rfcman

rfcman — a BigTalk utility.

A fast, elegant CLI for managing RFC lifecycles.

Incubated for BigTalk; usable for any project that needs structured proposal workflows.

Install

pip install rfcman

Requires Python 3.12+.

Quick start

rfcman init
rfcman new idea "Faster module loading"
rfcman list ideas
rfcman describe Idea-faster-module-loading
rfcman upgrade Idea-faster-module-loading
rfcman check

Lifecycle

Idea → Research → Proposed → Accepted
                           ↘ Rejected
Accepted → Superseded

• upgrade keeps the previous document and creates the next stage with a references link (Idea-new-idea, Research-new-idea, …).
• From Proposed, choose Accept or Reject.
• Accepting can optionally supersede an existing accepted RFC (type-to-filter picker).
• rfcman supersede <old> <new> does the same non-interactively.

Each document stores a UUID in frontmatter. CLI args, completions, and references use Stage-filename (e.g. Idea-typed-channels for ideas/typed-channels.md). Cross-links in related / supersedes / superseded_by store UUIDs so they survive renames and stage moves.

rfcman init writes rfcman.yml in the directory where you ran the command, recording the tree location, created date, and author (from git config). Later commands discover that file (walking up from cwd) unless you pass --path / -p. Change author in rfcman.yml to override the byline on new documents.

Every command also accepts help (e.g. rfcman init help, rfcman describe help).

Templates

init dumps editable body templates into rfcs/_tpls/. Frontmatter is owned by rfcman and is not dumped or overridable.

Shell completions

rfcman --install-completion bash
rfcman --install-completion zsh
rfcman --install-completion fish

Or print a script to source yourself:

rfcman --show-completion bash > completions/rfcman.bash

Pre-generated scripts also live in completions/.

After install, tab-complete:

• commands and options
• list stage names
• RFC refs for describe, upgrade, and supersede (match by stage, filename stem, or title)

Development

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
make check

Push commits

make push

Pushes the current branch and any local tags. Working tree must be clean.

Release to PyPI

make release

Runs checks, then Commitizen (cz bump) to:

1. Choose the next SemVer from conventional commits
2. Update CHANGELOG.md, pyproject.toml, and __version__
3. Create a v* tag and push branch + tags

The tag triggers .github/workflows/publish.yml (Trusted Publishing → PyPI).

License

Apache-2.0

AI Disclosures

This project has significant contributions from AI.