Design principles

liel is built around a small set of clear product principles.

• One file, any place.
• No server, no waiting.
• Minimal dependencies, simple environments.
• Start small, stay local.
• Review-friendly: diff, merge, manifests, and signatures let teams treat agent memory like code.

These principles explain why liel favors embeddability, portability, and a narrow core over operational scale or server-style features.

For system structure, see Architecture overview.
For non-goals and constraints, see Product trade-offs.