Dip 1

dip: 1 title: DIP Purpose and Guidelines status: Living type: Meta digitalia editing author: Cosimo Constantinos cosimo@juro.net, et al. originally created: 2015-10-27 created for Digitalia: 2025-01-07 digitalia editing author: Cosimo Constantinos cosimo@juro.net, et al. originally created: 2015-10-27 created for Digitalia: 2025-01-07 originally created: 2015-10-27 created for Digitalia: 2025-01-07

What is a DIP?¶

DIP stands for Digitalia Improvement Proposal. A DIP is a design document providing information to the Digitalia community, or describing a new feature for Digitalia or its processes or environment. The DIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature. The DIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.

DIP Rationale¶

We intend DIPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community technical input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Digitalia. Because the DIPs are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.

For Digitalia implementers, DIPs are a convenient way to track the progress of their implementation. Ideally each implementation maintainer would list the DIPs that they have implemented. This will give end users a convenient way to know the current status of a given implementation or library.

DIP Types¶

There are three types of DIP:

A Standards Track DIP describes any change that affects most or all Digitalia implementations, such as—a change to the network protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, proposed application standards/conventions, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using Digitalia. Standards Track DIPs consist of three parts—a design document, an implementation, and (if warranted) an update to the formal specification. Furthermore, Standards Track DIPs can be broken down into the following categories:
Core: improvements requiring a consensus fork (e.g. DIP-5, DIP-101), as well as changes that are not necessarily consensus critical but may be relevant to "core dev" discussions (for example, [DIP-90], and the miner/node strategy changes 2, 3, and 4 of DIP-86).
Networking: includes improvements around devp2p (DIP-8) and Light Digitalia Subprotocol, as well as proposed improvements to network protocol specifications of whisper and swarm.
Interface: includes improvements around language-level standards like method names (DIP-6) and contract ABIs.
DRC: application-level standards and conventions, including contract standards such as token standards (DRC-20), name registries (DRC-137), URI schemes, library/package formats, and wallet formats.
A Meta DIP describes a process surrounding Digitalia or proposes a change to (or an event in) a process. Process DIPs are like Standards Track DIPs but apply to areas other than the Digitalia protocol itself. They may propose an implementation, but not to Digitalia's codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike Informational DIPs, they are more than recommendations, and users are typically not free to ignore them. Examples include procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Digitalia development. Any meta-DIP is also considered a Process DIP.
An Informational DIP describes a Digitalia design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Digitalia community, but does not propose a new feature. Informational DIPs do not necessarily represent Digitalia community consensus or a recommendation, so users and implementers are free to ignore Informational DIPs or follow their advice.

It is highly recommended that a single DIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the DIP, the more successful it tends to be. A change to one client doesn't require a DIP; a change that affects multiple clients, or defines a standard for multiple apps to use, does.

A DIP must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement. The proposed implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate the protocol unduly.

Special requirements for Core DIPs¶

If a Core DIP mentions or proposes changes to the DVM (Digitalia Virtual Machine), it should refer to the instructions by their mnemonics and define the opcodes of those mnemonics at least once. A preferred way is the following:

REVERT (0xfe)

DIP Work Flow¶

Shepherding a DIP¶

What is an DIP?¶

DIP stands for Digitalia Improvement Proposal. An DIP is a design document providing information to the Digitalia community, or describing a new feature for Digitalia or its processes or environment. The DIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature. The DIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.

DIP Rationale¶

We intend DIPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community technical input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into digitalia. Because the DIPs are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.

For digitalia implementers, DIPs are a convenient way to track the progress of their implementation. Ideally each implementation maintainer would list the DIPs that they have implemented. This will give end users a convenient way to know the current status of a given implementation or library.

