{"id":18961411,"url":"https://github.com/nushell/rfcs","last_synced_at":"2025-08-20T12:34:53.978Z","repository":{"id":41767893,"uuid":"268120788","full_name":"nushell/rfcs","owner":"nushell","description":"Request For Comment (RFC) repo for Nu","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2023-09-29T20:10:09.000Z","size":81,"stargazers_count":12,"open_issues_count":3,"forks_count":8,"subscribers_count":16,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-05-25T20:45:43.590Z","etag":null,"topics":[],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":null,"language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"mit","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/nushell.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null}},"created_at":"2020-05-30T16:45:23.000Z","updated_at":"2024-03-15T05:19:34.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2022-08-11T16:02:48.976Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/nushell/rfcs","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/nushell/rfcs","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/nushell%2Frfcs","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/nushell%2Frfcs/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/nushell%2Frfcs/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/nushell%2Frfcs/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/nushell","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/nushell/rfcs/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/nushell%2Frfcs/sbom","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":265436867,"owners_count":23765049,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":[],"created_at":"2024-11-08T14:12:46.898Z","updated_at":"2025-07-15T12:35:18.294Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/nushell.png","language":null,"funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Nushell RFCs\n\n[Nushell RFCs]: #nushell-rfcs\n\nMany changes, including bug fixes and documentation improvements can be\nimplemented and reviewed via the normal GitHub pull request workflow.\n\nThough some changes are substantial enough that we ask for these to be\nput through a bit of a design process and produce a consensus among the\nNushell community.\n\nThe \"RFC\" (request for comments) process is intended to provide a consistent\nand controlled path for new features to be added to Nushell, so that all\nstakeholders can be confident about the direction the project is evolving in.\n\nIn the context of this RFC process, all mentions of \"team\" refer to all\ncommiters of the [main nushell repository on GitHub](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/).\n\n## Table of Contents\n[Table of Contents]: #table-of-contents\n\n  - [Opening](#nushell-rfcs)\n  - [Table of Contents]\n  - [When you should 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  - [RFC Postponement]\n  - [License]\n  - [Acknowledgements]\n\n\n## When you should follow this process\n[When you should follow this process]: #when-you-should-follow-this-process\n\n*Note: While we establish this RFC process, this says \"should\"; eventually\nit should say \"need to\".*\n\nYou should follow this process if you intend to make substantial changes to\nNushell, or this RFC process itself. What constitutes a substantial change is\nevolving based on community norms and varies depending on what part of the\necosystem you are proposing to change, but may include the following:\n\n  - Any semantic or syntactic change that is not a bugfix.\n  - Removing existing features.\n  - Changes to internal interfaces, like the plugin architecture.\n\nSome changes do not require an RFC. For example:\n\n  - Rephrasing, reorganizing, refactoring, or otherwise \"changing shape does\n    not change meaning\".\n  - Additions that strictly improve objective, numerical quality criteria\n    (warning removal, speedup, better platform coverage, more parallelism,\n    better handle errors, etc.)\n  - Additions only likely to be _noticed by_ other developers of Nushell,\n    invisible to users of Nushell.\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\n## Before creating an RFC\n[Before creating an RFC]: #before-creating-an-rfc\n\nIt is generally 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 talking\nthe idea over on our [official Discord server], in #design-discussion. You could also file issues on this repo for discussion.\n\nAs a rule of thumb, receiving encouraging feedback from long-standing project\ndevelopers is a good indication that the RFC is worth pursuing.\n\n\n## What the process is\n[What the process is]: #what-the-process-is\n\nIn short, to get a major feature added to Nushell, one must (for now: should)\nfirst get the RFC merged into the RFC repository as a markdown file. At that\npoint the RFC is \"active\" and may be implemented with the goal of inclusion\ninto Nushell.\n\n  - Fork the RFC repo [RFC repository]\n  - Copy `0000-template.md` to `text/0000-my-feature.md` (where \"my-feature\" is\n    descriptive. Leave the `0000` for now).\n  - Fill in the RFC. Put care into the details: RFCs that do not present\n    convincing motivation, demonstrate lack of understanding of the design's\n    impact, or are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend to\n    be poorly-received.\n  - Submit a pull request. As a pull request the RFC will receive design\n    feedback from the larger community, and the author should be prepared to\n    revise it in response.\n  - Now that your RFC has an open pull request, use the issue number of the PR\n    to update your `0000-` prefix to that number.\n  - Where applicable, each pull request will be triaged by the team in a\n    future meeting and assigned to a member of the team.\n  - Build consensus and integrate feedback. RFCs that have broad support are\n    much more likely to make progress than those that don't receive any\n    comments. Feel free to reach out to the RFC assignee in particular to get\n    help identifying stakeholders and obstacles.