List Pagination for YANG-driven Protocols
draft-ietf-netconf-list-pagination-13

# Document Shepherd Write-Up for Group Documents

*This version is dated 4 July 2022.*

Thank you for your service as a document shepherd. Among the responsibilities is
answering the questions in this write-up to give helpful context to Last Call
and Internet Engineering Steering Group ([IESG][1]) reviewers, and your
diligence in completing it is appreciated. The full role of the shepherd is
further described in [RFC 4858][2]. You will need the cooperation of the authors
and editors to complete these checks.

Note that some numbered items contain multiple related questions; please be sure
to answer all of them.

## Document History

1. Does the working group (WG) consensus represent the strong concurrence of a
  few individuals, with others being silent, or did it reach broad agreement?

The document has achieved broad consensus within the NETCONF Working Group. Because pagination directly resolves scalability limits in multi-vendor networks when querying heavy, real-time configuration arrays or operational tables, the work was tracked and thoroughly discussed by key network operators, architects, and implementers over multiple iteration milestones.

2. Was there controversy about particular points, or were there decisions where
  the consensus was particularly rough?

No. The document did not encounter rough consensus or major controversies.

3. Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If
  so, please summarize the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the
  responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this
  questionnaire is publicly available.)

No. No appeals have been threatened, and no individuals have expressed extreme discontent.

4. For protocol documents, are there existing implementations of the contents of
  the document? Have a significant number of potential implementers indicated
  plans to implement? Are any existing implementations reported somewhere,
  either in the document itself (as [RFC 7942][3] recommends) or elsewhere
  (where)?

Yes. Multiple independent implementations have driven the validation of this draft:
CLIXON
SZTPD
Co-authors from the Tail-f/Cisco side have actively cross-verified the schema definitions against commercial platforms to ensure compatibility with existing proprietary paging mechanisms. The working group has also openly invited additional implementation prototypes (such as YumaPro) to continue expanding operational coverage.

## Additional Reviews

5. Do the contents of this document closely interact with technologies in other
  IETF working groups or external organizations, and would it therefore benefit
  from their review? Have those reviews occurred? If yes, describe which
  reviews took place.

Yes. Because this draft defines a generic, protocol-agnostic framework for list pagination (ietf-list-pagination), it establishes a reusable design pattern that interacts closely with the core data-modeling paradigms governed by the NETMOD Working Group. It also updates base protocol expectations for RESTCONF (RFC 8040) and NETCONF (RFC 6241).To ensure broad cross-functional alignment and quality review across the Ops and Management area:YANG Doctors Review: Formal expert reviews were conducted by Ladislav Lhotka to ensure complete alignment with YANG 1.1 (RFC 7950) design patterns and strict compliance with the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA / RFC 8342).  OPSDIR Review: An early Operations Directorate review was completed by Jen Linkova, ensuring that the operational impacts of paged data transport on network nodes were thoroughly addressed.  Due to these reviews and the overlapping participation between the NETCONF and NETMOD communities, no further external working group interventions were required.

6. Describe how the document meets any required formal expert review criteria,
  such as the MIB Doctor, YANG Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

The document has successfully cleared its required directorate reviews:

YANG Doctors Review: Completed by Ladislav Lhotka. His feedback on YANG 1.1 formatting and strict NMDA (RFC 8342) compliance was fully integrated by the authors.

OPSDIR Review: Early reviews were performed across the entire suite. The core framework was marked "Ready" by Jen Linkova.

7. If the document contains a YANG module, has the final version of the module
  been checked with any of the [recommended validation tools][4] for syntax and
  formatting validation? If there are any resulting errors or warnings, what is
  the justification for not fixing them at this time? Does the YANG module
  comply with the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA) as specified
  in [RFC 8342][5]?

Yes. The ietf-list-pagination module has been comprehensively validated using pyang and compiler tools on the IETF Datatracker. It compiles clean without blocking structural errors. The module is strictly designed to be NMDA-compliant, seamlessly augmenting operational and configuration data-stores via the standard ietf-system-capabilities structural layout.

8. Describe reviews and automated checks performed to validate sections of the
  final version of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code,
  BNF rules, MIB definitions, CBOR's CDDL, etc.

The draft includes XML/JSON payload examples outlining paginated outputs, directional offsets, and sorting filtering criteria. These structural snippets have been manually and programmatically reviewed against standard JSON/XML representations to verify format integrity.

## Document Shepherd Checks

9. Based on the shepherd's review of the document, is it their opinion that this
  document is needed, clearly written, complete, correctly designed, and ready
  to be handed off to the responsible Area Director?

