What Is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)?

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

These can be submitted to enforce change by any Ethereum community member and include client APIs, core protocol standards, code changes and contract standards.

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.