQ.net) remain under startmeup-nz during decommissioning

The production config (opencollective/prod-host.yaml, opencollective/prod-projects.yaml) still reflects the old model where OpsDev.nz is a flat project under StartMeUp.nz. Once staging is validated, production will be updated to match.

The apply_to_host: true parameter in the staging config describes the intended application workflow, but this feature is not yet implemented in the oc-opsdevnz module. The implementation details are still being worked out and do not block the decision to proceed.

RAMP: Infrastructure ramp-up under StartMeUp.nz

A separate project, RAMP (the infrastructure ramp-up needed for StartMeUp.nz to operate as a fiscal host), will likely live directly under the StartMeUp.nz collective, not under OpsDev.nz. The details are still being worked out, but the intent is to track the work OpsDev.nz performs to complete the bank reconciliation automation (connecting Beancount, Open Collective, and ANZ bank feeds). The oc-opsdevnz module, which manages Open Collective configuration as code, falls under this effort. How RAMP is structured and funded is a separate decision, noted here because it interacts with the collective model being established.

Decision

OpsDev.nz will launch as a fiscally-hosted collective under StartMeUp.nz on Open Collective, using the Discover plan.

Specifically:

  • OpsDev.nz will operate as a collective (slug: opsdevnz), not a project
  • It will be hosted by StartMeUp.nz (slug: startmeup-nz)
  • Its metadata (name, description, tags) will be managed by StartMeUp.nz initially
  • It will contain the Platform Engineering project and two event projects
  • The staging environment will be used to validate the configuration and reconciliation workflows before promoting to production
  • The production config will be updated to match once staging is confirmed

OpsDev.nz becomes the pilot collective ("collective0") — the first working example of the fiscal hosting model ADR-0011 committed to, and the evolution of the R&D lab ADR-0012 described.

Consequences

Positive

  • Pilot the hosting model end to end. Every step — application, project creation, budget modeling, reconciliation — becomes a worked example we can document and repeat for future hosted collectives.
  • Separate financial concerns. Platform engineering, events, and the host's own operating costs have distinct budgets and transparent ledgers. This makes reporting clearer and contributions easier to track.
  • Zero cost to evaluate. The Discover plan gives us time to assess the platform before committing to paid tiers.
  • Template for onboarding. Future collectives can follow the same pattern: staging config → validation → production promotion.
  • Strengthens OpsDev.nz identity. As a collective, OpsDev.nz can build its own community, attract event sponsors, and develop services with a clear financial home — without requiring a separate legal entity from day one.

Risks / Trade-offs

  • Learning curve. Open Collective's collective-vs-project model, host application workflow, and expense policies require operational fluency. We will make mistakes — that is the point of running collective0 ourselves before hosting others.
  • Platform dependency. We are deepening our reliance on Open Collective for financial operations. Mitigation remains the same as ADR-0011: export data regularly, maintain configuration as code, and keep reconciliation running in Beancount as an independent source of truth.
  • Structural churn. Moving from a project model to a collective model means changes to existing tooling (oc-opsdevnz), documentation, and contributor workflows. This is managed by staging the change first and validating before production cutover.

Neutral

  • The production configuration will diverge from staging during the validation period. This is intentional and temporary.