An extended description of the working group document lifecycle
provides an overview of the various stages of an Internet-Draft (I-D) document, how a document progresses from one stage to another, and the roles different individuals and groups play at each stage.
IETF Datatracker Quick Guides:
This section describes the roles various individuals have in the document lifecycle process within the IETF.
RFC 7210 describes the process for documents intended to be published in the RFC IETF Stream for early allocation of code points by IANA from registries when "Specification Required", "RFC Required", "IETF Review", or "Standards Action" policies apply to alleviate the problem where code point allocation is needed to facilitate desired or required implementation and deployment experience prior to publication of an RFC which would normally trigger code point allocation.
In summary:
A request is sent to the Working Group chair by the editor/author
The WG chairs determine whether the conditions for early allocations described in Section 2 are met, particularly conditions (c) and (d).
The WG chairs gauge whether there is consensus within the WG that early allocation is appropriate for the given document.
If steps 2) and 3) are satisfied, the WG chairs request approval from the Area Director(s). The Area Director(s) may apply judgement to the request, especially if there is a risk of registry depletion.
If the Area Directors approve step 4), the WG chairs request IANA to make an early allocation.
Working Group chairs often appoint document-editors who are not involved directly in the topic a document addresses to help distribute work (e.g. allowing chairs to focus on chairing the working group) and avoid conflicts when decisions need to be taken.
Document Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to Publication (RFC 4858)
This document describes methodologies that have been designed to improve and facilitate IETF document flow processing by specifying a set of procedures under which a working group chair or secretary serves as the primary Document Shepherd for a document that has been submitted to the IESG for publication.
IESG Statement on Document Shepherds
This statement provides guidance from the IESG on selection of a Document Shepherd for documents from IETF working groups and documents from individuals.
About document shepherding
A short informal description of how document shepherds help documents progress through the working group process.
Internet-Draft author resources
This site is the central resource site for authors of an I-D, with information on how to write an I-D and the tools available to support this.
Document shepherd write-up templates
The IESG has developed and approved templates for document shepherd writeups for Internet-Drafts depending on the type of submissions:
Q&A style document shepherd writeup template for indivudual submission I-Ds.
This template may be used for the Document Shepherd Write-Ups of Individual submission I-Ds.
Q&A style document shepherd writeup template for working group submissions.
This template may be used for the Document Shepherd Write-Ups of working group I-Ds.
NOTE: These require IETF Datatracker login.
IETF Internet-Draft status
This tool shows the submission status of Internet-Drafts.
IETF Internet-Draft Approvals
This tool shows Internet-Drafts you can approve.