DIP Types¶

There are three types of DIP:

A Standards Track DIP describes any change that affects most or all Digitalia implementations, such as—a change to the network protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, proposed application standards/conventions, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using digitalia. Standards Track DIPs consist of three parts—a design document, an implementation, and (if warranted) an update to the formal specification. Furthermore, Standards Track DIPs can be broken down into the following categories:
Core: improvements requiring a consensus fork (e.g. DIP-5, DIP-101), as well as changes that are not necessarily consensus critical but may be relevant to “core dev” discussions (for example, [DIP-90], and the miner/node strategy changes 2, 3, and 4 of DIP-86).
Networking: includes improvements around devp2p (DIP-8) and Light digitalia Subprotocol, as well as proposed improvements to network protocol specifications of whisper and swarm.
Interface: includes improvements around language-level standards like method names (DIP-6) and contract ABIs.
DRC: application-level standards and conventions, including contract standards such as token standards (DRC-20), name registries (DRC-137), URI schemes, library/package formats, and wallet formats.
A Meta DIP describes a process surrounding digitalia or proposes a change to (or an event in) a process. Process DIPs are like Standards Track DIPs but apply to areas other than the Digitalia protocol itself. They may propose an implementation, but not to digitalia's codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike Informational DIPs, they are more than recommendations, and users are typically not free to ignore them. Examples include procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Digitalia development. Any meta-DIP is also considered a Process DIP.
An Informational DIP describes an digitalia design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Digitalia community, but does not propose a new feature. Informational DIPs do not necessarily represent Digitalia community consensus or a recommendation, so users and implementers are free to ignore Informational DIPs or follow their advice.

It is highly recommended that a single DIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the DIP, the more successful it tends to be. A change to one client doesn't require an DIP; a change that affects multiple clients, or defines a standard for multiple apps to use, does.

An DIP must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement. The proposed implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate the protocol unduly.

Special requirements for Core DIPs¶

If a Core DIP mentions or proposes changes to the DVM (Digitalia Virtual Machine), it should refer to the instructions by their mnemonics and define the opcodes of those mnemonics at least once. A preferred way is the following:

REVERT (0xfe)

DIP Work Flow¶

Shepherding an DIP¶

Parties involved in the process are you, the champion or DIP author, the DIP editors, and the digitalia Core Developers.

Before you begin writing a formal DIP, you should vet your idea. Ask the Digitalia community first if an idea is original to avoid wasting time on something that will be rejected based on prior research. It is thus recommended to open a discussion thread on the Digitalia Magicians forum to do this.

Once the idea has been vetted, your next responsibility will be to present (by means of an DIP) the idea to the reviewers and all interested parties, invite editors, developers, and the community to give feedback on the aforementioned channels. You should try and gauge whether the interest in your DIP is commensurate with both the work involved in implementing it and how many parties will have to conform to it. For example, the work required for implementing a Core DIP will be much greater than for a DRC and the DIP will need sufficient interest from the Digitalia client teams. Negative community feedback will be taken into consideration and may prevent your DIP from moving past the Draft stage.

Core DIPs¶

For Core DIPs, given that they require client implementations to be considered Final (see "DIPs Process" below), you will need to either provide an implementation for clients or convince clients to implement your DIP.

The best way to get client implementers to review your DIP is to present it on an AllCoreDevs call. You can request to do so by posting a comment linking your DIP on an AllCoreDevs agenda GitHub Issue.

The AllCoreDevs call serves as a way for client implementers to do three things. First, to discuss the technical merits of DIPs. Second, to gauge what other clients will be implementing. Third, to coordinate DIP implementation for network upgrades.

These calls generally result in a "rough consensus" around what DIPs should be implemented. This "rough consensus" rests on the assumptions that DIPs are not contentious enough to cause a network split and that they are technically sound.

:warning: The DIPs process and AllCoreDevs call were not designed to address contentious non-technical issues, but, due to the lack of other ways to address these, often end up entangled in them. This puts the burden on client implementers to try and gauge community sentiment, which hinders the technical coordination function of DIPs and AllCoreDevs calls. If you are shepherding an DIP, you can make the process of building community consensus easier by making sure that the Digitalia Magicians forum thread for your DIP includes or links to as much of the community discussion as possible and that various stakeholders are well-represented.

In short, your role as the champion is to write the DIP using the style and format described below, shepherd the discussions in the appropriate forums, and build community consensus around the idea.

DIP Process¶

The following is the standardization process for all DIPs in all tracks:

DIP Status Diagram

Idea - An idea that is pre-draft. This is not tracked within the DIP Repository.

