An overview of a new tool for proposing, discussing, and refining changes to the Cardano Constitution, now open for alpha testing at cap.intersectmbo.org.

Cardano has spent much of the last stretch of its history handing governance over to the people who use it. Decision-making that once sat with the founding entities now runs on-chain, shaped by delegated representatives (DReps), stake pool operators (SPOs), and the Constitutional Committee (CC) that votes on the direction of the network. At the centre of that system sits the Cardano Constitution: the document that captures the agreed shared values, principles, and guardrails we are governed by.

We shared in the excitement the moment the first Cardano constitution was ratified, but this wasn’t ever meant to be the end of the conversation. It is a document intentionally designed to be lived with, tested against real decisions, and improved as the community learns together. So far there hasn’t been a way to act on that, and if you felt part of the Constitution should be changed, there has been no obvious first step, or agreed place to float that idea where other interested people would likely see.

Until now, the answer has been that there was no clear answer and it's that gap the Constitutional Amendment Portal, or CAP Portal, is built to close.

It is now live for alpha testing at cap.intersectmbo.org.

How it came to be

The idea grew from seeing individuals and communities try to engage with constitutional change and run into similar problems each time.
Since the Constitution was ratified, plenty of people have had thoughts about it. In forums, on calls, and across social channels, community members have pointed to wording they felt was unclear, principles they thought were missing and gaps they wanted addressing. The appetite was there for changes, but missing was a way to act on it: no defined first step, no shared format to work in, and no way to point precisely at the part of the Constitution you were talking about. So good ideas surfaced and then drifted. Conversations happened in many different places and rarely converged which meant momentum would leak away long before any proposal was ready to be taken seriously.

This has taken time. The idea first took shape in October last year, and the version you see now is the result of much discussion and iteration. The Civics Committee and the Constitutional Amendments working group that carried it forward worked with a published charter and guiding principles for the design and brought together participants from across the entire Cardano ecosystem: IOG, the Cardano Foundation, Intersect, the Civics Committee, the Constitutional Committee, DReps, SPOs, Constitutional delegates and dedicated community members alike.

Getting all of those perspectives into one room is rarely simple, and through compromise, healthy debate, and repeated iteration, we have landed on the version we are now ready to put in front of you.
The CAP Portal is the practical outcome of that effort. A tool that facilitates the process. Rather than leaving constitutional change as an abstract possibility that lived mostly in discussion, the goal was to give it a real, structured home: a place where an idea can become a proposal, be shared openly, and be carried through a process that everyone can follow.

What it is

The portal puts the full text of the Constitution and the tools to change it in the same place.

You read the Constitution inside the portal, article by article. When you find the passage you want to address, you work with that exact text rather than describing it from memory or pasting it into a separate document somewhere else.
Signing in is easy. You connect any CIP-30 compatible Cardano wallet, choose a username and that’s it. There is no account to register, no email to confirm, and no password to manage. Your stake address is your identity, which keeps participation open to the community while tying each contribution to a real on-chain presence.

What you can do with it

The CAP portal is built around a small number of clear actions.

• Propose an amendment. This is the core of the tool. You highlight the precise passage of the Constitution you want to change, decide whether you want to replace the existing wording or add new text after it, and set out the reasoning behind your proposal. A guided, step-by-step flow walks you through each stage and shows you a live preview of exactly how your amendment will read once published. A completed proposal of this kind is a Constitutional Amendment Proposal, or CAP.
• Raise an issue. Not every concern is ready to be written as finished wording, and that is fine. If you have spotted a problem, an ambiguity, or a gap but do not yet have a specific fix, you can submit a Constitutional Issue Statement, or CIS. It flags the concern and opens it up for the community to discuss, which is often where the healthiest amendments eventually come from.
• Discuss and follow along. Every proposal is public and open for consultation. You can comment on proposals, follow the conversations that matter to you, and watch each one progress through its lifecycle, moving from consultation, to ready, to done. Instead of scattered threads that vanish over time, the deliberation stays attached to the proposal it belongs to.
  

Together these give proposals a place to be shaped, discussed, and refined by the community before they move to the on-chain governance process.

Alpha release

This is a first version, released early on purpose as one way to build a tool the community will adopt and use is to put it in their hands while it is still taking shape.

This is the first time anyone in the community can point at a line of the Constitution and propose a change others can see and weigh in on. So this is your invitation to explore the tool, read through the Constitution in a way you may not have before, submit a proposal, raise an issue, join a discussion, and, above all, tell us what works and what doesn’t. Feedback given now, while it's early, will shape what the portal finally becomes.

Get started

Head to cap.intersectmbo.org, connect your wallet, (no email, no password, your stake address is your identity) and take a look around. A short walkthrough video and a set of guides are there to help you get started, whether you have a specific amendment in mind or simply want to see how constitutional change on Cardano is finally getting a front door.