OIP 0: OIP Purpose and Guidelines

What is an OIP?

OIP stands for Overlay Improvement Proposal, it has been adapted from the YIP (yEarn Improvement Proposal). The purpose of this process is to ensure changes to Overlay are transparent and well governed. An OIP is a design document providing information to the Overlay community about a proposed change to the system. The author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.

OIP Rationale

We intend OIPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, collecting community input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions for changes to Overlay. Because they are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.

It is highly recommended that a single OIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the OIP, the more successful it is likely to be.

An OIP must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement.

OIP Work Flow

Parties involved in the process are the author, the OIP editors, and the Overlay community.

:warning: Before you begin, vet your idea, this will save you time. Ask the Overlay community first if an idea is original to avoid wasting time on something that will be rejected based on prior research (searching the Internet does not always do the trick). It also helps to make sure the idea is applicable to the entire community and not just the author. Just because an idea sounds good to the author does not mean it will have the intend effect. The appropriate public forum to gauge interest around your OIP is the Overlay Discord or the Overlay Telegram.

Your role as the champion is to write the OIP using the style and format described below, shepherd the discussions in the appropriate forums, and build community consensus around the idea. Following is the process that a successful OIP will move along:

Proposed -> Approved -> Implemented
  ^                     |
  +----> Rejected       +----> Moribund
  |
  +----> Withdrawn
  v
Deferred

Each status change is requested by the OIP author and reviewed by the OIP editors. Use a pull request to update the status. Please include a link to where people should continue discussing your OIP. The OIP editors will process these requests as per the conditions below.

• Work in progress (WIP) – Once the champion has asked the Overlay community whether an idea has any chance of support, they will write a draft OIP as a pull request. Consider including an implementation if this will aid people in studying the OIP.
• Proposed If agreeable, OIP editor will assign the OIP a number (generally the issue or PR number related to the OIP) and merge your pull request. The OIP editor will not unreasonably deny an OIP. Proposed OIPs will be discussed on governance calls and in Discord. If there is a reasonable level of consensus around the change on the governance call the change will be moved to approved. If the change is contentious a vote of token holders may be held to resolve the issue or approval may be delayed until consensus is reached.
• Approved – This OIP has passed community governance and is now being prioritised for development.
• Implemented – This OIP has been implemented and deployed to mainnet.
• Rejected – This OIP has failed to reach community consensus.
• Withdrawn – This OIP has has been withdrawn by the author(s).
• Deferred – This OIP is pending another OIP/some other change that should be bundled with it together.
• Moribund – This OIP has been implemented and is now obsolete and requires no explicit replacement.

What belongs in a successful OIP?

Each OIP should have the following parts:

• Preamble - RFC 822 style headers containing metadata about the OIP, including the OIP number, a short descriptive title (limited to a maximum of 44 characters), and the author details.
• Simple Summary - “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” In other words, be like the 🐐. Provide a simplified and layman-accessible explanation of the OIP.
• Abstract - a short (~200 word) description of the technical issue being addressed.
• Motivation (*optional) - The motivation is critical for OIPs that want to change Overlay. It should clearly explain why the existing specification is inadequate to address the problem that the OIP solves. OIP submissions without sufficient motivation may be rejected outright.
• Specification - The technical specification should describe the syntax and semantics of any new feature.
• 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 may also provide evidence of consensus within the community, and should discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussion.
• Test Cases - Test cases may be added during the implementation phase but are required before implementation.
• Copyright Waiver - All OIPs must be in the public domain. See the bottom of this OIP for an example copyright waiver.

OIP Formats and Templates

OIPs should be written in markdown format. Image files should be included in a subdirectory of the assets folder for that OIP as follows: assets/oip-X (for oip X). When linking to an image in the OIP, use relative links such as ../assets/oip-X/image.png.

OIP Header Preamble

Each OIP 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. Headers marked with “*” are optional and are described below. All other headers are required.

` oip:` (this is determined by the OIP editor)

` title:`

` author:` <a list of the author’s or authors’ name(s) and/or username(s), or name(s) and email(s). Details are below.>

` * discussions-to:` <a url pointing to the official discussion thread at gov.overlay.market>

` created:`

` * updated:`

` * requires:` <OIP number(s)>

` * resolution:` <a url pointing to the resolution of this OIP>

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 optionally lists the names, email addresses or usernames of the authors/owners of the OIP. 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 <[email protected]>

or

Random J. User (@username)

if the email address or GitHub username is included, and

Random J. User

if the email address is not given.

discussions-to header

While an OIP is in WIP or Proposed status, a discussions-to header will indicate the URL at gov.overlay.market where the OIP is being discussed.

created header

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

updated header

The updated header records the date(s) when the OIP was updated with “substantial” changes. This header is only valid for OIPs of Draft and Active status.

requires header

OIPs may have a requires header, indicating the OIP numbers that this OIP depends on.

Auxiliary Files

OIPs may include auxiliary files such as diagrams. Such files must be named OIP-XXXX-Y.ext, where “XXXX” is the OIP number, “Y” is a serial number (starting at 1), and “ext” is replaced by the actual file extension (e.g. “png”).

OIP Editors

The current OIP editors are:

` * Michael Feldman (@mikeyrf)`

` * Adam Kay (@mcillkay)`

` * Daniel Wasserman (@dwasse)`

` * Jack Sun (@hhjacksun)`

OIP Editor Responsibilities

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

• Read the OIP 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 OIP for language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.), markup (Github flavored Markdown), code style

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

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

• Assign an OIP number (generally the PR number or, if preferred by the author, the Issue # if there was discussion in the Issues section of this repository about this OIP)

• Merge the corresponding pull request

• Send a message back to the OIP author with the next step.

The OIP editors monitor OIP changes, and correct any structure, grammar, spelling, or markup mistakes we see.

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

History

The OIP document was derived heavily from the YIP yEarn Improvement Proposal document in many places text was simply copied and modified. Any comments about the OIP document should be directed to the OIP editors.

Bibliography

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.