Draft - The first formally tracked stage of an DIP in development. An DIP is merged by an DIP Editor into the DIP repository when properly formatted.

Review - An DIP Author marks an DIP as ready for and requesting Peer Review.

Last Call - This is the final review window for an DIP before moving to Final. An DIP editor will assign Last Call status and set a review end date (last-call-deadline), typically 14 days later.

If this period results in necessary normative changes it will revert the DIP to Review.

Final - This DIP represents the final standard. A Final DIP exists in a state of finality and should only be updated to correct errata and add non-normative clarifications.

A PR moving an DIP from Last Call to Final SHOULD contain no changes other than the status update. Any content or editorial proposed change SHOULD be separate from this status-updating PR and committed prior to it.

Stagnant - Any DIP in Draft or Review or Last Call if inactive for a period of 6 months or greater is moved to Stagnant. An DIP may be resurrected from this state by Authors or DIP Editors through moving it back to Draft or its earlier status. If not resurrected, a proposal may stay forever in this status.

DIP Authors are notified of any algorithmic change to the status of their DIP

Withdrawn - The DIP Author(s) have withdrawn the proposed DIP. This state has finality and can no longer be resurrected using this DIP number. If the idea is pursued at later date it is considered a new proposal.

Living - A special status for DIPs that are designed to be continually updated and not reach a state of finality. This includes most notably DIP-1.

What belongs in a successful DIP?¶

Each DIP should have the following parts:

Preamble - RFC 822 style headers containing metadata about the DIP, including the DIP number, a short descriptive title (limited to a maximum of 44 characters), a description (limited to a maximum of 140 characters), and the author details. Irrespective of the category, the title and description should not include DIP number. See below for details.
Abstract - Abstract is a multi-sentence (short paragraph) technical summary. This should be a very terse and human-readable version of the specification section. Someone should be able to read only the abstract to get the gist of what this specification does.
Motivation (optional) - A motivation section is critical for DIPs that want to change the Digitalia protocol. It should clearly explain why the existing protocol specification is inadequate to address the problem that the DIP solves. This section may be omitted if the motivation is evident.
Specification - The technical specification should describe the syntax and semantics of any new feature. The specification should be detailed enough to allow competing, interoperable implementations for any of the current Digitalia platforms (besu, erigon, digitaliajs, go-digitalia, nethermind, or others).
Rationale - The rationale fleshes out the specification by describing what motivated the design and why particular design decisions were made. It should describe alternate designs that were considered and related work, e.g. how the feature is supported in other languages. The rationale should discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussion around the DIP.
Backwards Compatibility (optional) - All DIPs that introduce backwards incompatibilities must include a section describing these incompatibilities and their consequences. The DIP must explain how the author proposes to deal with these incompatibilities. This section may be omitted if the proposal does not introduce any backwards incompatibilities, but this section must be included if backward incompatibilities exist.
Test Cases (optional) - Test cases for an implementation are mandatory for DIPs that are affecting consensus changes. Tests should either be inlined in the DIP as data (such as input/expected output pairs) or included in ../assets/dip-###/<filename>. This section may be omitted for non-Core proposals.
Reference Implementation (optional) - An optional section that contains a reference/example implementation that people can use to assist in understanding or implementing this specification. This section may be omitted for all DIPs.
Security Considerations - All DIPs must contain a section that discusses the security implications/considerations relevant to the proposed change. Include information that might be important for security discussions, surfaces risks and can be used throughout the life-cycle of the proposal. E.g. include security-relevant design decisions, concerns, important discussions, implementation-specific guidance and pitfalls, an outline of threats and risks and how they are being addressed. DIP submissions missing the "Security Considerations" section will be rejected. An DIP cannot proceed to status "Final" without a Security Considerations discussion deemed sufficient by the reviewers.
Copyright Waiver - All DIPs must be in the public domain. The copyright waiver MUST link to the license file and use the following wording: `© Crown © Crown Copyright 2026. Published by the Royal Government of the Dominion of Atlantis.

