IETF Last Call Review of draft-ietf-jose-hpke-encrypt-17
review-ietf-jose-hpke-encrypt-17-genart-lc-yee-2026-06-07-00

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Document: draft-ietf-jose-hpke-encrypt-17
Reviewer: Peter Yee
Review Date: 2026-06-07
IETF LC End Date: 2026-05-27
IESG Telechat date: Not scheduled for a telechat

Summary:

This draft is an adaptation of HPKE for use within JWE. It seems reasonably
clear and well structured. There's one minor issue I'm raising, but I'm going
to say that really the document is ready to go with some nits that could be
addressed, many of which are merely a matter of taste. While my review looks at
-17, I checked the diff and the changes found in -18 do not impact the content
of my review. Ready with nits.

Major issues: None

Minor issues:

Page 4, Key Management Mode definition: While the definition starts out as “A
method”, this isn’t really a method, despite RFC 7516 also defining the term
that way and this specification inheriting it. It’s a mode identifier that is
used as part of a method. I see it more as the value used in a switch statement
to select amongst the cases supported, with this draft adding Integrated
Encryption to the set of supported cases.

Nits/editorial comments:

Page 6, 4th bullet item: change “and” to “or”.

Page 9, section 6, 1st bullet item: change “a” to “an” unless “HPKE” really is
pronounced as a word. Hop-key?

Page 13, item 4: change “are” to “is”.

Page 13, item 12: append a comma after “algorithm”.

Page 15, section 7.2, item 1, 2nd sentence: consider changing the “and” after
“JWE AAD” to “along with”. The sentence is already too long a bound together
with many uses of “and” that have to be read carefully to determine which
adjectives apply to which nouns. You might also consider breaking the sentence
at the second “these components” for readability.

Page 16, item 7: append a comma after “Direct Encryption”.

Page 16, item 10, 1st sentence: change “are” to “is”.

Page 16, item 11: change “are” to “is”.

Page 19, section 10, 1st paragraph: append a comma after “HPKE”.

Page 19, section 10, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence: change “assumptions” to
“assumption”.

Page 20, section 11.1.1, 2nd bullet item: append a comma after “KDF”.

Page 23, section 11.1.9, 2nd bullet item: append a comma after “KDF”.