LiveTerm/docs/decisions/0001-miterm-redesign-decisions.org

ADR 0001 — MiTerm Redesign: Source, Pipeline, Topology, Minimalism

• Context
• Decision 1 — Canonical résumé source: one resume.org in the site repo
• Decision 2 — Build pipeline: standalone Node parser, no Emacs in CI
• Decision 3 — Repo topology: MiTerm canonical, github.io = build output
• Decision 4 — Minimalism scope
• Consequences

Status: accepted (2026-07-16) Deciders: Mihir Talati (navigator), agent (driver)

Bundled MADR-style record for the four load-bearing decisions that open the MiTerm redesign. Praxis references point at the canonical praxis graph (Emacs-Vault, refactor-v2 branch).

Context

MiTerm (the terminal résumé site) and its GitHub Pages deployment had drifted into two full, diverging Next.js apps, with résumé content duplicated between content.json (terminal) and a hand-written public/resume.html (plain page). CRT effects, a dead login overlay, and a per-second clock had accrued. Goal: return to a clean, minimal LiveTerm-like terminal usable by technical managers and non-technical recruiters, with a single, extensible authoring backend.

Decision 1 — Canonical résumé source: one resume.org in the site repo

Author the résumé as a single Org file, structured as org-roam nodes (one :ID: heading per item). It is the Single Source of Truth; resume.json is a generated, declared mirror consumed by both the terminal and the plain page.

• Alternatives: org-roam nodes inside the Emacs-Vault graph (rejected now: couples the public build to a private repo — deferred, see Consequences); keep editing content.json (rejected: no org authoring, weak SSOT).
• Praxis: Single Source of Truth; Homoiconicity / Text Is the System; Declared Mirrors.

Decision 2 — Build pipeline: standalone Node parser, no Emacs in CI

scripts/org-to-json.mjs parses resume.org → resume.json as a prebuild step. Flow is one-way; a --check canary (regenerate + diff) fails CI on drift.

• Alternatives: Emacs batch export (rejected: Emacs dependency in CI, slower); manual local export (rejected: mirror silently drifts).
• New Code Is a Liability: mature JS org parsers (orga, uniorg) were considered and rejected because the schema is small and self-owned — a dependency tree would be more liability than a ~120-line contract-first reader. Divergence from the consensus "use a library" default is deliberate and recorded here.
• Praxis: Contract-First Modules; Tangle Discipline; Mirrors and Canaries.

Decision 3 — Repo topology: MiTerm canonical, github.io = build output

MiTerm holds all source (app, resume.org, parser, config). The static export is published to Mihir-Null.github.io, which serves GitHub Pages (CNAME nullis.me) and holds build output only.

• Alternatives: github.io canonical, retire MiTerm (rejected: contradicts the "MiTerm deploys to github.io" model); keep both apps sharing JSON (rejected: maximum duplication).
• Consequence: cross-repo publish needs a deploy token/PAT secret — tracked as the one operational dependency, wired in the deploy phase.

Decision 4 — Minimalism scope

Remove: all CRT effects (barrel-distortion generator, crt command, warp/curve, CRT CSS); the dead .login-* overlay CSS; the per-second age/clock ticker (render once, statically). Reduce ls~/~sumfetch from boxed widgets to flat text — tree as the default listing — while keeping hover highlighting and clickable elements. Keep the joke and web-search commands (low cost, personality).

• Praxis: New Code Is a Liability (delete before adding); Atomicity.

Consequences

• resume.org Profile is the canonical home for name/contact facts; config.json's duplicate identity fields are slated for removal in the wiring phase so there is one home (SSOT). Until then the overlap is a declared, temporary mirror.
• Indexing resume.org into the Emacs-Vault org-roam graph later stays open via multi-directory org-roam or :ROAM_REFS: — no lock-in from Decision 1.