Contributors and Co-authors
See who has worked on a document, where those names come from, and how to take one off the list.
Two different questions
A document answers two questions about people, and they are not the same.
Who made a change is the person or the connection that had permission to make it — shown as Updated by, and in the Audit Log. Meldoc never guesses this: it is whoever was signed in, or whichever token the request carried.
Who is credited with the work is the Contributors list on the document, and the co-authored by line beside a version. These come from git, and git takes the name and address from whoever ran the command.
That is why a contributor is only a caption. Being listed gives no access to the document, the project or the workspace, takes no seat on your plan, sends nobody a notification, and asks nobody’s permission. Anyone who can already edit the document can also edit the list.
Where the names come from
| You did this | What is recorded |
|---|---|
| Edited in Meldoc, or through an AI assistant over MCP | You, as a member |
Ran meldoc push |
You as a member, plus whoever git says wrote each file |
| Merged a change into a repository Meldoc syncs | Whoever git says wrote each file in that push |
The git side reads the commits that touched each file, so a file two people edited in the same change credits both.
Two cases where nothing is recorded, and neither is a fault: a sync that ran on its schedule rather than from a push has no commits to read, and a machine with no git — some CI images — simply pushes without the names. The document still publishes.
Read the list
Open a document and look at Contributors in the right sidebar, under Document Info. The list is a row of avatars — hover one for the name and address behind it. When there are more people than fit, the last chip counts the rest and names them on hover.
Select the row to open the full list. Anyone who can read the document can open it; hiding and adding need permission to edit.
Names come from the git accounts the workspace has seen. When one is linked to a member of your workspace, you get that person’s name and avatar; when it is not, you get the name and address from the commit, marked as being from outside the workspace. Linking is done once per account and applies everywhere — see Git Accounts.
One person with two email addresses shows up once, as long as both addresses are linked to them. Two addresses that are not linked look like two people, because to Meldoc they are: a name on a commit is not evidence.
A busy document keeps the most recent 100 contributors and tells you when older ones have dropped off.
Co-authors on a version
Each entry in Version History carries its own co-authored by line, listing who git credits with that particular change.
It sits under the author line, never instead of it: the author is who saved that version, the co-authors are who wrote it. When they are the same person — the usual case for a push from your own laptop — the line is not shown at all rather than repeating the name.
Mapping is retroactive. Link a git account to a member today and every version that account ever contributed to starts showing that person’s name; unlink it and they go back to being an outside name.
Hide a contributor
Use it for a bot, a shared build account, or a name that landed on the document by mistake.
- Open the document.
- Select the Contributors avatars in the sidebar.
- Find the row and select Hide. Show puts it back.
You need permission to edit the document. Without it the list opens read-only, with no Hide next to anybody.
Hiding is per document — the same account stays visible everywhere else. Hiding a member also hides every git account linked to them, so you do not have to find each address.
Note: Hiding does not erase anything. The contributor stays recorded, so a later sync that credits them again will not make them reappear. This is also why there is no “remove” — a removed entry would come straight back the next time the same file was pushed.
A hidden contributor disappears from the document and from its version history. The audit log is not touched: what a person is credited with can be edited, what a person did cannot.
Credit somebody by hand
Git only knows who touched the files. Somebody can have worked on a document somewhere Meldoc cannot see — a whiteboard, a call, a review nobody committed — and the list has room for them.
- Open the document and select the Contributors avatars.
- Pick a workspace member from Credit a workspace member and select Add.
Only members of your workspace can be added, and only by somebody who may edit the document. Adding the same person twice does nothing.
There is no counterpart that removes one: the list is append-only by design, so somebody added by hand is taken off the same way as anybody else — by hiding them.
What’s next?
Git Accounts — Link the git accounts your workspace sees to the people behind them.
Version History — Read an earlier version and see exactly what changed.
Audit Log — Who did what, and when.