SecondPen.aiTemplates · Engineering & architecture
RFC (Request for Comments) template
Origin: IETF RFCs; modern engineering template from the Rust RFC process, also used at Uber, Sourcegraph, and HashiCorp.
Sections
- Summary
- Motivation
- Guide-level explanation
- Reference-level explanation
- Drawbacks
- Rationale & alternatives
- Prior art
- Unresolved questions
- Future possibilities
How a tough reader scores it
When you score a draft against this format, the Critic evaluates this RFC. The weights add up to 100; the fixes for the weakest criteria arrive as cards in the editor.
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Motivation makes the need undeniable | 20 |
| Guide-level explanation is clear to a newcomer | 15 |
| Reference-level detail is precise with corner cases | 20 |
| Drawbacks are honestly stated | 10 |
| Alternatives, including doing nothing, are weighed | 15 |
| Prior art is researched | 10 |
| Unresolved questions are scoped | 10 |
How it works in SecondPen.ai
Open the template and the editor writes the blank once, with a line of guidance under each heading that you delete as you fill it in. Write your abstract and the editor names the format it reads like. Ask for a document with a slash command and it offers to start from the matching format. When the draft is ready, the Critic scores it against the criteria above, the way this format's toughest reader would, and the three highest-leverage fixes become Editor cards.
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