IETF RFC

May 6, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Mode: ๐ŸŒ Public ยท Domain: datatracker.ietf.org

Fetch metadata for any IETF RFC by number โ€” title, abstract, publishing working group, authors, std level, page count, publish date, plus links into the RFC Editor and datatracker. Hits the unauthenticated IETF datatracker directly.

Commands

CommandDescription
opencli rfc rfc <number>Single IETF RFC metadata (title, abstract, working group, authors, std level)

Usage Examples

# Modern RFCs
opencli rfc rfc 9000     # QUIC
opencli rfc rfc 9110     # HTTP semantics

# Classic RFCs
opencli rfc rfc 791      # IP
opencli rfc rfc 2616     # HTTP/1.1 (now obsoleted by 9110)

# Courtesy: "rfcN" prefix accepted
opencli rfc rfc rfc9000

Output Columns

CommandColumns
rfcrfc, title, state, stdLevel, group, groupType, pages, published, authors, abstract, rfcEditorUrl, url

Options

rfc

OptionDescription
number (positional)RFC number (positive integer โ‰ค 999999). The rfc prefix is accepted as a courtesy.

Notes

  • abstract is the full IETF abstract โ€” RFCs don't truncate well, so the adapter never drops content.
  • stdLevel classifies the document (e.g. Proposed Standard, Internet Standard, Best Current Practice, Informational, Experimental, Historic).
  • group is the working group / area / IRTF research group that published the RFC; groupType distinguishes (e.g. WG, IETF).
  • rfcEditorUrl points at the canonical RFC Editor copy (text/HTML); url points at the IETF datatracker page (with rev history, related drafts, and stats).
  • No API key required. Datatracker is fast but bursts can return HTTP 429 โ†’ CommandExecutionError.
  • Errors. Non-numeric input or out-of-range RFC number โ†’ ArgumentError; unknown RFC โ†’ EmptyResultError; transport / non-200 โ†’ CommandExecutionError.