Focus the personal workbench on software and environment readiness

Date: 2026-10-09. Status: user-defined product direction; the roadmap proposes the first implementation slice.

Craft Hub's primary workflow is preparing and using a personal machine: inspect software and development environments, choose missing tools, review setup changes, restore selected configuration, and open tools for daily work. This refines the work-item-first home in ADR 0010; existing project, integration and handoff views remain available.

Craft Hub owns presentation and orchestration. Workstation remains the backend for managed configuration interpretation, plans, writes, backups and synchronization; new software and environment contracts should extend that boundary. Package managers perform installations. Application opening and startup before dependencies exist belong to the desktop host. Folding Workstation into a second Craft Hub implementation would duplicate ownership and break its independent CLI use.

A setup workbench must open on a machine without Node or Workstation. Keep the existing Electron default while the first workflow is validated. A lightweight host must provide an independent bootstrap view before it can rely on external Node. Small package size remains a goal, but cannot require users to prepare the environment before opening the tool that prepares it.

The implementation roadmap records existing functionality, missing interfaces and staged acceptance. This decision does not install software, apply configuration, migrate credentials, remove existing callers or claim the proposed workflow is implemented.