Summary

One paragraph explanation of the feature.

Motivation

Why are we doing this? What use cases does it support? What is the expected outcome?

Definitions

Lay out explicit definitions of any terms that are newly introduced or which cause confusion during the RFC design process.

Guide-level explanation

Explain the proposal as if it was already included in the project and you were teaching it to another Zebra programmer. That generally means:

Introducing new named concepts.
Explaining the feature largely in terms of examples.
Explaining how Zebra programmers should think about the feature, and how it should impact the way they use Zebra. It should explain the impact as concretely as possible.
If applicable, provide sample error messages, deprecation warnings, migration guidance, or test strategies.
If applicable, describe the differences between teaching this to existing Zebra programmers and new Zebra programmers.

For implementation-oriented RFCs (e.g. for Zebra internals), this section should focus on how Zebra contributors should think about the change, and give examples of its concrete impact. For policy RFCs, this section should provide an example-driven introduction to the policy, and explain its impact in concrete terms.

Reference-level explanation

This is the technical portion of the RFC. Explain the design in sufficient detail that:

Its interaction with other features is clear.
It is reasonably clear how the feature would be implemented, tested, monitored, and maintained.
Corner cases are dissected by example.

The section should return to the examples given in the previous section, and explain more fully how the detailed proposal makes those examples work.

Module Structure

Describe the crate and modules that will implement the feature.

Test Plan

Explain how the feature will be tested, including:

tests for consensus-critical functionality
existing test vectors, if available
Zcash blockchain block test vectors (specify the network upgrade, feature, or block height and network)

The tests should cover:

positive cases: make sure the feature accepts valid inputs
negative cases: make sure the feature rejects invalid inputs
edge cases: make sure that boundary conditions are correctly handled

Drawbacks

Why should we not do this?

Rationale and alternatives

What makes this design a good design?
Is this design a good basis for later designs or implementations?
What other designs have been considered and what is the rationale for not choosing them?
What is the impact of not doing this?

Prior art

Discuss prior art, both the good and the bad, in relation to this proposal. A few examples of what this can include are:

For community proposals: Is this done by some other community and what were their experiences with it?
For other teams: What lessons can we learn from what other communities have done here?
Papers: Are there any published papers or great posts that discuss this? If you have some relevant papers to refer to, this can serve as a more detailed theoretical background.

This section is intended to encourage you as an author to think about the lessons from other projects, to provide readers of your RFC with a fuller picture. If there is no prior art, that is fine - your ideas are interesting to us whether they are brand new or if they are an adaptation from other projects.

Note that while precedent set by other projects is some motivation, it does not on its own motivate an RFC. Please also take into consideration that Zebra sometimes intentionally diverges from common Zcash features and designs.

Unresolved questions

What parts of the design do you expect to resolve through the RFC process before this gets merged?
What parts of the design do you expect to resolve through the implementation of this feature before stabilization?
What related issues do you consider out of scope for this RFC that could be addressed in the future independently of the solution that comes out of this RFC?

Future possibilities

Think about what the natural extension and evolution of your proposal would be and how it would affect Zebra and Zcash as a whole. Try to use this section as a tool to more fully consider all possible interactions with the project and cryptocurrency ecosystem in your proposal. Also consider how the this all fits into the roadmap for the project and of the relevant sub-team.

This is also a good place to "dump ideas", if they are out of scope for the RFC you are writing but otherwise related.

If you have tried and cannot think of any future possibilities, you may simply state that you cannot think of anything.

Note that having something written down in the future-possibilities section is not a reason to accept the current or a future RFC; such notes should be in the section on motivation or rationale in this or subsequent RFCs. The section merely provides additional information.

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