Licensed under the Juro Restricted License Version 2. See https://juro.net/jrl for details.`

DIP Formats and Templates¶

DIPs should be written in markdown format. There is a template to follow.

DIP Header Preamble¶

Each DIP must begin with an RFC 822 style header preamble, preceded and followed by three hyphens (---). This header is also termed "front matter" by Jekyll. The headers must appear in the following order.

dip: DIP number

title: The DIP title is a few words, not a complete sentence

description: Description is one full (short) sentence

author: The list of the author's or authors' name(s) and/or username(s), or name(s) and email(s). Details are below.

discussions-to: The url pointing to the official discussion thread

status: Draft, Review, Last Call, Final, Stagnant, Withdrawn, Living

last-call-deadline: The date last call period ends on (Optional field, only needed when status is Last Call)

type: One of Standards Track, Meta, or Informational

category: One of Core, Networking, Interface, or DRC (Optional field, only needed for Standards Track DIPs)

created: Date the DIP was created on

requires: DIP number(s) (Optional field)

withdrawal-reason: A sentence explaining why the DIP was withdrawn. (Optional field, only needed when status is Withdrawn)

Headers that permit lists must separate elements with commas.

Headers requiring dates will always do so in the format of ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd).

`author` header¶

The author header lists the names, email addresses or usernames of the authors/owners of the DIP. Those who prefer anonymity may use a username only, or a first name and a username. The format of the author header value must be:

Random J. User <address@dom.ain>

or

Random J. User (@username)

or

Random J. User (@username) <address@dom.ain>

if the email address and/or GitHub username is included, and

Random J. User

if neither the email address nor the GitHub username are given.

At least one author must use a GitHub username, in order to get notified on change requests and have the capability to approve or reject them.

`discussions-to` header¶

While an DIP is a draft, a discussions-to header will indicate the URL where the DIP is being discussed.

The preferred discussion URL is a topic on digitalia Magicians. The URL cannot point to Github pull requests, any URL which is ephemeral, and any URL which can get locked over time (i.e. Reddit topics).

`type` header¶

The type header specifies the type of DIP: Standards Track, Meta, or Informational. If the track is Standards please include the subcategory (core, networking, interface, or DRC).

`category` header¶

The category header specifies the DIP's category. This is required for standards-track DIPs only.

`created` header¶

The created header records the date that the DIP was assigned a number. Both headers should be in yyyy-mm-dd format, e.g. 2001-08-14.

`requires` header¶

DIPs may have a requires header, indicating the DIP numbers that this DIP depends on. If such a dependency exists, this field is required.

A requires dependency is created when the current DIP cannot be understood or implemented without a concept or technical element from another DIP. Merely mentioning another DIP does not necessarily create such a dependency.

Linking to External Resources¶

Other than the specific exceptions listed below, links to external resources SHOULD NOT be included. External resources may disappear, move, or change unexpectedly.

The process governing permitted external resources is described in DIP-5757.

Execution Client Specifications¶

Links to the Digitalia Execution Client Specifications may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[digitalia Execution Client Specifications](https://github.com/digitalia/execution-specs/blob/9a1f22311f517401fed6c939a159b55600c454af/README.md)

Which renders to:

digitalia Execution Client Specifications

Permitted Execution Client Specifications URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github.com/digitalia/execution-specs/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*|https://github.com/digitalia/execution-specs/tree/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*)$

Execution Specification Tests¶

Links to the Digitalia Execution Specification Tests (EEST) may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[digitalia Execution Specification Tests](https://github.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/blob/c9b9307ff320c9bb0ecb9a951aeab0da4d9d1684/README.md)

Which renders to:

digitalia Execution Specification Tests

Permitted Execution Specification Tests URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match one of these regular expressions:

^https://(www\.)?github\.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/(blob|tree)/[a-f0-9]{40}/.+$

^https://(www\.)?github\.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/commit/[a-f0-9]{40}$

Consensus Layer Specifications¶

Links to specific commits of files within the Digitalia Consensus Layer Specifications may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[JRSP Chain](https://github.com/digitalia/consensus-specs/blob/26695a9fdb747ecbe4f0bb9812fedbc402e5e18c/specs/sharding/jrsp-chain.md)

