Add note in CONTRIBUTING.md that some structs need prefix/suffixes

[rust-lightning] / CONTRIBUTING.md

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 186ae274fdacfcb165e7c0a9227f2837e12778c8..189f2b8777920a8a762869b456a4b6c60489fcc5 100644 (file)
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -75,8 +75,7 @@ be covered by functional tests.
 When refactoring, structure your PR to make it easy to review and don't
 hestitate to split it into multiple small, focused PRs.
 
-The Minimal Supported Rust Version is 1.30.0 (enforced by our Travis and
-GitHub Actions).
+The Minimal Supported Rust Version is 1.36.0 (enforced by our GitHub Actions).
 
 Commits should cover both the issue fixed and the solution's rationale.
 These [guidelines](https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/) should be kept in mind.
@@ -114,6 +113,13 @@ rustup component add clippy
 cargo clippy
 ```
 
+Significant structures which users serialize and store should generally always be prefixed with
+`write_ver_prefix!()`/`read_ver_prefix!()` calls, and suffixed with
+`write_tlv_fields!()`/`read_tlv_fields!()` calls.
+
+Updates to the serialized format which has implications for backwards or forwards compatibility
+must be included in release notes.
+
 Security
 --------