EDK II Code First Process

The EDK II Code First Process is a process by which new features can be added to UEFI Forum specifications after first having been designed and prototyped in the open.

This process lets changes and the development of new features happen in the open, without violating the UEFI forum bylaws which prevent publication of code for in-draft features/changes.

The process does not in fact change the UEFI bylaws - the change is that the development (of both specification and code) happens in the open. The resulting specification update is then submitted to the appropriate working group as an Engineering Change Request (ECR), and voted on. For the UEFI Forum, this is a change in workflow, not a change in process.

ECRs are tracked in a UEFI Forum Mantis instance, access restricted to UEFI Forum Members. TianoCore enables this new process by providing areas on TianoCore Bugzilla to track both specification updates and reference implementations and new repositories under TianoCore GitHub dedicated to hold "code first".

TianoCore Bugzilla

TianoCore Bugzilla has product categories for

• ACPI Specification
• UEFI Shell Specification
• UEFI Platform Initialization Distribution Packaging Specification
• UEFI Platform Initialization Specification Specification
• UEFI Specification

Each product category has separate components for

• Specification
• Reference implementation

TianoCore GitHub

Reference implementations targeting the EDK II open source project are held in branches in the edk2-staging repository.

Additional repositories for implementing reference features in additional open source projects can be added in the future, as required.

Specification text changes are held within the affected source repository, using the GitHub flavor of markdown, in a file (or split across several files) with .md suffix. Multiple files are required if changes impact multiple specifications or if the specification is large and is easier to maintain if the changes are split across multiple files.

• NOTE: This one may break down where we have a specification change affecting multiple specifications, but at that point we can track it with multiple TianoCore Bugzilla entries.

Specification Text Template

The following is a template of specification text changes using the GitHub flavor of markdown. The title and complete description of the specification changes must be provided in the specification text along with the name and version of the specification the change applies. The Status of the specification change always starts in the Draft state and is updated based on feedback from the industry standard forums. The contents of the specification text are required to use the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license using a SPDX-License-Identifier statement.

# Title: [Must be Filled In]

# Status: [Status]

[Status] must be one of the following:
* Draft
* Submitted to industry standard forum
* Accepted by industry standard forum
* Accepted by industry standard forum with modifications
* Rejected by industry standard forum

# Document: [Title and Version]

Here are some examples of [Title and Version]:
* UEFI Specification Version 2.8
* ACPI Specification Version 6.3
* UEFI Shell Specification Version 2.2
* UEFI Platform Initialization Specification Version 1.7
* UEFI Platform Initialization Distribution Packaging Specification Version 1.1

# License

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0

# Submitter: [TianoCore Community](https://www.tianocore.org)

# Summary of the change

Required Section

# Benefits of the change

Required Section

# Impact of the change

Required Section

# Detailed description of the change [normative updates]

Required Section

# Special Instructions

Optional Section

Intended workflow

The entity initiating a specification change enters a Bugzilla in the appropriate area of TianoCore Bugzilla. This entry contains the outline of the change, and the full initial draft text is attached.

If multiple specification updates are interdependent, especially if between different specifications, then multiple Bugzilla entries should be created. These Bugzilla entries must be linked together with dependencies.

After the Bugzillas have been created, new branches should be created in the relevant repositories for each Bugzilla. The branch names must use the following format where #### is the Bugzilla ID and is an optional description of the change.

BZ####-<Brief Description>

If multiple Bugzilla entries must coexist on a single branch, one of them is designated the top-level, with dependencies properly tracked. That Bugzilla is be the one naming the branch.

Source Code

In order to ensure draft code does not accidentally leak into production use, and to signify when the changeover from draft to final happens, all new or modified[1] identifiers must be prefixed with the relevant BZ#### identifiers.

• [1] Modified in a non-backwards-compatible way. If, for example, a statically sized array is grown - this does not need to be prefixed. But a tag in a comment would be highly recommended.

File names

New public header files require the prefix (i.e. Bz1234MyNewProtocol.h). Private header files do not need the prefix.

Contents

The tagging must follow the coding style used by each affected code base. Examples:

Released in spec	Draft version in tree	Comment
FunctionName	Bz1234FunctionName
HEADER_MACRO	BZ1234_HEADER_MACRO

For data structures or enums, any new or non-backwards-compatible structs or fields require a prefix. As above, growing an existing array in an existing struct requires no prefix.

Released in spec	Draft version in tree	Comment
typedef SOME_STRUCT	BZ1234_SOME_STRUCT	Typedef only [2]
StructField	Bz1234StructField	In existing struct[3]
typedef SOME_ENUM	BZ1234_SOME_ENUM	Typedef only [2]
EnumValue	Bz1234EnumValue	In existing enum[3]

• [2] If the struct or enum definition is separate from the typedef in the public header, the definition does not need the prefix.
• [3] Individual fields in newly added struct or enum do not need prefix, the struct or enum already carried the prefix.

Variable prefixes indicating global scope ('g' or 'm') go before the BZ prefix.

Released in spec	Draft version in tree	Comment
gSomeGuid	gBz1234SomeGuid

Local identifiers, including module-global ones (m-prefixed) do not require a BZ prefix.