HTTP Directorate

Nearby: reviewer guidelines

The HTTP Directorate reviews documents proposed for publication in the RFC Series with a focus on how the HTTP protocol is used.

Its reviewers aim to:

• Assure that the proposal is deployable with existing HTTP implementations and infrastructure
• Highlight ways that the proposal might be able to reuse existing HTTP functionality (e.g., caching, content negotiation)
• Work with the authors to assure that best current practices are followed
• Verify that it does not limit the extension or evolution of the HTTP protocol

How to Engage with the HTTP Directorate

We encourage early reviews of documents that use HTTP, since it is often easier to adjust them at that point. Late reviews may result in the need to make significant changes in the final stages of the process.

Authors of documents that use HTTP are encouraged to be familiar with:

• Building Protocols with HTTP (BCP 56)
• The HTTP Editorial Style Guide
• Structured Field Values (when defining header or trailer fields)

Working Group chairs can request reviews by the directorate. Additionally, you can send e-mail to the HTTP mailing list to request broader community feedback.¹

We encourage re-reviews of the document when substantial changes take place, and during Last Call.

See also our guidelines for reviewers.

Extending HTTP

Documents that use the generic extension points of HTTP (e.g., new methods, new status codes, new content codings) need to coordinate with the HTTP Working Group for review; generally, these extensions are defined either within the HTTP Working Group, or a new Working Group chartered explicitly to do so. New generic extensions should not be defined in application-specific documents.