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https://github.com/nushell/rfcs

Request For Comment (RFC) repo for Nu
https://github.com/nushell/rfcs

Last synced: 12 days ago
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Request For Comment (RFC) repo for Nu

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README 

        
# Nushell RFCs



[Nushell RFCs]: #nushell-rfcs



Many changes, including bug fixes and documentation improvements can be

implemented and reviewed via the normal GitHub pull request workflow.



Though some changes are substantial enough that we ask for these to be

put through a bit of a design process and produce a consensus among the

Nushell community.



The "RFC" (request for comments) process is intended to provide a consistent

and controlled path for new features to be added to Nushell, so that all

stakeholders can be confident about the direction the project is evolving in.



In the context of this RFC process, all mentions of "team" refer to all

commiters of the [main nushell repository on GitHub](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/).



## Table of Contents

[Table of Contents]: #table-of-contents



  - [Opening](#nushell-rfcs)

  - [Table of Contents]

  - [When you should follow this process]

  - [Before creating an RFC]

  - [What the process is]

  - [The RFC life-cycle]

  - [Reviewing RFCs]

  - [Implementing an RFC]

  - [RFC Postponement]

  - [License]

  - [Acknowledgements]



## When you should follow this process

[When you should follow this process]: #when-you-should-follow-this-process



*Note: While we establish this RFC process, this says "should"; eventually

it should say "need to".*



You should follow this process if you intend to make substantial changes to

Nushell, or this RFC process itself. What constitutes a substantial change is

evolving based on community norms and varies depending on what part of the

ecosystem you are proposing to change, but may include the following:



  - Any semantic or syntactic change that is not a bugfix.

  - Removing existing features.

  - Changes to internal interfaces, like the plugin architecture.



Some changes do not require an RFC. For example:



  - Rephrasing, reorganizing, refactoring, or otherwise "changing shape does

    not change meaning".

  - Additions that strictly improve objective, numerical quality criteria

    (warning removal, speedup, better platform coverage, more parallelism,

    better handle errors, etc.)

  - Additions only likely to be _noticed by_ other developers of Nushell,

    invisible to users of Nushell.



If you submit a pull request to implement a new feature without going through

the RFC process, it may be closed with a polite request to submit an RFC first.



## Before creating an RFC

[Before creating an RFC]: #before-creating-an-rfc



It is generally a good idea to pursue feedback from other project developers

beforehand, to ascertain that the RFC may be desirable; having a consistent

impact on the project requires concerted effort toward consensus-building.



The most common preparations for writing and submitting an RFC include talking

the idea over on our [official Discord server], in #design-discussion. You could also file issues on this repo for discussion.



As a rule of thumb, receiving encouraging feedback from long-standing project

developers is a good indication that the RFC is worth pursuing.



## What the process is

[What the process is]: #what-the-process-is



In short, to get a major feature added to Nushell, one must (for now: should)

first get the RFC merged into the RFC repository as a markdown file. At that

point the RFC is "active" and may be implemented with the goal of inclusion

into Nushell.



  - Fork the RFC repo [RFC repository]

  - Copy `0000-template.md` to `text/0000-my-feature.md` (where "my-feature" is

    descriptive. Leave the `0000` for now).

  - Fill in the RFC. Put care into the details: RFCs that do not present

    convincing motivation, demonstrate lack of understanding of the design's

    impact, or are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend to

    be poorly-received.

  - Submit a pull request. As a pull request the RFC will receive design

    feedback from the larger community, and the author should be prepared to

    revise it in response.

  - Now that your RFC has an open pull request, use the issue number of the PR

    to update your `0000-` prefix to that number.

  - Where applicable, each pull request will be triaged by the team in a

    future meeting and assigned to a member of the team.

  - Build consensus and integrate feedback. RFCs that have broad support are

    much more likely to make progress than those that don't receive any

    comments. Feel free to reach out to the RFC assignee in particular to get

    help identifying stakeholders and obstacles.

  - The team will discuss the RFC pull request, as much as possible in the

    comment thread of the pull request itself. Other discussion (e.g. on

    Discord) will be summarized on the pull request comment thread.

  - RFCs rarely go through this process unchanged, especially as alternatives

    and drawbacks are shown. You can make edits, big and small, to the RFC to

    clarify or change the design, but make changes as new commits to the pull

    request, and leave a comment on the pull request explaining your changes.

    **Specifically, do not squash or rebase commits after they are visible on the

    pull request.**

  - When the RFC is in a state that justifies community attention, it should be

    advertised widely, e.g. in [This Week in Nushell](https://github.com/nushell/this_week_in_nu/).

