Node.js Enhancement Proposals

Overview

This repository contains the Node Enhancement Proposals (EPs) collection. These are documents describing an enhancement proposal for inclusion in Node.

EPs are used when the proposed feature is a substantial new API, is too broad or would modify APIs heavily. Minor changes do not require writing an EP. What is and isn't minor is subjective, so as a general rule, users should discuss the proposal briefly by other means (issue tracker, mailing list or IRC) and write an EP when requested by the Node core team.

Rational

The idea behind the EP process is to keep track of what ideas will be worked on and which ones were discarded, and why. This should help everyone (those closely involved with the project and newcomers) have a clear picture of where Node stands and where it wants to be in the future.

Format

EP documents don't follow a given format (other than being written in MarkDown). It is, however, required that all EPs include the following template and information at the top of the file:

| Title  | Tile of EP      |
|--------|-----------------|
| Author | @gihub_handle   |
| Status | DRAFT           |
| Date   | YYYY-MM-DD      |

The document file name must conform to the format "XXX-title-ish.md" (literally starting with XXX and not a self assigned number). At the time the EP lands it will be assigned a number and added to 000-index.md. There is no need for a PR author to add the file to the index since no number has yet been given.

Files should follow the convention of keeping lines to a maximum of 80 characters. Exceptions can be made in cases like long URLs or when pasting the output of an application. For example a stack trace from gdb.

More information of the "Status" field can be found in Progress of an EP.

Content

EP documents should be as detailed as possible. Any type of media which helps clarify what it tries to describe is more than welcome, be that an ASCII diagram, pseudocode or actual C code.

Licensing

All EP documents must be MIT licensed.

Progress of an EP

All EPs will be committed to the repository regardless of their acceptance. The initial status shall be "DRAFT".

If the document is uncontroversial and agreement is reached quickly it might be committed directly with the "ACCEPTED" status. Likewise, if the proposal is rejected the status shall be "REJECTED". When a document is rejected a member of the core team should append a section describing the reasons for rejection.

A document shall also be committed in "DRAFT" status. This means consensus has not been reached yet.

The author of an EP is expected to actually pursue and implement the proposal.