Fission

ADR 0005: Ghidra stays reference — Rust owns shipped semantics

Status: Accepted
Last verified: 2026-05-02

Context

Ghidra is an indispensable oracle for sleigh semantics and regression comparison, but importing its architecture wholesale conflicts with AGPL licensing clarity and Rust-first ownership goals.

Decision

Vendor Ghidra trees remain reference-only (vendor/MANIFEST.md); packaged Ghidra-derived data lives under utils/ghidra-data/ with explicit notices (THIRD_PARTY.md).

Production semantics ship from fission-sleigh + fission-pcode contracts, validated—not duplicated—from Ghidra behavior.

Consequences

• Algorithmic parity work cites Ghidra modules but implements invariant-driven Rust equivalents (vendor/ghidra/, vendor/retdec-5.0/ comparison allowed).
• Release bundles may optionally include helper resources (cd.yml hook); absence must remain documented.

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