ADR 002: Versioned process contracts

Status: Accepted

Cross-process values and protocols are owned by the EasyBarShared target. That includes resolved runtime configuration, environment keys, socket resolution, typed requests and responses, and the internal IPC protocol version.

The contract is intentionally public to EasyBar-owned executables while remaining an internal product boundary, not a third-party stability promise. A compatible change may add an optional field or command. A breaking wire or semantic change must increment the IPC protocol version and update both sides of the boundary in the same release.

Frontend repositories consume these contracts rather than recreating their own configuration or socket parsers. Their tests should assert the frontend profile and the shared contract values they rely on.