# Write a technical design doc (RFC) reviewers can approve

Turns a rough technical plan into a structured RFC with alternatives, risks, and open questions reviewers can sign off on.

- Topic: Software Development
- Framework: RTF
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Write, Analyze, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/write-a-technical-design-doc-rfc-reviewers-can-approve

## Prompt

```text
Help me write a technical design doc (RFC) for a change I want to make.

**Problem and why now:** [WHAT IS BROKEN OR MISSING, WHO IS AFFECTED, WHAT HAPPENS IF WE WAIT]
**My proposed approach:** [ROUGH NOTES, DIAGRAM DESCRIPTION, OR CODE SKETCH]
**Current system:** [RELEVANT SERVICES, DATA STORES, AND CONSTRAINTS]
**Alternatives I considered:** [OPTIONS - or "none yet"]
**Reviewers:** [e.g. "staff engineers, security, the payments team"]
**Non-negotiables:** [LATENCY, COST, COMPLIANCE, DEADLINE]

Structure the doc as:
1. Summary (5 sentences max: problem, proposal, impact, cost, decision needed).
2. Goals and explicit non-goals.
3. Proposed design: components, data flow, API or schema changes, and failure behavior.
4. Alternatives considered, each with why it lost. If I gave none, propose 2 credible ones, including "do nothing."
5. Risks and mitigations: data loss, backward compatibility, security, performance, operational load.
6. Rollout and rollback plan, including migrations and feature flags.
7. Testing and observability: how we'll know it works in production.
8. Open questions, each with an owner placeholder.

Rules:
- Do not invent numbers (traffic, latency, cost). Use [ADD METRIC] where data is needed.
- Flag any part of my approach that looks under-specified or risky, in a separate "Reviewer concerns to pre-empt" list.
- Keep it scannable: headings, short paragraphs, tables for comparisons. Aim for 2-4 pages.
```

## What to fill in

- ROUGH NOTES, DIAGRAM DESCRIPTION, OR CODE SKETCH
- RELEVANT SERVICES, DATA STORES, AND CONSTRAINTS
- OPTIONS - or "none yet"
- e.g. "staff engineers, security, the payments team"
- LATENCY, COST, COMPLIANCE, DEADLINE
- ADD METRIC

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