Doctrine by DHH

Unite the nerds

There are amazing nerds everywhere. Cracked teenagers. Wise neckbeards. Obsessive people with jagged opinions and incredible talent. But we're spread across a thousand little fiefdoms, accomplishing a fraction of what we could together. Omarchy is a rallying cry to unite that talent behind a common goal: Make Linux win the desktop, as the prophecy foretold.

Hold the line

The original hacker cred was all about the code. It didn't care who you were, what your background was, or even if you were legally old enough to operate a three-node elite BBS out of your bedroom. It just cared about the work, the art, the dare. Omarchy is bringing that ethos back, and dropping the Code-of-Conduct struggle sessions and identity-overload nonsense that has plagued open source for far too long. We're done with all of it. Just be nice and sincere.

Have some fun

We're serious people, doing serious work, but if we can't laugh at ourselves and the delusional mission, it gets stuffy and stale real quick. We need fun, we need whimsy, we need cool for its own sake. The computer needs easter eggs, it needs silly games, it needs funny pun songs. Serious people have serious fun.

Beauty is truth

Great tools are beautiful because they're right. The best curve of the blade is also the elegant one, so let's nail the sharp lines of that TUI, get those corner radii right, and polish the CLIs. The colors should be coordinated. The padding should be just so. There's enough desaturated brutalism in this world already. Make it shine, make it wow, make it art.

Heritage is duty

The modern history of computers is barely a lifetime old, but its heritage is rich and deserves our respect. It's our duty to honor those who forged the path before us. From shipping basic vi fifty years after Bill Joy wrote the first version to dedicating a theme to von Neumann. We should be proud of how we got here and make our ancestors smile from retirement or above.

Command is service

Excellence is not born out of committee, and Omarchy is not a democracy. It's a benevolent dictatorship in the grand tradition of Linux, Ruby, and Rails. The dictator's job is to listen to everyone, but make the call according to their intuition, vision, and experience. Some calls will be wrong, and then they'll be reverted. Others will be delegated. But the buck will always have a place to stop.

Welcome the agents

The age of agents is the most important paradigm shift in computing since the microprocessor, and Omarchy is going to take full advantage. Agents are welcome everywhere. In the code, in the issues, in the pull requests, and in the infrastructure. We're going to lean all the way in, put the new intelligence to work all over, and together We Can Fix Everything!

Perfect the computer

There's no paper cut too small, no incompatibility too difficult, and no partnership that's out of reach. Omarchy's mission is nothing less than The Perfect Computer. That means the pursuit of excellence without justification. Everything should be faster, better, prettier. We can do all of it, at the same time, and be done before ASI.

Own the machine

The Perfect Computer may start as omakase, but it's ultimately yours. Fully and completely. No tollbooths, no gatekeepers, no platforms that can change the terms on you. Just free and open code that you can turn into whatever you desire. The malleable machine of the future is here today and it's yours to own.

You're somebody now

Omarchy is for everyone willing to learn and participate. From billionaires to anons on X. From staff engineers to script kiddies. From China to Malibu. Show up, fix something, or just spread the enthusiasm. You're somebody now.