Open equipment. Explicit operations. Evidence-driven qualification.

1. Hardware belongs to the node

The process closest to the equipment owns device sessions; GUIs and scripts are replaceable clients.

2. Native first, compatibility welcome

Direct SDK/protocol drivers are first-class, while INDI, ASCOM/Alpaca, LX200 and other ecosystems remain interoperability paths.

3. Capabilities before assumptions

Clients discover what devices can do instead of hard-coding vendor-name logic.

4. Astronomy actions are operations

Long-running actions have lifecycle, progress, locks, failure and cancellation semantics.

5. Recording is more important than preview

Scientific capture must not be throttled by GUI rendering or network congestion.

6. Remote is part of the architecture

Local GUI, remote GUI, scripts and third-party applications use the same node state.

7. Safety is explicit

Mechanical guards and operator sky-safety are separate from coordinate geometry.

8. Failure behaviour is part of the interface

Reconnect, cancel, dropped preview and device disappearance must be testable.

9. Evidence over confidence

Build, regression and HIL qualification are separate claims.

10. OpenAstroSuite is a reference client

The OAL protocol and driver surfaces must remain usable by independent applications.

11. Users own their data and workflow

Open formats and reproducible metadata are preferred.

12. Unattended operation is earned deliberately

Security, audit, weather/roof/power policy and durable recovery are 1.0 requirements, not Beta assumptions.

Canonical source: docs/MANIFESTO.md. Technical package history remains in PROJECT_MANIFEST.md.