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CG/WG Proposal Stages

Author: @samuelgoto Created: 08/11/2024 Last update: 09/11/2024 Status: under review

This is a proposal to break proposals into 5 stages of maturity, with clear guidelines and requirements to advance them:

  • Stage 0: Exploration of the Problem Space
  • Stage 1: Incubation of competing Alternatives
  • Stage 2: Formalization a preferred Proposal
  • Stage 3: Implementation of the preferred Proposal
  • Stage 4: Publication of a Proposed Recommendation

These stages support the W3C process. If there is ever any question between W3C process requirements and how the groups will progress their work, the W3C process has precedent.

Stage 0: Exploration

The purpose of Stage 0 proposals is to allow anyone to raise and explore the Problem Space without asking for permission.

  • What's needed from individuals?
    • Typically, a written issue, a personal repo, a blog post, a tweet, etc.
  • What's asked of the Community Group?
    • Nothing: no permission needed from anyone.

Stage 1: Incubation

The purpose of Stage 1 proposals is to explore the Solution Space and pick a preferred direction. This is where most of the work gets done because it involves exploring alternatives, understanding tradeoffs, gathering implementation experience, incubating alternatives, gathering evidence of demand and fitness for purpose, and finally, identifying the best out of the many alternatives.

  • What's needed from individuals?
    • Identification of champions
    • An understanding of the Problem Space
    • Optionally, alternatives under consideration
  • What's asked of the Community Group?
    • The Community Group consensus that the problem is worth spending the Community Group’s time working on
    • A home for incubating the proposal. Small features will incubate in issues. If and when the champions are ready to more thoroughly document their proposal, the WG chairs will create a repo for the champions to develop the feature (e.g., example).

Stage 2: Formalization

The purpose of Stage 2 Proposals is to formally specify the best (and seemingly workable) alternative that was identified in the prior step: handle corner cases, integrate with other parts, reconcile with other proposals, and resolve the concerns identified at the entrance. The Proposal enters Stage 2 with a list of blocking issues to advance to the next stage and exits with all of the issues resolved.

  • What's needed from champions?
    • An explainer
    • Alternatives and trade-offs considered
    • A specific preferred proposal, e.g., code samples, examples, or a spec PRs (if the formalism is needed to understand the proposal)
    • Browser and developer implementation experience (e.g., a prototype, dev trials, origin trials, etc)
    • Confidence of developer demand and fitness for purpose (e.g. a developer that needs this proposal)
  • What's asked of the Working Group?
    • Working Group consensus to adopt the proposal as the basis for their work as a Working Draft.
    • Working Group identification of the list of (seemingly resolvable) issues that have to be addressed before Stage 3.
    • An Editor's Draft can be used to get PRs merged between Working Draft revisions.

Stage 3: Implementation

NOTE: We don't yet have enough experience as we get towards Stage 3 and 4, so they aren't fully baked yet. It is possible that these will change a lot as we learn, including potentially entirely replacing them with references to the W3C Process.

The purpose of Stage 3 Proposals is to increase implementation and deployment confidence in order to produce a Candidate Recommendation.

  • What's needed from champions?
    • Proposal fully merged into the Working Draft
    • Web Platform Tests
    • Further implementation experience
  • What's asked of the Working Group?

Stage 4: Publication

The purpose of Stage 4 Proposals is to produce a W3C Recommendation.

Prior Art