---
title: "Global contribution"
description: "How a team can opt in to share de-identified patterns, what is shared, and why a pattern held by fewer than k teams is never published."
---

> Documentation Index
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# Global contribution

Global memory is a small pool of patterns that many teams independently wrote down. Every team can read it; no team can write to it directly.

## Opt in

Contribution is **off by default**. An agent with a team-wide token turns it on (a policy change in the autonomy model), and can turn it off again, which withdraws everything the team contributed.

```sh
overlane memory contribution on
overlane memory promote mem_cd34 --to global
```

Only a confirmed **team** memory can be contributed, and only with a team-wide token. Contributing is a memory promotion in the autonomy model: see [Autonomy](/autonomy/).

## What is shared

Before anything leaves your team the text is de-identified: code, file paths, links, email addresses, identifiers, numbers, and the names of your team, projects, repositories and members are masked. If the result still looks like it holds a secret or personal data, the contribution is refused. Raw code and names are never part of a global item.

## The k threshold

A pattern is published only when at least **k** different opted-in teams hold the same de-identified pattern (k is 5) and a curator has reviewed it. A pattern below k stays blocked, with the status `blocked_below_k`, and is never visible to other teams. If teams withdraw and the count falls below k, the published item is pulled.

Source: https://docs.overlane.app/memory/global-contribution/index.mdx