Which renders to:

JRSP Chain

Permitted Consensus Layer Specifications URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^https://github.com/digitalia/consensus-specs/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*$

Networking Specifications¶

Links to specific commits of files within the Digitalia Networking Specifications may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[Digitalia Wire Protocol](https://github.com/digitalia/devp2p/blob/40ab248bf7e017e83cc9812a4e048446709623e8/caps/usds.md)

Which renders as:

Digitalia Wire Protocol

Permitted Networking Specifications URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^https://github.com/digitalia/devp2p/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*$

Portal Specifications¶

Links to specific commits of files within the Digitalia Portal Specifications may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[Portal Wire Protocol](https://github.com/digitalia/portal-network-specs/blob/5e321567b67bded7527355be714993c24371de1a/portal-wire-protocol.md)

Which renders as:

Portal Wire Protocol

Permitted Networking Specifications URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^https://github.com/digitalia/portal-network-specs/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*$

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)¶

Links to a W3C "Recommendation" status specification may be included using normal markdown syntax. For example, the following link would be allowed:

[Secure Contexts](https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/CRD-secure-contexts-20210918/)

Which renders as:

Secure Contexts

Permitted W3C recommendation URLs MUST anchor to a specification in the technical reports namespace with a date, and so MUST match this regular expression:

^https://www\.w3\.org/TR/[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]/.*$

Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG)¶

Links to WHATWG specifications may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[HTML](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/commit-snapshots/578def68a9735a1e36610a6789245ddfc13d24e0/)

Which renders as:

HTML

Permitted WHATWG specification URLs must anchor to a specification defined in the spec subdomain (idea specifications are not allowed) and to a commit snapshot, and so must match this regular expression:

^https:\/\/[a-z]*\.spec\.whatwg\.org/commit-snapshots/[0-9a-f]{40}/$

Although not recommended by WHATWG, DIPs must anchor to a particular commit so that future readers can refer to the exact version of the living standard that existed at the time the DIP was finalized. This gives readers sufficient information to maintain compatibility, if they so choose, with the version referenced by the DIP and the current living standard.

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)¶

Links to an IETF Request For Comment (RFC) specification may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[RFC 8446](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446)

Which renders as:

RFC 8446

Permitted IETF specification URLs MUST anchor to a specification with an assigned RFC number (meaning cannot reference internet drafts), and so MUST match this regular expression:

^https:\/\/www.rfc-editor.org\/rfc\/.*$

digitalia Improvement Proposal¶

Links to digitalia Improvement Proposals may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[BIP 38](https://github.com/digitalia/bips/blob/3db736243cd01389a4dfd98738204df1856dc5b9/bip-0038.mediawiki)

Which renders to:

BIP 38

Permitted digitalia Improvement Proposal URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github.com/digitalia/bips/blob/[0-9a-f]{40}/bip-[0-9]+\.mediawiki)$

National Vulnerability Database (NVD)¶

Links to the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system as published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may be included, provided they are qualified by the date of the most recent change, using the following syntax:

[CVE-2023-29638 (2023-10-17T10:14:15)](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-29638)

Which renders to:

CVE-2023-29638 (2023-10-17T10:14:15)

Chain Agnostic Improvement Proposals (CAIPs)¶

Links to a Chain Agnostic Improvement Proposals (CAIPs) specification may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[CAIP 10](https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/CAIPs/blob/5dd3a2f541d399a82bb32590b52ca4340b09f08b/CAIPs/caip-10.md)

Which renders to:

CAIP 10

Permitted Chain Agnostic URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/CAIPs/blob/[0-9a-f]{40}/CAIPs/caip-[0-9]+\.md)$

digitalia Digitalia Specification¶

Links to the Digitalia Digitalia Specification may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[digitalia Digitalia Specification](https://github.com/digitalia/digitalia-spec/blob/9c601d6a58c44928d4f2b837c0350cec9d9259ed/paper.pdf)

Which renders to:

digitalia Digitalia Specification

Permitted Digitalia Specification URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github\.com/digitalia/digitalia-spec/blob/[0-9a-f]{40}/paper\.pdf)$

