Introduction

Welcome to the Protobuf Guide. In the long term, the goal for this site is to be your one-stop-shop for all things Protocol Buffers. Expect to see reference guides, best practices, common patterns and recipes, how-tos, and deep dives into various topics (custom code generation with plugins, the well-known types, and more). We'll include some bits about the history of Protocol Buffers and Protobuf-based RPC as well.

Today, the content of the site begins with the most foundational of reference information for a language: its specification. This content aims to accurately describe all elements of the Protobuf language and the expected behavior of a Protobuf compiler. This language specification is the only accurate and complete language specification for Protobuf, and it is meant to help foster a stronger Protobuf ecosystem. We hope this aids the community of Protobuf users, as well as other toolmakers.