Skip to main content

Academic use and experimentation

Tier: Public
Status: v1.0 (living document)
Audience: students, university labs, capstone teams, instructors, early-career developers building portfolio projects — and evaluators who need to know whether Umbraculum matches their expectations at public alpha
Related: GETTING-STARTED.md, BUILDING-YOUR-VERTICAL.md, PUBLIC-ALPHA-ANNOUNCEMENT.md, LICENSING.md, MODULES.md §3.2, design/ecosystem-case-studies.md §"For young community members"

1. What this page is​

Umbraculum at public alpha is not positioned as a drop-in replacement for production-scale ERP, CRM, or accounting suites on day one. It is positioned as a tryable stack for building workspace-shaped operational applications — composable modules, web (+ optional native), contracts at the API edge, and a unified AI consultant architecture.

Students and university labs are a primary intended audience for that tryability: capstones, coursework prototypes, hackathons, research demos, and portfolio work where the goal is learn the platform shape and ship something inspectable, not run payroll for a factory next quarter.

This page states what free means, what alpha depth implies for a semester project, suggested project shapes, and an honest fit filter so the brochure and docs do not waste your time if you need mature ERP breadth today.

2. Free to learn, build, and self-host​

WhatCost at public alpha
Clone the monorepo, run locallyFree — docker compose up; see GETTING-STARTED.md
Fork and modify the AGPL coreFree under AGPLv3 obligations (network use, source offer when you deploy modified core to others)
Ship a Tier 6 vertical in your own repoFree to start — pin MIT @umbraculum/module-sdk and @umbraculum/*-contracts; no certification fee; see BUILDING-YOUR-VERTICAL.md
Study the brewery reference verticalFree — in-repo worked example; not proof every vertical belongs in the core monorepo (GLOSSARY.md §"Where code lives")
Contribute via PRFree — DCO sign-off only; no CLA (CONTRIBUTING.md)
Hosted Umbraculum cloud (future)Not GA at alpha — any future managed service may have tiers; self-host remains the documented path
AI consultant on a hosted free workspaceNot included — AI unlocks on paid workspace tiers; self-hosters use BYOK; see PLATFORM-ARCHITECTURE.md §7

One-line pitch: Free to experiment on your laptop or lab machines. Paid pieces are optional AI unlock on hosted workspaces and future managed hosting — not pay-to-compile your capstone.

There is no Umbraculum certification program and no badge wall (GETTING-STARTED.md §"No certification track"). Skill is shown by public repos, demos, and conversation — which also helps domain experts find you later (design/ecosystem-case-studies.md).

3. Why this audience fits public alpha​

Alpha depth — uneven module maturity, read-only MRP/CRP proofs, open doors on WMS/CRM — is acceptable when the deliverable is:

  • a prototype or portfolio vertical (lab inventory, formulation tracker, small-batch ops demo),
  • a course artifact with a fixed end date,
  • research on composable ops software, AI tools, or industrial interfaces,

and not acceptable when the deliverable is:

  • production ERP replacement,
  • audited financial close,
  • multi-site warehouse go-live on day one.

Umbraculum's early growth vector is experimenters who become contributors and vertical builders — not enterprise buyers expecting SAP breadth at v0.0.1-alpha. That is consistent with PUBLIC-ALPHA-ANNOUNCEMENT.md and the modesty note in design/ecosystem-case-studies.md: we offer a tool, not a lottery ticket.

4. Suggested project shapes (semester-friendly)​

These respect the vertical configuration model (RFC-0001 Tier 6): consume canonical domains; do not reimplement CRM as UniversityCRM.

Project ideaConsumesYou build
Cosmetics / food formulation labpim (products, attributes), optional read-only mrpFormulation UI, batch records, your constants/rules
Campus lab equipment bookingautomation (vessels/equipment metaphor), platform authBooking flows, lab-specific seed data
Small-batch production demomrp / crp read models, brewery patterns as referenceYour vertical config + demo data — not a second MRP engine
Capstone "operational app"Platform shared layout + one canonical moduleTier 6 vertical in your repo, MIT SDK, public GitHub

Learning path: skim GLOSSARY.md → MODULES.md → clone and GETTING-STARTED.md → BUILDING-YOUR-VERTICAL.md when you start your own vertical repo.

Alpha discipline for courses: pin a release tag (e.g. v0.0.1-alpha), expect breaking changes on main, and treat ROADMAP.md as the maturity source of truth — not marketing slides.

5. AI, apparatus, and coursework​

  • AI consultant optional for v1 capstones. Core value for students is often module composition, contracts, web UI, and domain math — not paid-tier AI unlock.
  • If you need AI in coursework: self-host + BYOK (your own provider key) and understand tier gating on hosted workspaces (PLATFORM-ARCHITECTURE.md §7).
  • Cursor umbraculum-toolset plugins help contributors land CI-clean PRs (CURSOR-PLUGINS.md); they are recommended for core contribution, not a legal requirement to learn the stack or run a vertical in your own repo.

6. Fit filter — should you open the docs?​

Good fit — continue to docs.umbraculum.dev and GETTING-STARTED.md:

  • You want to build or extend a workspace-shaped app (web, optional native).
  • You are fine with self-host, TypeScript, and alpha maturity.
  • Your goal is learning, research, portfolio, or open-source contribution — not production ERP next quarter.
  • You may ship a Tier 6 vertical in your own repository without waiting for WMS/CRM to ship here.

Probably not a fit — consider Odoo Community, a vertical SaaS, or a course stack your institution already supports:

  • You need accounting, payroll, POS, or full-suite ERP on a fixed go-live date.
  • You require vendor SLA, certified implementers, or mature mobile ERP apps today.
  • You cannot tolerate alpha churn during a short graded window (unless you pin a tag and scope down).

This filter is intentional on the brochure so visitors self-select before diving into the full doc set.

7. For instructors​

  • Set expectations using PUBLIC-ALPHA-ANNOUNCEMENT.md §"What public alpha is — and is not."
  • Prefer vertical-in-own-repo assignments aligned with BUILDING-YOUR-VERTICAL.md — reduces coupling to brewery reference data.
  • Forum at forum.umbraculum.dev is the canonical place for student questions that outlive a single course (CORE-DEVELOPMENT-AND-COMMUNITY.md §4.6).
  • AGPL awareness: if students deploy modified core to the public internet as a service, ensure they understand AGPL network-use obligations (LICENSING.md — not legal advice; consult campus counsel for institutional deployments).

8. Cross-references​