# ADR 000: Portable Core and Hardware Adapters

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/autonomic-satellite-swarm/adrs/000-portable-core-and-hardware-adapters
- Project: Autonomic Satellite Swarm (https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/autonomic-satellite-swarm.md)
- Status: Accepted
- Date: 2026-09-04

# Context

The original proof of concept intertwined Arduino APIs, infrared details, health checks, orbital
scoring, message ownership, and swarm state. That made the research hypothesis inseparable from the
three boards used to demonstrate it.

The original hardware is no longer available. The useful artifact is therefore the behavior and the
ability to test alternatives, not a frozen pin-level implementation.

# Decision

Keep the coordination library free of Arduino and operating-system dependencies. Place physical
integration behind three ports:

* a transport for semantic messages;
* a health monitor for platform-specific evidence; and
* a candidacy scorer for the research policy.

The core uses bounded storage, value semantics, explicit state, and caller-supplied monotonic time.
It must not allocate dynamically.

Maintain two reference adapters: Arduino Uno with infrared as the historical target, and ESP32 with
ESP-NOW as a modern benchtop target. Neither adapter defines the domain model.

# Consequences

The core can run in a deterministic host simulation and can accept future radios, sensors, or score
models. Hardware integration carries a small amount of adapter boilerplate. Platform-specific
features cannot leak into the core merely because one board makes them convenient.

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