Aspects relate to managing a device-to-device communication link via radio resource control (RRC) layer signaling. In an example operation, a first wireless communication device establishes a unicast link with a second wireless communication device over a device-to-device communication interface and determines that the unicast link is to be reconfigured with at least one updated parameter. The first wireless communication device then sends a link reconfiguration request to the second wireless communication device via a first RRC message over the communication interface. The first RRC message includes the at least one updated parameter. The first wireless communication device receives a link reconfiguration response from the second wireless communication device via a second RRC message over the communication interface based on the link reconfiguration request and determines whether to reconfigure the unicast link using the at least one updated parameter based on the received link reconfiguration response.