A “Project” at Hyperledger is a collection of specific Maintainers, users and other developers, code, releases, issues, and other activity oriented around a common software-implemented mission.

This project proposal template ushers originators, designers, implementers, testers of a project through community and TSC approval. The proposal should evolve organically as the HIP moves through the stages of conception, design, approval, implementation and deployment. The project and hence the proposal may also need several iterations. In its terminal forms it can also serve as a short manual to the features of the project for users.

This proposal template is descriptive and not normative, a guide rather than the law. Prior templates like the internet RFC process, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal, Python Improvement Proposal etc. were used as guidelines to develop this template.

The seed of a new project has to be vetted in a public forum like hyperledger-technical before creating a project proposal. It is best if the project has technical champions who believe in the project and are the maintainers of the project. The technical champions can change in the middle of the project.

Please note that readability is very important. The language of the proposal should be English if possible as that is the lingua franca of the community. The Chicago Manual Of Style should be followed for explanation of abbreviations, references etc. This is extremely important as a clear statement of the problem and its technical details are helpful to coalesce the community around a solution and prompt volunteers. The outline of a project is given below with comments on the sections.