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Avail Improvement Proposal (AIP)

Avail Improvement Proposal (AIP)

The Avail Improvement Proposal (AIP) is a standard format for community members to propose changes to the Avail network.

Anyone can propose changes to the Avail stack, including the consensus and data availability layers, the peer-to-peer layer, and the interface layer that dictates how rollups communicate with Avail.

AIPs are submitted, discussed and moderated on the Avail Community Forum (opens in a new tab).

Creating an AIP

Please create an AIP following the template below:

  • Metadata: RFC 822 style headers containing metadata about the AIP, a short descriptive title (max. 44 words), a description (max. 140 words), and the author details.

  • Technical Summary: A short technical summary providing a human-readable version of the specification section. By reading the summary alone, someone should be able to grasp what the proposal entails.

  • Motivation: A clear explanation of why the existing protocol specification is insufficient.

  • Technical Specification: The technical specification should describe the syntax and semantics of any new feature. It should include all relevant code, github pull requests (if any) and other details important for execution. The specification should be detailed enough to enable competing, interoperable implementations for Avail.

  • Rationale and Reasoning (Optional): The rationale elaborates on the specification by explaining the reasoning behind the design and the choices made during the design process. It could discuss alternative ideas that were considered and link to any related work.

  • Backwards Compatibility (Optional): For AIPs introducing backwards incompatibilities, this section must describe these incompatibilities and their consequences. The AIP must explain how the author proposes to handle these incompatibilities. If the proposal does not introduce any backwards incompatibilities, this section can be omitted.

  • Test Cases (Optional): AIPs affecting consensus changes require test cases. This section can be omitted for non-core proposals.

  • Security Considerations or Risks: Please discuss relevant security implications and considerations. This section should provide critical information relating to security, expose potential risks, and be used throughout the proposal's life-cycle. AIPs without a "Security Considerations" section will be rejected.

  • Copyright Waiver: All AIPs must be in the public domain. The copyright waiver MUST link to the license file and use the following wording: Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

Submitting an AIP

Once an AIP has been created, it is submitted by the proposer on the Governance section (opens in a new tab) of the Avail Forum.

The following statuses will be assigned to monitor the progress of an AIP through the governance process. These status will be added to the AIP entries on the forum:

  1. Proposal under discussion: Proposals which follow the AIP template and forum guidelines will be open to discussion.

  2. AIP Not Assigned: An AIP may not be assigned. This is likely to happen when the AIP is too unfocused, broad, a duplication of effort, being technically unsound, not providing proper motivation or addressing backwards compatibility, or not in keeping with Avail's governance values and community code of conduct (opens in a new tab).

  3. Technical Committee Review: This status will be assigned by the governance facilitator when the AIP is ready for Technical Committee Review.

After successful onchain voting by the Technical Committee, the AIP will be queued for execution.

  1. AIP Executed: An ATR will be posted by the Technical Committee outlining the final execution specs and timelines for the community to track.

Other Statuses:

Stagnant: Any AIP in review or voting that remains inactive for 6 months or more is moved to Stagnant. Authors or the governance facilitators can resurrect a proposal from this state by moving it back to active. If not resurrected, a proposal may stay forever in this status.

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

Ongoing: A special status for AIPs designed to be continually updated and not reach a state of finality. This status caters to dynamic AIPs that require ongoing updates.

Governance OverviewAvail Transparency Report (ATR)