The Hardware Index
HWIDX

I built HWIDX, the Hardware Index, to solve a practical problem I kept seeing with bare PCB designs. Projects from Adafruit, Micro:bit, Arduino, and others often have no case with space for a URL or other useful information. Once a board is in someone’s hands, I wanted there to be a simple way to find its current, correct documentation.

My solution is a stable identifier that can be printed directly onto a PCB. An HWIDX identifier has the form /organisation/device/version, for example /123/456/1.0. The organisation and device numbers identify the project, while the version identifies the particular revision. Once allocated, an identifier does not change or get reused.

The identifier acts as a forwarding address. Visiting it takes users to the current documentation for that board, even if I move the documentation later. When a full documentation page is unavailable, HWIDX also provides a metadata record at m.hwidx.org: a small, vCard-like interface that gives users an indication of what the hardware is and where to go for help.

Its intended to be an open index based around Github for accounting and tracability, so anyone can request an identifier by submitting a tiny pull request to the HWIDX repository.