Request for Comments

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

An RFC is a proposal document shared with the team before making a big technical decision. Write up the problem, propose a solution, list alternatives, and invite feedback. It's democracy for architecture decisions — everyone gets a voice before you commit to a direction.

Real Talk

RFCs (Request for Comments) in engineering organizations are proposal documents for significant technical changes. They describe the problem, proposed solution, alternatives considered, and tradeoffs. Shared for asynchronous review and feedback before implementation. More formal than ADRs, used for larger cross-team decisions.

When You'll Hear This

"The migration to Kubernetes started as an RFC — 15 engineers reviewed it over two weeks." / "Write an RFC before starting any work that takes more than a sprint or affects multiple teams."