Code change:
Based on the acme mailing list discussion[0] on "proactive" vs "on-finalization" issuance it seems there is more support for the proactive approach. Speaking on behalf of Let's Encrypt and the Boulder developers we're willing to compromise and support proactive issuance as the sole issuance method in order to simplify the protocol & implementations. This PR changes the language around certificate issuance to reflect that the server MUST issue the certificate proactively once all the required challenges for an application have been fulfilled. The open issue corresponding to making this decision is removed now that there is one supported option. In an effort to close out open questions around applications this commit also removes the open issue around multiple certificates per application. If there is a demand for automating repeat issuance there should be a new thread started with a concrete proposal. 0: URL
NAME apologies! I missed your comments until today. Both are resolved in URL Thank you for the feedback.
Oh! They were fresh and I misread the dates. Not such a bad turn around after all :-)
NAME Fantastic, thanks. Merging. Hi folks, I wanted to revisit a discussion on the server proactively issuing certificates. Section 4, "Protocol Overview"[0] currently has a paragraph that reads: the the application be to the There is also an "Open Issue" remark related to proactive issuance in Section [1]. I think the specification should decide whether proactive issuance or on-finalization issuance should be used instead of allowing both with no indication to the client which will happen. It's the preference of Let's Encrypt that the specification only support on-finalization issuance. This is cheaper to implement and seems to be the path of least surprise. It also seems to better support large volume issuance when the client may want explicit control over when the certificates for multiple applications are issued. In the earlier "Re: [Acme] Preconditions" thread[2] Andrew Ayer seems to agree that there should be only one issuance method to simplify client behaviours, though he favours proactive issuance instead of on-finalization issuance. While it saves a round-trip message I'm not sure that this alone is convincing enough to choose proactive issuance as the one issuance method. What are the thoughts of other list members? Daniel/cpu [0] URL [1] URL [2] URL

Related discussion:
text: then the server SHOULD change the status of the application to "invalid" and MAY delete the application resource. <del> The server SHOULD issue the requested certificate and update the </del> <ins> The server MUST issue the requested certificate and update the </ins> application resource with a URL for the certificate as soon as the client has fulfilled the server's requirements.  If the client has already satisfied the server's requirements at the time of this request (e.g., by obtaining authorization for all of the identifiers <del> in the certificate in previous transactions), then the server MAY </del> <ins> in the certificate in previous transactions), then the server MUST </ins> proactively issue the requested certificate and provide a URL for it in the "certificate" field of the application.  The server MUST, however, still list the satisfied requirements in the "requirements"