Agreed, the happy path is that code implements a spec that has already been agreed upon, anything less means guess work for both the authors and reviewers of co

Agreed, the happy path is that code implements a spec that has already been agreed upon, anything less means guess work for both the authors and reviewers of code. Life is about compromise so this doesn't have to be true 100% of the time, but this should be in your team's list of core competencies. Also RFC doesn't HAVE to mean big pedantically formatted and worded monospace document. Templates help make sure common mistakes aren't repeated, but using normal-person English and easy to understand code examples can be very effective.