Yes. The document fills a long-standing operational void in production networks, efficiently splitting large configuration responses (e.g., millions of active BGP routes or massive ACL sets) that could cause buffer fatigue or transport drops. The text is precise, highly mature, and ready for publication.

10. Several IETF Areas have assembled [lists of common issues that their
    reviewers encounter][6]. For which areas have such issues been identified
    and addressed? For which does this still need to happen in subsequent
    reviews?

No issues identified.

11. What type of RFC publication is being requested on the IETF stream ([Best
    Current Practice][12], [Proposed Standard, Internet Standard][13],
    [Informational, Experimental or Historic][14])? Why is this the proper type
    of RFC? Do all Datatracker state attributes correctly reflect this intent?

Proposed Standard. This defines explicit protocol capabilities and structural extensions that must be identically executed by interoperable implementations across vendors. The Datatracker properties correctly mirror this status.

12. Have reasonable efforts been made to remind all authors of the intellectual
    property rights (IPR) disclosure obligations described in [BCP 79][7]? To
    the best of your knowledge, have all required disclosures been filed? If
    not, explain why. If yes, summarize any relevant discussion, including links
    to publicly-available messages when applicable.

Yes. The authors have been systematically reminded of their BCP 79 obligations during standard call phases. To the best of the shepherd's knowledge, no third-party or direct IPR claims have been filed against the structural models in this draft.

13. Has each author, editor, and contributor shown their willingness to be
    listed as such? If the total number of authors and editors on the front page
    is greater than five, please provide a justification.

Yes, all participants have affirmed their status. The document lists exactly five standard authors (Kent Watsen, Qin Wu, Per Andersson, Olof Hagsand, and Hongwei Li), completely matching the front-page guidelines.

14. Document any remaining I-D nits in this document. Simply running the [idnits
    tool][8] is not enough; please review the ["Content Guidelines" on
    authors.ietf.org][15]. (Also note that the current idnits tool generates
    some incorrect warnings; a rewrite is underway.)

Found 'MUST not' in section 3.1.5. Otherwise there are no issues.

15. Should any informative references be normative or vice-versa? See the [IESG
    Statement on Normative and Informative References][16].

The references are split properly. Baseline protocol mechanics (RFC 6241, RFC 8040, RFC 7950, and RFC 8342) are correctly targeted as Normative whereas peripheral application layers remain Informative.

16. List any normative references that are not freely available to anyone. Did
    the community have sufficient access to review any such normative
    references?

None. All normative dependencies are publicly accessible, open-standard RFC files.

17. Are there any normative downward references (see [RFC 3967][9] and [BCP
    97][10]) that are not already listed in the [DOWNREF registry][17]? If so,
    list them.

No downward references are present in this document.

18. Are there normative references to documents that are not ready to be
    submitted to the IESG for publication or are otherwise in an unclear state?
    If so, what is the plan for their completion?

No. All normative reference citations point to fully finalized, published standard RFCs.


19. Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs? If
    so, does the Datatracker metadata correctly reflect this and are those RFCs
    listed on the title page, in the abstract, and discussed in the
    introduction? If not, explain why and point to the part of the document
    where the relationship of this document to these other RFCs is discussed.

No. It creates independent, elective capabilities that enhance operational protocol implementations without changing, deprecating, or rewriting the underlying text of existing standards.

20. Describe the document shepherd's review of the IANA considerations section,
    especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the document.
    Confirm that all aspects of the document requiring IANA assignments are
    associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm
    that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm
    that each newly created IANA registry specifies its initial contents,
    allocations procedures, and a reasonable name (see [RFC 8126][11]).

The IANA section is clean and directly synchronized with the text. It accurately asks for standard namespace registrations within the IETF XML Registry (via explicit URIs) and entries into the YANG Module Names Registry for ietf-list-pagination.

21. List any new IANA registries that require Designated Expert Review for
    future allocations. Are the instructions to the Designated Expert clear?
    Please include suggestions of designated experts, if appropriate.

None. The module maps cleanly into preexisting registries governed by standard IETF YANG maintenance procedures, avoiding the need to spin up a standalone new registry.

[1]: https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/
[2]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4858.html
[3]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7942.html
[4]: https://wiki.ietf.org/group/ops/yang-review-tools
[5]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8342.html
[6]: https://wiki.ietf.org/group/iesg/ExpertTopics
[7]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp79
[8]: https://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/
[9]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3967.html
[10]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp97
[11]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126.html
[12]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026.html#section-5
[13]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026.html#section-4.1
[14]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026.html#section-4.2
[15]: https://authors.ietf.org/en/content-guidelines-overview
[16]: https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/normative-informative-references/
[17]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/downref/