{"id":19901964,"url":"https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-rfcs","last_synced_at":"2026-01-25T08:31:30.252Z","repository":{"id":40404375,"uuid":"214236899","full_name":"hyperledger/fabric-rfcs","owner":"hyperledger","description":"RFC process for Hyperledger Fabric. The RFC (request for comments) process is intended to provide a consistent and controlled path for major changes to Fabric and other official project components. 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workflow](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/).\n\nSome changes though are substantial, and we ask that these be put through a bit\nof a design process and produce a consensus among the Fabric maintainers and\nbroader community.\n\nThe RFC (request for comments) process is intended to provide a consistent and\ncontrolled path for major changes to Fabric and other official project\ncomponents, so that all stakeholders can be confident about the direction in\nwhich Fabric is evolving.\n\nThis process is intended to be substantially similar to the RFCs process other\nHyperledger teams have adopted, customized as necessary for use with Fabric.\nThe `README.md` and `0000-template.md` files were forked from the\n[Sawtooth RFCs repo](https://github.com/hyperledger/sawtooth-rfcs), which was\nderived from the Rust project.\n\n## Table of Contents\n\n- [When you need to follow this process]\n- [Before creating an RFC]\n- [What the process is]\n- [The RFC life-cycle]\n- [Reviewing RFCs]\n- [Implementing an RFC]\n- [License]\n- [Contributions]\n\n## When you need to follow this process\n\n[When you need to follow this process]: #when-you-need-to-follow-this-process\n\nYou need to follow this process if you intend to make substantial changes to\nFabric or any of its sub-components including but not limited to\nfabric-baseimage, fabric-sdk-node, fabric-sdk-java, fabric-ca,\nfabric-chaincode-go, fabric-chaincode-java, fabric-chaincode-node,\nfabric-chaincode-evm, fabric-protos, fabric-protos-go, or the RFC process\nitself. What constitutes a substantial change is evolving based on community\nnorms and varies depending on what part of the ecosystem you are proposing to\nchange, but may include the following:\n\n- Architectural changes\n- Substantial changes to component interfaces\n- New core features\n- Backward incompatible changes\n- Changes that affect the security of communications or administration\n\nSome changes do not require an RFC:\n\n- Rephrasing, reorganizing, refactoring, or otherwise \"changing shape does not\nchange meaning\".\n- Additions that strictly improve objective, numerical quality criteria\n(warning removal, speedup, better platform coverage, more parallelism, trap\nmore errors, etc.).\n\nIf you submit a pull request to implement a new feature without going through\nthe RFC process, it may be closed with a polite request to submit an RFC first.\n\n## Before creating an RFC\n\n[Before creating an RFC]: #before-creating-an-rfc\n\nA hastily-proposed RFC can hurt its chances of acceptance. Low quality\nproposals, proposals for previously-rejected changes, or those that don't fit\ninto the near-term roadmap, may be quickly rejected, which can be demotivating\nfor the unprepared contributor. Laying some groundwork ahead of the RFC can\nmake the process smoother.\n\nAlthough there is no single way to prepare for submitting an RFC, it is\ngenerally a good idea to pursue feedback from other project developers\nbeforehand, to ascertain that the RFC may be desirable; having a consistent\nimpact on the project requires concerted effort toward consensus-building.\n\nThe most common preparations for writing and submitting an RFC include\ntalking the idea over to the [Fabric mailing list](https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/fabric/topics).\n\nAs a rule of thumb, receiving encouraging feedback from long-standing\nproject developers, and particularly the project's maintainers is a good\nindication that the RFC is worth pursuing.\n\n## What the process is\n\n[What the process is]: #what-the-process-is\n\nIn short, to get a major feature added to Fabric, one must first get the RFC\nmerged into the RFC repository as a markdown file. At that point the RFC is\n\"active\" and may be implemented with the goal of eventual inclusion into\nFabric.\n\n- Fork [the RFC repository](https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-rfcs).\n- Copy `0000-template.md` to `text/0000-my-feature.md`, where \"my-feature\" is\ndescriptive. Don't assign an RFC number yet.\n- Fill in the RFC. Put care into the details — RFCs that do not present\nconvincing motivation, demonstrate understanding of the impact of the design,\nor are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend to be\npoorly received.\n- Submit a pull request. The pull request will be assigned to a maintainer, and\nwill receive design feedback from the larger community; the RFC author should\nbe prepared to revise it in response.\n- Build consensus and integrate feedback. RFCs that have broad support are much\nmore likely to make progress than those that don't receive any comments. Feel\nfree to reach out to the pull request assignee in particular to get help\nidentifying stakeholders and obstacles.\n- The maintainers will discuss the RFC pull request, as much as possible in the\ncomment thread of the pull request itself. Offline discussion will be\nsummarized on the pull request comment thread.\n- A good way to build consensus on a RFC pull request is to summarize the RFC on a\ncommunity contributor meeting. Coordinate with a maintainer to get on a contributor\nmeeting agenda. While this is not necessary, it may help to foster sufficient\nconsensus such that the RFC can proceed to final comment period.\n- RFCs rarely go through this process unchanged, especially as alternatives and\ndrawbacks are shown. You can make edits, big and small, to the RFC to clarify\nor change the design, but make changes as new commits to the pull request, and\nleave a comment on the pull request explaining your changes. Specifically, do\nnot squash or rebase commits after they are visible on the pull request.