ADR-0005 — Third-party libraries behind adapters

Status: accepted · Date: 2026-09

Context

Mature libraries such as The Sleuth Kit and libewf cover formats PHOINIX does not yet implement, but they carry their own licences, stability caveats and data models.

Decision

External libraries are integrated only through adapter crates (adapters/phoinix-tsk, adapters/phoinix-libewf, …) that translate library output into PHOINIX types. Core crates never depend on an adapter, and PHOINIX must remain functional when an adapter is removed. TestDisk/PhotoRec are treated as prior art and comparison tools, never linked in.

Consequences

• Licensing of the PHOINIX-owned crates stays MIT OR Apache-2.0.
• A dependency-by-dependency licence review is required before shipping any binary that contains an adapter.
• Adapter crates are the only place besides phoinix-device where unsafe FFI is permitted.