Making Change Less Scary with RFCs

What is an RFC?

RFC stands for “request for comments.”

It is a process for a consistent and controlled path for contributing new ideas.
Commonly adopted in open source (React, Rust, etc.)

Why RFCs?

Allow you to democratize how you make decisions in an open, repeatable process.

RFCs are for everyone!

Anyone can submit
Anyone can implement
Can be used by teams
Can be used across teams

What makes a good RFC?

Ideas that would benefit from additional review or design are great RFC candidates.

The Process

You already do it…

The Process

Create an RFC document detailing your proposal.
Submit a PR to the RFC repository❗❗❗
Incorporate feedback into the proposal
After discussion, the core team may or may not accept the RFC.
If the RFC is accepted, the PR is merged

The Components

The legos that make an RFC

The Components

Summary - One paragraph explainer
Motivation - The what and the why
Detailed design - Implementation details
Drawbacks - why not do this?
Rationale & alternatives - impact of not implementing
Unresolved questions - WIP

Example

Futures over Streams

Additional reading

How to Stop Endless Discussions

6 Lessons I learned while implementing technical RFCs as a decision making tool

Making Change Less Scary

By Ryan Edge

Making Change Less Scary

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Ryan Edge