\n- At some point, a Fabric maintainer will propose a \"motion for final comment\nperiod\" (FCP), along with a *disposition* for the RFC (merge, close, or\npostpone).\n  - This step is taken when enough of the tradeoffs have been discussed that\n  the maintainers are in a position to make a decision. That does not require\n  consensus amongst all participants in the RFC thread (which is usually\n  impossible). However, the argument supporting the disposition on the RFC\n  needs to have already been clearly articulated, and there should not be a\n  strong consensus *against* that position. Fabric maintainers will use their\n  best judgment in taking this step, and the FCP itself ensures there is ample\n  time and notification for stakeholders to push back if it is made\n  prematurely.\n  - For RFCs with lengthy discussion, the motion to FCP is usually preceded by\n  a *summary comment* trying to lay out the current state of the discussion and\n  major trade-offs/points of disagreement.\n  - Before actually entering FCP, the Fabric maintainer who proposes that the\n  RFC enter FCP ensures that other interested maintainers have reviewed the RFC\n  and at least two other maintainers (three total) have indicated agreement;\n  this is often the point at which many maintainers first review the RFC in\n  full depth. Note that maintainers from any Fabric repository may review and\n  indicate agreement, especially for RFCs that impact multiple repositories.\n- The FCP lasts one week, or seven calendar days. It is also advertised widely,\ne.g. in the [Fabric Mailing List](https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/fabric/topics).\nThis way all stakeholders have a chance to lodge any final objections before a\ndecision is reached.\n- In most cases, the FCP period is quiet since the most interested maintainers\nhave already indicated agreement, and the RFC is either merged or\nclosed. However, sometimes substantial new arguments or ideas are raised, the\nFCP is canceled, and the RFC goes back into development mode.\n\n## The RFC life-cycle\n\n[The RFC life-cycle]: #the-rfc-life-cycle\n\nOnce an RFC is merged, it becomes \"active\" and developers may implement it and submit the code\nchange as a pull request to the corresponding Fabric repo. Being \"active\" is\nnot a rubber stamp, and it does not mean the change will ultimately be merged;\nit does mean that in principle all the major stakeholders have agreed to the\nchange, and are amenable to merging it.\n\nFurthermore, the fact that a given RFC has been accepted and is \"active\"\nimplies nothing about what priority is assigned to its implementation, nor does\nit imply anything about whether a Fabric developer has been assigned the task\nof implementing the feature. While it is not *necessary* that the author of the\nRFC also write the implementation, it is by far the most effective way to see\nan RFC through to completion: authors should not expect that other project\ndevelopers will take on responsibility for implementing their accepted feature.\n\nModifications to active RFCs can be done in follow-up pull requests. We strive\nto write each RFC in a manner that it will reflect the final design of the\nfeature; but the nature of the process means that we cannot expect every merged\nRFC to actually reflect what the end result will be at the time of the next\nmajor release.\n\nIn general, once accepted, RFCs should not be substantially changed. Only very\nminor changes should be submitted as amendments. More substantial changes\nshould be new RFCs, with a note added to the original RFC. Exactly what counts\nas a \"very minor change\" is up to the maintainers to decide.\n\n## Reviewing RFCs\n\n[Reviewing RFCs]: #reviewing-rfcs\n\nWhile the RFC pull request is up, the maintainers may schedule meetings with\nthe author and/or relevant stakeholders to discuss the issues in greater\ndetail, and in some cases the topic may be discussed at a contributors meeting.\nIn either case a summary from the meeting will be posted back to the RFC pull\nrequest.\n\nThe Fabric maintainers make the final decisions about RFCs after the benefits\nand drawbacks are well understood. These decisions can be made at any time, but\nthe maintainers will regularly issue decisions. When a decision is made, the\nRFC pull request will either be merged or closed. In either case, if the\nreasoning is not clear from the discussion in thread, the maintainers will add\na comment describing the rationale for the decision.\n\n## Implementing an RFC\n\n[Implementing an RFC]: #implementing-an-rfc\n\nSome accepted RFCs represent vital changes that need to be implemented right\naway. Other accepted RFCs can represent changes that can wait until a\ndeveloper feels like doing the work. Every accepted RFC has an associated\nissue tracking its implementation in the [Fabric issues](https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric/issues).\n\nThe author of an RFC is not obligated to implement it. Of course, the RFC\nauthor, as any other developer, is welcome to post an implementation for review\nafter the RFC has been accepted. Use GitHub issues for this.\n\n## License\n\n[License]: #license\n\nThis repository is licensed under [Apache License, Version 2.0](http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)\n([LICENSE](LICENSE)).\n\n## Contributions\n\n[Contributions]: #contributions\n\nUnless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted\nfor inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall\nbe licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.\n","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fhyperledger%2Ffabric-rfcs","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fhyperledger%2Ffabric-rfcs","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fhyperledger%2Ffabric-rfcs/lists"}