I'll let other people detail better the full process, but I can still give some indications.

For small changes, you can just open an issue or do a pull request directly.

For bigger changes, there is this repository where suggestions can be made: https://github.com/pharo-project/pheps

Then the pull request of the phep can be debatable and multiple people of the community can give their opinion.

For the roadmap, the core engineers of Pharo are meeting after each release to plan the global roadmap for the next release. This is mostly high level, it is possible to propose other things during the development phase. It can also be influenced by companies that are willing to pay for some developments.

For the contribution best practice, in general it depends on the size of a change. For example, to fix a typo or a bug, just do a PR. To ask for a new feature that is not too big and you don't have the code yet, an issue is fine. For a change that is bigger but does not fundamentally change Pharo's design/syntax, an issue or a discussion on discord is fine. But for a change with a lot of impact, pheps are probably the best!

It's nice to see people getting interesting in improving Pharo.

Cyril Ferlicot-Delbecque

On Friday, August 28th, 2026 at 9:20 PM, Huperniketes via Pharo-dev <pharo-dev@lists.pharo.org> wrote:

Hi Pharo Developers,
I am looking to better understand the decision-making and planning process for the Pharo core image. I have a few architectural ideas and new feature concepts, and want to ensure I align with the community's vision or determine if I should build them independently.
Could anyone share insights on the following:
The Core Decision Process: How are major changes to core classes, refactorings, or large feature additions typically proposed, debated, and approved? Is there a formal RFC/PIP (Pharo Improvement Proposal) process, or does this primarily happen via GitHub issue triage?
Prioritization & Roadmap: How does the Consortium or core team decide what gets integrated into the next major Pharo release versus what gets left to external ecosystems?
Contribution Best Practices: What is the recommended path for an individual contributor to pitch a significant design change? Should I present prototypes on this mailing list first, open a GitHub issue, or discuss it on Discord?
Ultimately, my goal is to figure out whether my ideas belong as core contributions or if they are better suited as separate, independent libraries managed via Metacello. For greater context, I’m working on a Smalltalk environment where the current global system is broken up into separate projects: a Smalltalk OS or platform, a programming environment, and various apps.

Thank you for your time and guidance!

Warmest regards,
Alfonso Guerra