Watch cited sources in code

How to do it

Read the sources from the built rules, so the list never drifts. Fetch each address as Check the links you send people to says. Ask each standards body's own data whether a document was replaced. The RFC Editor lists the RFCs that obsolete each RFC in a JSON file per RFC. Leave out "updated by", because most updates leave the cited text valid. Name every rule that cites the source in the alert, so the fix needs no search. Never rely on people rereading sources on a schedule, because nobody does.

Examples

Using these examples: they show one way to follow this rule. Keep the behaviour and the check, not the syntax. Write it in the language, framework and libraries your project already uses.

JavaScript example

// Which RFCs replaced this one, from the RFC Editor's metadata
const replacedBy = async number => {
  const meta = await (await fetch(`https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc${number}.json`)).json();
  return meta.obsoleted_by.filter(Boolean);
};

Python example

import json
import urllib.request

def replaced_by(number: int) -> list[str]:
    url = f"https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc{number}.json"
    meta = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))
    return [rfc for rfc in meta["obsoleted_by"] if rfc]

How to check

Cite RFC 7231 in one rule. The next run alerts that RFC 9110 replaced it and names that rule.

Sources

• RFC 9110 HTTP Semantics, which obsoletes RFC 7231

Related rules

• Cite the primary source for every rule in Engineering
• Check the links you send people to in Website
• Let an agent reread rules whose sources changed in Engineering