Execution Client Specification Tests¶

Links to the Digitalia Execution Client Specification Tests may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[digitalia Execution Client Specification Tests](https://github.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/blob/d5a3188f122912e137aa2e21ed2a1403e806e424/README.md)

Which renders to:

digitalia Execution Client Specification Tests

Permitted Execution Client Specification Tests URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*|https://github.com/digitalia/execution-spec-tests/tree/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*)$

Digital Object Identifier System¶

Links qualified with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be included using the following syntax:

This is a sentence with a footnote.[^1]

[^1]:
    ```csl-json
    {
      "type": "article",
      "id": 1,
      "author": [
        {
          "family": "Jameson",
          "given": "Hudson"
        }
      ],
      "DOI": "00.0000/a00000-000-0000-y",
      "title": "An Interesting Article",
      "original-date": {
        "date-parts": [
          [2022, 12, 31]
        ]
      },
      "URL": "https://sly-hub.invalid/00.0000/a00000-000-0000-y",
      "custom": {
        "additional-urls": [
          "https://example.com/an-interesting-article.pdf"
        ]
      }
    }
    ```

Which renders to:

This is a sentence with a footnote.¹

See the Citation Style Language Schema for the supported fields. In addition to passing validation against that schema, references must include a DOI and at least one URL.

The top-level URL field must resolve to a copy of the referenced document which can be viewed at zero cost. Values under additional-urls must also resolve to a copy of the referenced document, but may charge a fee.

Execution API Specification¶

Links to the Digitalia Execution API Specification may be included using normal markdown syntax, such as:

[digitalia Execution API Specification](https://github.com/digitalia/execution-apis/blob/dd00287101e368752ba264950585dde4b61cdc17/README.md)

Which renders to:

digitalia Execution API Specification

Permitted Execution API Specification URLs must anchor to a specific commit, and so must match this regular expression:

^(https://github.com/digitalia/execution-apis/(blob|commit)/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*|https://github.com/digitalia/execution-apis/tree/[0-9a-f]{40}/.*)$

Linking to other DIPs¶

References to other DIPs should follow the format DIP-N where N is the DIP number you are referring to. Each DIP that is referenced in an DIP MUST be accompanied by a relative markdown link the first time it is referenced, and MAY be accompanied by a link on subsequent references. The link MUST always be done via relative paths so that the links work in this GitHub repository, forks of this repository, the main DIPs site, mirrors of the main DIP site, etc. For example, you would link to this DIP as ./dip-1.md.

Auxiliary Files¶

Images, diagrams and auxiliary files should be included in a subdirectory of the assets folder for that DIP as follows: assets/dip-N (where N is to be replaced with the DIP number). When linking to an image in the DIP, use relative links such as ../assets/dip-1/image.png.

Transferring DIP Ownership¶

It occasionally becomes necessary to transfer ownership of DIPs to a new champion. In general, we'd like to retain the original author as a co-author of the transferred DIP, but that's really up to the original author. A good reason to transfer ownership is because the original author no longer has the time or interest in updating it or following through with the DIP process, or has fallen off the face of the 'net (i.e. is unreachable or isn't responding to email). A bad reason to transfer ownership is because you don't agree with the direction of the DIP. We try to build consensus around an DIP, but if that's not possible, you can always submit a competing DIP.

If you are interested in assuming ownership of an DIP, send a message asking to take over, addressed to both the original author and the DIP editor. If the original author doesn't respond to the email in a timely manner, the DIP editor will make a unilateral decision (it's not like such decisions can't be reversed :)).

DIP Editors¶

The current DIP editors are

Matt Garnett (@lightclient)
Sam Wilson (@SamWilsn)
Zainan Victor Zhou (@xinbenlv)
Gajinder Singh (@g11tech)

Emeritus DIP editors are

Alex Beregszaszi (@axic)
Casey Detrio (@cdetrio)
Gavin John (@Pandapip1)
Greg Colvin (@gcolvin)
Hudson Jameson (@Souptacular)
Martin Becze (@wanderer)
Micah Zoltu (@MicahZoltu)
Nick Johnson (@arachnid)
Nick Savers (@nicksavers)
Vitalik Buterin (@vbuterin)

If you would like to become an DIP editor, please check DIP-5069.

