[TLS] Document Action: 'ML-KEM Post-Quantum Key Agreement for TLS 1.3' to Informational RFC (draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-10.txt)

The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org> Thu, 03 September 2026 16:12 UTC

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From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
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Message-ID: <178845196906.700896.5996777892126127146@dt-datatracker-6669c7b496-s9mrn>
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2026 09:12:49 -0700
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CC: The IESG <iesg@ietf.org>, draft-ietf-tls-mlkem@ietf.org, rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org, tls-chairs@ietf.org, tls@ietf.org
Subject: [TLS] Document Action: 'ML-KEM Post-Quantum Key Agreement for TLS 1.3' to Informational RFC (draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-10.txt)
Archived-At: <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/Ik2HfJ3KswO-R4FXRI2aJZ2m1Zg>

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'ML-KEM Post-Quantum Key Agreement for TLS 1.3'
  (draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-10.txt) as Informational RFC

This document is the product of the Transport Layer Security Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Christopher Inacio and Deb Cooley.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-mlkem/




Technical Summary

   This memo defines ML-KEM-512, ML-KEM-768, and ML-KEM-1024 as
   NamedGroups and registers IANA values in the TLS Supported Groups
   registry for use in TLS 1.3 to achieve post-quantum (PQ) key
   establishment.

Working Group Summary

The consensus for this document was built over 3 WGLCs.  Over time changes 
were made to this document and other documents, liaison statements from other 
SDOs were received which helped to shift the consensus to publication. 

It is worth noting that the consensus was rough
because there were many new participants who joined the discussion during the
WGLC, due to extensive social media activation of the last call. The chairs
focused their consensus judgement on people that participated in TLS prior to
the last WGLC.

Document Quality

 Standalone ML-KEM is already widely implemented: 

OpenSSL (512/768/1024), AWS-LC (512/768/1024), Bouncy Castle (512/768/1024),
Botan (512/768/1024), wolfSSL (512/768/1024), Rustls (768/1024), GnuTLS
(768/1024), BoringSSL (1024), s2n-tls (1024)

In nearly all of these the pure ML-KEM groups are not enabled by default
(hybrid X25519MLKEM768 is the default); enabling standalone requires an
explicit choice. The hybrid version is negotiated at scale in browsers and 
server stacks.  

The document defines no MIB module, no YANG module, no media type,
and no URI scheme.

The IETF stream is Informational. This is appropriate because the WG has explicitly
declined to recommend standalone ML-KEM for general use (Recommended: N) while
still wishing to document the already-registered, already-implemented code
points.

Personnel

   The Document Shepherd for this document is Joseph A. Salowey. The
   Responsible Area Director is Deb Cooley.

[TLS] Document Action: 'ML-KEM Post-Quantum Key A… The IESG