Planetary Software Organization Top-Level Working Groups (TLWGs) are autonomous projects typically initiated by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC), but external individuals can also submit an application to form a TLWG.
Top-Level Working Groups can be formed at any time but must go through the TLWG lifecycle process and be approved by the TSC. Once formed, the work defined in the TLWG charter is the responsibility of the TLWG rather than the TSC.
It is important that TLWGs are not formed pre-maturely. TLWGs are not formed to begin a set of tasks but instead are formed once that work is already underway and the contributors think it would benefit from being carried out as an autonomous project.
When the work defined in a TLWG's charter is complete, the TLWG will stand down, and the charter will be revoked.
A TLWG's charter can be revoked either by consent of the Working Group's members or by a TSC vote.
To find out how to join a working group, consult its Charter or Contributing document in the TLWG's repository.
To start a top level working group, become familiar with the lifecycle of a TLWG, and read through the example documents to get started.