    This way all stakeholders have a chance to lodge any final objections

    before a decision is reached.

  - At some point after advertising the RFC was advertised publicly, a member

    of the team will propose a decision for the RFC (merge, close, or postpone).

    Another team member must sign off on that decision, and can then take the

    appropriate action. When closing or postponing, the reasons need to be well

    documented in the PR.



## The RFC life-cycle

[The RFC life-cycle]: #the-rfc-life-cycle



Once an RFC becomes "active" then authors may implement it and submit the

feature as a pull request to the Nushell repo. Being "active" is not a rubber

stamp, and in particular still does not mean the feature will ultimately be

merged; it does mean that in principle all the major stakeholders have agreed

to the feature and are amenable to merging it.



Furthermore, the fact that a given RFC has been accepted and is "active"

implies nothing about what priority is assigned to its implementation, nor does

it imply anything about whether a Nushell developer has been assigned the task of

implementing the feature. While it is not *necessary* that the author of the

RFC also write the implementation, it is by far the most effective way to see

an RFC through to completion: authors should not expect that other project

developers will take on responsibility for implementing their accepted feature.



Modifications to "active" RFCs can be done in follow-up pull requests. We

strive to write each RFC in a manner that it will reflect the final design of

the feature; but the nature of the process means that we cannot expect every

merged RFC to actually reflect what the end result will be at the time of the

next major release.



In general, once accepted, RFCs should not be substantially changed. Only very

minor changes should be submitted as amendments. More substantial changes

should be new RFCs, with a note added to the original RFC. What exactly counts

as a "very minor change" is up to the team to decide.



## Reviewing RFCs

[Reviewing RFCs]: #reviewing-rfcs



While the RFC pull request is up, the team may schedule meetings with the

author and/or relevant stakeholders to discuss the issues in greater detail,

and in some cases the topic may be discussed at a team meeting. In either

case a summary from the meeting will be posted back to the RFC pull request.



The team makes final decisions about RFCs after the benefits and drawbacks

are well understood. These decisions can be made at any time, but the team

will regularly issue decisions. When a decision is made, the RFC pull request

will either be merged or closed. In either case, if the reasoning is not clear

from the discussion in thread, the team will add a comment describing the

rationale for the decision.



## Implementing an RFC

[Implementing an RFC]: #implementing-an-rfc



Some accepted RFCs represent vital features that need to be implemented right

away. Other accepted RFCs can represent features that can wait until some

arbitrary developer feels like doing the work. Every accepted RFC has an

associated issue tracking its implementation in the Nushell repository; thus that

associated issue can be assigned a priority via the triage process that the

team uses for all issues in the Nushell repository.



The author of an RFC is not obligated to implement it. Of course, the RFC

author (like any other developer) is welcome to post an implementation for

review after the RFC has been accepted.



If you are interested in working on the implementation for an "active" RFC, but

cannot determine if someone else is already working on it, feel free to ask

(e.g. by leaving a comment on the associated issue; a team member can then

assign you to the issue). 



## RFC Postponement

[RFC Postponement]: #rfc-postponement



Some RFC pull requests are tagged with the "postponed" label when they are

closed (as part of the rejection process). An RFC closed with "postponed" is

marked as such because we want neither to think about evaluating the proposal

nor about implementing the described feature until some time in the future, and

we believe that we can afford to wait until then to do so. This could be used

to postpone features until after 1.0. Postponed pull requests may be re-opened

when the time is right. We don't have any formal process for that.



Usually an RFC pull request marked as "postponed" has already passed an

informal first round of evaluation, namely the round of "do we think we would

ever possibly consider making this change, as outlined in the RFC pull request,

or some semi-obvious variation of it." (When the answer to the latter question

is "no", then the appropriate response is to close the RFC, not postpone it.)



## License

[License]: #license



This repository is licensed under the MIT license ([LICENSE](LICENSE) or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)



## Acknowledgements



This RFC process started as partial copy of [Rust's RFCs repo](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs).

In this case, their prior art helped us kick-start the RFC process, skipping many of the process work itself.



Since Nushell at this time has no sub-teams, that concept was removed or

replaced by "team" (implying commiters to the main nushell repo on GitHub).



The FCP stage was removed, to adjust the process towards Nushell's current needs.



We're considering adding a [stage process similar to TC39](https://tc39.es/process-document/). For now we're starting without explicit stages.



[official Discord server]: https://discord.gg/NtAbbGn

[RFC repository]: https://github.com/nushell/rfcs