About Stellar standards

Stellar has two standards tracks. This site is an unofficial reader for both, pulling specs from the stellar/stellar-protocol repository and live discussion from GitHub.

SEP

Ecosystem Proposals

Standards for how ecosystem services interoperate: anchors, wallets, federation, deposits, KYC. SEPs don't require protocol changes — they define shared conventions layered on top of Stellar.

Analogue: Ethereum's ERC series.

CAP

Core Advancement Proposals

Changes to the Stellar protocol itself: consensus, ledger semantics, operations, Soroban. CAPs are reviewed by the Core Advancement Group (CAG) and require an implementation in stellar-core.

Analogue: Ethereum's EIP Core track.

Lifecycle

  1. Idea is discussed on the mailing list or in an issue.
  2. Author opens a PR adding a new markdown file under ecosystem/ or core/.
  3. Iteration happens in the PR: comments, reviews, revisions.
  4. Once maintainers agree, the PR is merged as Draft.
  5. Further PRs update the spec toward acceptance or activation.
  6. Terminal states (Final, Active, Rejected, Superseded) freeze the document.

Status glossary

  • DraftSEP · CAP

    An early proposal open for iteration. Anyone can open a PR to refine it. Not yet suitable for implementation.

  • Awaiting DecisionCAP

    The author believes the proposal is ready. Core Advancement Group (for CAPs) or SEP maintainers begin formal review.

  • FCP / Final Comment PeriodCAP

    A short window during which the community can raise blocking concerns before acceptance.

  • AcceptedCAP

    CAP has been approved by the CAG for inclusion in a future protocol version. Implementation work follows.

  • ActiveSEP

    SEP is in use in production by real ecosystem actors. Changes require a new SEP or explicit revision.

  • FinalSEP · CAP

    Frozen and shipped. The spec is considered stable and complete.

  • ImplementedCAP

    CAP has landed in stellar-core and is available on the network.

  • SupersededSEP · CAP

    Replaced by a newer standard. Kept for historical reference; new work should target the replacement.

  • Withdrawn / RejectedSEP · CAP

    The author or reviewers decided not to proceed. The proposal is preserved for context.

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About this site

Unofficial, community-built. Spec text is vendored from the upstream repo so pages render instantly and remain readable offline. Discussion, PRs and issues are fetched live from the GitHub API. Data is also available via JSON, RSS, and sitemap.