Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)

What Is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)?

Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) is a document used to describe standards for the Ethereum community. 

There are a number of different types of EIPs. 

The Standard Track: These are changes that impact all or most Ethereum implementations including changes to the network protocol. 

Core: These changes require a consensus fork. They can often include discussions involving non-core development changes. 

Networking: This includes improvements to network protocol specifications such as the devp2p (EIP8) and the Ethereum Subprotocol. 

Interface: This includes improvements in client standards and specifications including API/RPC standards and specifications. 

ERC: These refer to application-level standards and conventions and include name registries and token standards.

Meta: These processes change requests and operate similar to a Standard Track EIPs but apply to parts other than the Ethereum protocol. 

Informational: This provides guidelines in designing Ethereum. Users and implementers can ignore informational EIPs as they don’t necessarily reflect an Ethereum community recommendation. 

A number of other processes are involved to decide whether to include the changes once an EIP is submitted. 

These include:

Draft: An EIP that is openly being considered. 

Last Call: An EIP that has undergone initial consideration and is ready for review. 

Final (Non-core): An EIP that is in last call for a minimum of two weeks and all technical concerns that have been raised have been dealt with. 

Final (Core): An EIP that Core devs approve or intend to implement in future in hard fork. 

Deferred: An EIP that will not be immediately adopted but is being considered for later adoption.