diff --git a/tfdiags/diagnostics.go b/tfdiags/diagnostics.go
index 23c92fa8b..354285784 100644
--- a/tfdiags/diagnostics.go
+++ b/tfdiags/diagnostics.go
@@ -102,6 +102,24 @@ func (diags Diagnostics) HasErrors() bool {
 	return false
 }
 
+// ForRPC returns a version of the receiver that has been simplified so that
+// it is friendly to RPC protocols.
+//
+// Currently this means that it can be serialized with encoding/gob and
+// subsequently re-inflated. It may later grow to include other serialization
+// formats.
+//
+// Note that this loses information about the original objects used to
+// construct the diagnostics, so e.g. the errwrap API will not work as
+// expected on an error-wrapped Diagnostics that came from ForRPC.
+func (diags Diagnostics) ForRPC() Diagnostics {
+	ret := make(Diagnostics, len(diags))
+	for i := range diags {
+		ret[i] = makeRPCFriendlyDiag(diags[i])
+	}
+	return ret
+}
+
 // Err flattens a diagnostics list into a single Go error, or to nil
 // if the diagnostics list does not include any error-level diagnostics.
 //
diff --git a/tfdiags/rpc_friendly.go b/tfdiags/rpc_friendly.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6cc95cc2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tfdiags/rpc_friendly.go
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+package tfdiags
+
+import (
+	"encoding/gob"
+)
+
+type rpcFriendlyDiag struct {
+	Severity_ Severity
+	Summary_  string
+	Detail_   string
+	Subject_  *SourceRange
+	Context_  *SourceRange
+}
+
+// rpcFriendlyDiag transforms a given diagnostic so that is more friendly to
+// RPC.
+//
+// In particular, it currently returns an object that can be serialized and
+// later re-inflated using gob. This definition may grow to include other
+// serializations later.
+func makeRPCFriendlyDiag(diag Diagnostic) Diagnostic {
+	desc := diag.Description()
+	source := diag.Source()
+	return &rpcFriendlyDiag{
+		Severity_: diag.Severity(),
+		Summary_:  desc.Summary,
+		Detail_:   desc.Detail,
+		Subject_:  source.Subject,
+		Context_:  source.Context,
+	}
+}
+
+func (d *rpcFriendlyDiag) Severity() Severity {
+	return d.Severity_
+}
+
+func (d *rpcFriendlyDiag) Description() Description {
+	return Description{
+		Summary: d.Summary_,
+		Detail:  d.Detail_,
+	}
+}
+
+func (d *rpcFriendlyDiag) Source() Source {
+	return Source{
+		Subject: d.Subject_,
+		Context: d.Context_,
+	}
+}
+
+func init() {
+	gob.Register((*rpcFriendlyDiag)(nil))
+}
diff --git a/tfdiags/rpc_friendly_test.go b/tfdiags/rpc_friendly_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ff60590db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tfdiags/rpc_friendly_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+package tfdiags
+
+import (
+	"bytes"
+	"encoding/gob"
+	"fmt"
+	"reflect"
+	"testing"
+
+	"github.com/davecgh/go-spew/spew"
+
+	"github.com/hashicorp/hcl2/hcl"
+)
+
+func TestDiagnosticsForRPC(t *testing.T) {
+	var diags Diagnostics
+	diags = diags.Append(fmt.Errorf("bad"))
+	diags = diags.Append(SimpleWarning("less bad"))
+	diags = diags.Append(&hcl.Diagnostic{
+		Severity: hcl.DiagError,
+		Summary:  "bad bad bad",
+		Detail:   "badily bad bad",
+		Subject: &hcl.Range{
+			Filename: "foo",
+		},
+		Context: &hcl.Range{
+			Filename: "bar",
+		},
+	})
+
+	buf := bytes.Buffer{}
+	enc := gob.NewEncoder(&buf)
+	dec := gob.NewDecoder(&buf)
+
+	rpcDiags := diags.ForRPC()
+	err := enc.Encode(rpcDiags)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("error on Encode: %s", err)
+	}
+
+	var got Diagnostics
+	err = dec.Decode(&got)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("error on Decode: %s", err)
+	}
+
+	want := Diagnostics{
+		&rpcFriendlyDiag{
+			Severity_: Error,
+			Summary_:  "bad",
+		},
+		&rpcFriendlyDiag{
+			Severity_: Warning,
+			Summary_:  "less bad",
+		},
+		&rpcFriendlyDiag{
+			Severity_: Error,
+			Summary_:  "bad bad bad",
+			Detail_:   "badily bad bad",
+			Subject_: &SourceRange{
+				Filename: "foo",
+			},
+			Context_: &SourceRange{
+				Filename: "bar",
+			},
+		},
+	}
+
+	if !reflect.DeepEqual(got, want) {
+		t.Errorf("wrong result\ngot: %swant: %s", spew.Sdump(got), spew.Sdump(want))
+	}
+}