ADR-000: VICHARA Platform and Privacy Boundaries

Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-10-16
Decision owners: VICHARA maintainers
References: Master Specification sections 1, 4, 5, 10, and 12; roadmap phase P0

Context

VICHARA needs a small, verifiable foundation before content contracts and discovery features are implemented. The master specification calls for a static, Git-backed knowledge site and explicitly excludes a production backend and database from the MVP.

Decisions

Use Astro with strict TypeScript for static site generation.
Use npm and commit package-lock.json for reproducible dependency installs.
Require Node.js 22.22 or newer. The initial Astro version requires Node 22.22 or newer; CI uses the Node 22 release line.
Keep source content and product documentation in Git. Do not add runtime APIs, a database, authentication, or external analytics to the MVP.
Treat publication visibility as a build-time security boundary. Draft or private material must never enter public pages or generated assets.
Add validation-only CI. Deployment is intentionally deferred until the master specification’s release gates are met.

Consequences

Astro, TypeScript, ESLint, and Vitest form the initial validation surface in website/.
Search, content schemas, public-only compilation, graph generation, and deployment remain future backlog work; this bootstrap does not claim them.
Any change to framework, runtime services, publication semantics, or deployment strategy requires a follow-up ADR.

Verification

The bootstrap is accepted only when dependency installation, Astro/TypeScript checks, lint, unit tests, and a production build pass locally and in CI.