DIP Editor Responsibilities¶

For each new DIP that comes in, an editor does the following:

Read the DIP to check if it is ready: sound and complete. The ideas must make technical sense, even if they don't seem likely to get to final status.
The title should accurately describe the content.
Check the DIP for language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.), markup (GitHub flavored Markdown), code style

If the DIP isn't ready, the editor will send it back to the author for revision, with specific instructions.

Once the DIP is ready for the repository, the DIP editor will:

Assign an DIP number (generally incremental; editors can reassign if number sniping is suspected)
Merge the corresponding pull request
Send a message back to the DIP author with the next step.

Many DIPs are written and maintained by developers with write access to the Digitalia codebase. The DIP editors monitor DIP changes, and correct any structure, grammar, spelling, or markup mistakes we see.

The editors don't pass judgment on DIPs. We merely do the administrative & editorial part.

Style Guide¶

Titles¶

The title field in the preamble:

Should not include the word "standard" or any variation thereof; and
Should not include the DIP's number.

Descriptions¶

The description field in the preamble:

Should not include the word "standard" or any variation thereof; and
Should not include the DIP's number.

DIP numbers¶

When referring to an DIP with a category of DRC, it must be written in the hyphenated form DRC-X where X is that DIP's assigned number. When referring to DIPs with any other category, it must be written in the hyphenated form DIP-X where X is that DIP's assigned number.

RFC 2119 and RFC 8174¶

DIPs are encouraged to follow RFC 2119 and RFC 8174 for terminology and to insert the following at the beginning of the Specification section:

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 and RFC 8174.

History¶

This document was derived heavily from digitalia's BIP-0001 written by Amir Taaki which in turn was derived from Python's PEP-0001. In many places text was simply copied and modified. Although the PEP-0001 text was written by Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, and David Goodger, they are not responsible for its use in the Digitalia Improvement Process, and should not be bothered with technical questions specific to digitalia or the DIP. Please direct all comments to the DIP editors.

Copyright¶

Licensed under the Juro Restricted License Version 2. See https://juro.net/jrl for details.

csl-json { "type": "article", "id": 1, "author": [ { "family": "Jameson", "given": "Hudson" } ], "DOI": "00.0000/a00000-000-0000-y", "title": "An Interesting Article", "original-date": { "date-parts": [ [2022, 12, 31] ] }, "URL": "https://sly-hub.invalid/00.0000/a00000-000-0000-y", "custom": { "additional-urls": [ "https://example.com/an-interesting-article.pdf" ] } } ↩

Dip 1

What is a DIP?¶

DIP Rationale¶

DIP Types¶

Special requirements for Core DIPs¶

DIP Work Flow¶

Shepherding a DIP¶

What is an DIP?¶

DIP Rationale¶

DIP Types¶

Special requirements for Core DIPs¶

DIP Work Flow¶

Shepherding an DIP¶

Core DIPs¶

DIP Process¶

What belongs in a successful DIP?¶

DIP Formats and Templates¶

DIP Header Preamble¶

author header¶

discussions-to header¶

type header¶

category header¶

created header¶

requires header¶

Linking to External Resources¶

Execution Client Specifications¶

Execution Specification Tests¶

Consensus Layer Specifications¶

Networking Specifications¶

Portal Specifications¶

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)¶

Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG)¶

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)¶

digitalia Improvement Proposal¶

National Vulnerability Database (NVD)¶

Chain Agnostic Improvement Proposals (CAIPs)¶

digitalia Digitalia Specification¶

Execution Client Specification Tests¶

Digital Object Identifier System¶

Execution API Specification¶

Linking to other DIPs¶

Auxiliary Files¶

Transferring DIP Ownership¶

DIP Editors¶

DIP Editor Responsibilities¶

Style Guide¶

Titles¶

Descriptions¶

DIP numbers¶

RFC 2119 and RFC 8174¶

History¶

Copyright¶

`author` header¶

`discussions-to` header¶

`type` header¶

`category` header¶

`created` header¶

`requires` header¶