1. Wrap, don't reinvent. chezmoi, mise, brew, age already work. lfg is the opinionated interactive layer on top.

2. Use Charm components. This project lives in the Charm ecosystem; if huh/bubbles ships a primitive, use it instead of hand-rolling. Keybindings, theming, focus management, and accessibility stay consistent for free.

3. Never silently touch user data. Private SSH keys stay on-device by default. Secrets are encrypted client-side; the master key never leaves the user's control.

4. Beautiful beats clever. First five minutes are the product. If it doesn't look great, nobody runs step two.

5. Ship-able MVP. UX-first prototype before installers, installers before sync, sync before the kitchen sink.

These aren't aspirational — they're how we decide between two plausible implementations on every PR. When in doubt, the principle that says "no" wins.