NPR Enhancement Proposals (NEP)

This directory holds NPR Enhancement Proposal documents — the written specifications for protocol-facing changes, clarifications, and extensions PacketRF is making (or proposing) to NPR.

The intent is straightforward. Implementation code changes quickly, discussion notes are easy to lose, and protocol-facing decisions deserve documents that can be cited later. NEPs are where those decisions are kept in a stable, reviewable, archivable form.

A NEP is the right place for:

backward-compatible NPR extensions,
wire-format clarifications,
interoperability notes that need a stable reference,
changes that deserve rationale beyond what fits in a source comment or a commit message.

A NEP is not the right place for temporary engineering notes, local TODOs, or work-in-progress state. Those belong under tmp/ in the repository, not here.

Naming convention

NEP-NNNN-<short-title>.md. NEP numbers are assigned sequentially and never reused, even for withdrawn or rejected proposals — they remain on record by their original number.

Each NEP starts with an @page directive so it appears in the generated NEP list on this index page.

Available NEPs

NEP-0001: NPR Enhancement Proposal Process — NPR Enhancement Proposal Process. Defines the NEP process itself: lifecycle, statuses, NEP types, required sections, conventions for normative language and security analysis.
NEP-0002: Master Authentication and Optional Slave Authentication for NPR — Master Authentication and Optional Slave Authentication for NPR. Specifies a backward-compatible NPR extension that adds authenticated identification of the master station and optional/mandatory authentication of slaves.

Style

NEPs are written in clear technical English, with a deliberate preference for precise prose over marketing/vague language and an explicit distinction between normative requirements, rationale, examples, and open questions. RFC 2119 / BCP 14 keywords (MUST, SHOULD, MAY, …) carry their normative meaning when capitalized. The detailed style and required-sections rules live in NEP-0001.