README

# Welcome to DARF

🪐 **Legacy Notice:**  
This repo has been preserved as an archive of an earlier project, DARF. 

**DARF** (Distributed Android Render Farm) is a lightweight, controller-driven system designed to turn idle Android devices into a cooperative render mesh. It is not a product. It's a proposition:

> “What if your drawer full of forgotten phones could help you finish your next film?”

This is where we define that answer.

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## 🧠 What DARF Is
- A headless, thermal-safe render engine for Android
- A controller-first architecture that respects hardware boundaries
- A philosophy of repurposing—not replacing—technology
- A toolkit for animation pipelines, not a black box tool

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## 📁 What You'll Find Here

| File | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| [`ROADMAP.md`](../docs/ROADMAP.md) | DARF’s development phases and guiding scope |
| [`ARCHITECTURE.md`](../docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) | System overview: controller, node flow, file I/O |
| [`CURATOR.md`](../docs/CURATOR.md) | Project vision, contributor ethics, philosophical boundaries |
| [`RENDER_PAYLOAD_SPEC.md`](../docs/RENDER_PAYLOAD_SPEC.md) | Frame-layer definitions & packet schema _(coming soon)_ |
| [`NODE_BEHAVIOR.md`](../docs/NODE_BEHAVIOR.md) | What Android devices do when executing payloads _(coming soon)_ |
| [`SCATTER_POLICY.md`](../docs/SCATTER_POLICY.md) | Logic for distributing render work _(coming soon)_ |

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## 📦 Who It's For

- Indie animators rendering overnight  
- Developers turning Raspberry Pis into controller decks  
- Studios building micro-farms on a budget  
- Tinkerers turning e-waste into creative infrastructure  

If you're running Blender, Krita, or After Effects and you’ve got old phones with time to kill… DARF’s for you.

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## ✍️ How to Start

> “You don’t need a render farm. You need a controller and a plan.”

Start by reading [`docs/ROADMAP.md`](../docs/ROADMAP.md) and [`docs/ARCHITECTURE.md`](../docs/ARCHITECTURE.md). DARF doesn’t hide its workings—we build them in the open.

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DARF is slow by design. Low by necessity. Smart by intention.  
And frame by frame… it renders what others discard.