ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md is a conventional Markdown file placed at the root of a code repository to credit the third-party software, libraries, inspirations, and people a project builds upon. It is not a formal specification but a widely recognized documentation convention, sitting alongside files like README.md, LICENSE, and CONTRIBUTING.md. Its job is to make gratitude and, often, attribution obligations explicit and easy to find.

• Attribution of dependencies - Names the libraries, datasets, and prior works a project relies on, sometimes satisfying license-required credit.
• A conventional root file - Lives predictably at the top of the repository so humans and tooling can locate it without hunting.
• Markdown by default - Rendered directly on GitHub, GitLab, and similar hosts, so credits are readable in the browser.
• Distinct from the license - Complements rather than replaces LICENSE, capturing thanks and provenance that legal text does not.

In real API and open-source operations, an ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md file is a small but meaningful governance signal. It shows a project takes provenance and attribution seriously, which matters when downstream teams and, increasingly, automated agents need to reason about a codebase’s licensing and supply-chain lineage. Alongside other repository documentation, it contributes to the machine-and-human-readable metadata that makes an API project trustworthy and auditable.