\n  - The team will discuss the RFC pull request, as much as possible in the\n    comment thread of the pull request itself. Other discussion (e.g. on\n    Discord) will be summarized on the pull request comment thread.\n  - RFCs rarely go through this process unchanged, especially as alternatives\n    and drawbacks are shown. You can make edits, big and small, to the RFC to\n    clarify or change the design, but make changes as new commits to the pull\n    request, and leave a comment on the pull request explaining your changes.\n    **Specifically, do not squash or rebase commits after they are visible on the\n    pull request.**\n  - When the RFC is in a state that justifies community attention, it should be\n    advertised widely, e.g. in [This Week in Nushell](https://github.com/nushell/this_week_in_nu/).\n    This way all stakeholders have a chance to lodge any final objections\n    before a decision is reached.\n  - At some point after advertising the RFC was advertised publicly, a member\n    of the team will propose a decision for the RFC (merge, close, or postpone).\n    Another team member must sign off on that decision, and can then take the\n    appropriate action. When closing or postponing, the reasons need to be well\n    documented in the PR.\n\n## The RFC life-cycle\n[The RFC life-cycle]: #the-rfc-life-cycle\n\nOnce an RFC becomes \"active\" then authors may implement it and submit the\nfeature as a pull request to the Nushell repo. Being \"active\" is not a rubber\nstamp, and in particular still does not mean the feature will ultimately be\nmerged; it does mean that in principle all the major stakeholders have agreed\nto the feature 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 Nushell developer has been assigned the task of\nimplementing 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\nstrive to write each RFC in a manner that it will reflect the final design of\nthe feature; but the nature of the process means that we cannot expect every\nmerged RFC to actually reflect what the end result will be at the time of the\nnext major 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. What exactly counts\nas a \"very minor change\" is up to the team to decide.\n\n\n## Reviewing RFCs\n[Reviewing RFCs]: #reviewing-rfcs\n\nWhile the RFC pull request is up, the team may schedule meetings with the\nauthor and/or relevant stakeholders to discuss the issues in greater detail,\nand in some cases the topic may be discussed at a team meeting. In either\ncase a summary from the meeting will be posted back to the RFC pull request.\n\nThe team makes final decisions about RFCs after the benefits and drawbacks\nare well understood. These decisions can be made at any time, but the team\nwill regularly issue decisions. When a decision is made, the RFC pull request\nwill either be merged or closed. In either case, if the reasoning is not clear\nfrom the discussion in thread, the team will add a comment describing the\nrationale for the decision.\n\n\n## Implementing an RFC\n[Implementing an RFC]: #implementing-an-rfc\n\nSome accepted RFCs represent vital features that need to be implemented right\naway. Other accepted RFCs can represent features that can wait until some\narbitrary developer feels like doing the work. Every accepted RFC has an\nassociated issue tracking its implementation in the Nushell repository; thus that\nassociated issue can be assigned a priority via the triage process that the\nteam uses for all issues in the Nushell repository.\n\nThe author of an RFC is not obligated to implement it. Of course, the RFC\nauthor (like any other developer) is welcome to post an implementation for\nreview after the RFC has been accepted.\n\nIf you are interested in working on the implementation for an \"active\" RFC, but\ncannot determine if someone else is already working on it, feel free to ask\n(e.g. by leaving a comment on the associated issue; a team member can then\nassign you to the issue). \n\n\n## RFC Postponement\n[RFC Postponement]: #rfc-postponement\n\nSome RFC pull requests are tagged with the \"postponed\" label when they are\nclosed (as part of the rejection process). An RFC closed with \"postponed\" is\nmarked as such because we want neither to think about evaluating the proposal\nnor about implementing the described feature until some time in the future, and\nwe believe that we can afford to wait until then to do so. This could be used\nto postpone features until after 1.0. Postponed pull requests may be re-opened\nwhen the time is right. We don't have any formal process for that.\n\nUsually an RFC pull request marked as \"postponed\" has already passed an\ninformal first round of evaluation, namely the round of \"do we think we would\never possibly consider making this change, as outlined in the RFC pull request,\nor some semi-obvious variation of it.\" (When the answer to the latter question\nis \"no\", then the appropriate response is to close the RFC, not postpone it.)\n\n\n## License\n[License]: #license\n\nThis repository is licensed under the MIT license ([LICENSE](LICENSE) or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)\n\n\n## Acknowledgements\n\nThis RFC process started as partial copy of [Rust's RFCs repo](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs).\nIn this case, their prior art helped us kick-start the RFC process, skipping many of the process work itself.\n\nSince Nushell at this time has no sub-teams, that concept was removed or\nreplaced by \"team\" (implying commiters to the main nushell repo on GitHub).\n\nThe FCP stage was removed, to adjust the process towards Nushell's current needs.\n\nWe're considering adding a [stage process similar to TC39](https://tc39.es/process-document/). For now we're starting without explicit stages.\n\n\n[official Discord server]: https://discord.gg/NtAbbGn\n[RFC repository]: https://github.com/nushell/rfcs\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fnushell%2Frfcs","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fnushell%2Frfcs","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fnushell%2Frfcs/lists"}