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

[rust-lightning] / CONTRIBUTING.md

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 9ddd792b238c57dae399b19d0d1a7abf86e12181..189f2b8777920a8a762869b456a4b6c60489fcc5 100644 (file)
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -113,6 +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
 --------