[BIP-838] Balancer DAO Governance Process Guidelines

Summary

This proposal establishes clear guidelines and timelines for the Balancer DAO governance process to ensure transparent, well-reviewed, and properly executed governance actions. These guidelines address recent instances of last-minute governance submissions and establish a framework that better aligns with our commitment to decentralization.

Motivation

The Balancer DAO has experienced several instances where governance proposals were submitted and processed with minimal review time, potentially compromising our high standards of decentralization and thorough community review. This guideline introduces structured timelines and requirements to ensure:

• Sufficient time for community review and discussion
• Proper technical validation of proposals
• Organized and predictable execution schedules
• Clear distinction between standard and urgent governance actions

Implementation Details

Voting Schedule

• Governance votes start on Fridays 20:00 CET and conclude 4 days later
• Votes will be queued to snapshot by Thursday 20:00 CET allowing for a 24h period for final adjustmentsa

Timeline At-A-Glance

Day & Time	Action
Tuesday 20:00 CET	Deadline for posting general proposals to forum for the current voting cycle
Thursday 20:00 CET	Deadline for gauge additions & final vote queue preparation
Friday 20:00 CET	Voting begins
Tuesday 20:00 CET (following week)	Voting ends (4 days after start)
End of Month	Standard DAO multi-sig execution

Proposal Type Requirements

Proposal Type	Forum Posting Deadline	Review Period	Special Requirements
General Proposals	Tuesday 20:00 CET	72 hours minimum	Legal review required for real-world contracts
Gauge Additions	Thursday 20:00 CET	24 hours minimum	Rate provider PR must be approved before submission
Funding Proposals	1 week before submission	7 days minimum	Must adhere to BIP-702 standards
Urgent Actions / Protocol parameter adjustments	Case-by-case	Varies	Must include justification and process details

Regular Governance Deadlines

General Proposals

• Must be posted to the forums for at least 48h before being "ready" for snapshot by Thursday 20:00 CET
• For a proposal to go to vote in the current week, it needs to be posted on the forums by Tuesday 20:00 CET at the latest, allowing for a 72h period to review and process requests
• No exceptions for standard proposals
• If a proposal interfaces via real-world contracts, it needs a (legal) review and sign-off by the Balancer Foundation. Requests can be handled via @0xDanko. Depending on the request this might need more time for due diligence, so plan accordingly.

Gauge Additions

• Must be posted to the forums by Thursday 20:00 CET latest
• If a gauge has a rate provider, it must have an approved pull request in the code review repository before governance submission
• Subject of rate provider check-in adheres to the same Thursday 20:00 CET deadline
• It is at the discretion of the Balancer Maxis to decide if a gauge addition can be posted to snapshot

Funding Proposals

• Any proposal asking for transfer of funds from the DAO multi-sig
• Mandatory one-week forum discussion period before snapshot submission
• Must be posted on forums with complete details and justification while adhering to SP and grantee standards as outlined by BIP-702
• Week-long review period cannot be waived except for emergency situations
• Funding might be requested retroactively

Execution Schedule

Standard DAO Multi-sig Execution

• Regular execution schedule: Once per month (End of Month, usually last week)
• Applies to most governance actions including gauge kills

Urgent DAO Multi-sig Transactions

• Must be explicitly classified as urgent / with a specific execution date
• Requires clear documentation justifying the need for immediate execution
• Exceptional process must be detailed in the proposal

Gauge Additions and Removals

• Successfully voted in gauges will be activated by the Maxis typically on Tuesdays after a successful vote. This gives enough time to add the gauges to the gauge controller and coordinate with other protocols like Aura to update the gauge voting list
• Gauge proposals with gauge removals will be executed with DAO multi-sig payloads in the last week of the month. General gauge removals are performed on a quarterly basis as ratified with BIP-795. The active gauge-kill list can be monitored via the monitoring list

Technical Requirements

Payload Management

• All governance actions involving payloads must have a pull request in the Maxi ops repository
• Payloads must be placed in appropriate week folders corresponding to execution schedule (e.g. execution in week 5 of 2025 → place in folder BIPs/2025-W5)

Operations Interface

• Proposals for gauge adds, removals and payment requests can be submitted through the operations UI: https://balancer.defilytica.tools/
• UI provides standardized submission format and necessary checks

Governance Cycle Timeline

┌─────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────┐
│   Monday    │   Tuesday    │  Wednesday   │   Thursday   │    Friday     │
├─────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤
│             │ 20:00 CET    │              │ 20:00 CET    │ 20:00 CET     │
│             │ DEADLINE:    │              │ DEADLINE:    │ Voting        │
│             │ General      │              │ • Gauge adds │ Begins        │
│             │ proposals    │              │ • Vote queue │               │
│             │ must be on   │              │   prepared   │               │
│             │ forum        │              │ • Funding    │               │
│             │              │              │   proposal   │               │
│             │              │              │   on forums  │               │
└─────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴───────────────┘
                      ↓                                            ↓
                      ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ 
                      │          72 hour review period           │
                      └──────────────────────────────────────────┘

Timeline Implementation

This better defined governance process will go into effect immediately after acceptance of the governance vote. All new proposals must adhere to these new guidelines.

Monitoring and Adjustment

Any adjustments to the timeline or other parameters are subject to future governance votes and must be ratified by a governance vote.