Open Growing Protocol (OGP)

An open protocol for cannabis controlled environment agriculture (CEA), built on solarpunk principles.

What We're Building Now

The Open Growing Protocol is a standardized protocol for cannabis cultivation automation, starting with home growers using affordable hardware (target: <$1000). We're making precision growing techniques accessible to personal cultivators through:

• Portable growing recipes that work across different hardware setups
• Progressive automation that starts simple and scales with your needs
• Hardware interoperability that breaks vendor lock-in
• Open knowledge sharing with proper attribution for contributors

Current Scope (v0.2-v2.0)

• Crop: Cannabis (photoperiod and autoflower cultivars)
• Environment: Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) - tents, closets, dedicated rooms
• Users: Home growers, small-scale cultivators
• Hardware: Raspberry Pi, ESP32, Arduino, and similar affordable platforms
• Integration: Common sensors (DHT22, soil moisture, pH), standard actuators (relays, pumps, lights)

What this means: You can define your growing recipe once—including light schedules, environmental targets, nutrient feeding—and deploy it on different hardware setups. The system handles the adaptation.

Long-Term Vision (Aspirational)

While we're focused on cannabis CEA today, the protocol's design is guided by solarpunk principles that could enable broader applications:

• Appropriate technology: Solutions scaled to context, not needless complexity
• Knowledge commons: Growing knowledge belongs to communities, not corporations
• Ecological integration: Systems that work with natural processes
• Decentralization: Local autonomy without central control

These principles may eventually support expansion to other crops or contexts, but that's not on the current roadmap. We're building a solid foundation first.

Why Cannabis CEA First?

This is an honest, strategic choice:

1. Defined problem space: Indoor cannabis growing has well-understood parameters and active community knowledge
2. Motivated users: Growers already invest in automation and actively share techniques
3. Economic viability: Even modest improvements in yield/quality create measurable value
4. Regulatory clarity: Legal markets provide legitimate use cases for documentation
5. Proof of concept: Success here validates the protocol before broader expansion

Repository Structure

This monorepo provides unified access to specifications and schemas:

• specifications/: Protocol specifications (v1.0, v1.1, v2.0)
• schemas/: JSON schemas for devices and recipes
• profile/: Organization manifesto and community guidelines
• memory-bank/: Development context and architectural decisions

Key Specifications

Current focus: v2.0 modular architecture

• ogsp-root-spec.md - Protocol overview
• core/ogsp-core-spec.md - Core architecture
• hardware/ogsp-hardware-spec.md - Device abstraction
• recipe/ogsp-recipe-spec.md - Growing recipes

Legacy versions (v1.0, v1.1) available for reference but not actively maintained.

Schemas

• device.schema.json - Hardware device definitions (sensors, actuators, controllers)
• recipe.schema.json - Growing recipe structure and parameters

Getting Started

Note: This is early-stage software. Expect rough edges and incomplete documentation.

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/opengrowingalliance/.github
   cd .github

2. Initialize submodules:

   git submodule init
   git submodule update

3. Read the v2.0 root spec to understand the architecture

4. Explore example recipes (coming soon) or start defining your own

Contributing

We welcome contributions that align with our current scope:

• Cannabis CEA recipe documentation
• Affordable hardware integrations
• Reference implementations for common platforms
• Documentation improvements
• Bug reports and feature requests

See OGSP Contribution Guidelines for details.

What we're NOT looking for right now:

• Integrations for non-cannabis crops (save these ideas for later!)
• Enterprise/commercial-scale features
• Cloud-dependent architectures

Roadmap Honesty

Current status: Protocol specification in development, no production implementations yet.

Near-term (2026 Q1-Q2):

• Finalize v2.0 spec based on cannabis CEA requirements
• Build reference implementation for Raspberry Pi
• Document 3-5 validated cannabis recipes
• Establish testing/validation process

Medium-term (2026 Q3-Q4):

• Additional hardware platform support
• Community recipe library
• Integration with common cannabis grow equipment

Long-term (aspirational):

• Protocol may prove adaptable to other crops
• May inform broader agricultural automation standards
• Could enable knowledge commons for diverse growing communities

We're intentionally not committing to specific timelines for expansion beyond cannabis CEA. We'll evaluate based on what we learn.

License

Released under the Apache 2.0 License.

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The Open Growing Protocol is guided by solarpunk values—technology that serves people and planet, knowledge in the commons, appropriate solutions over needless complexity. We're starting with cannabis CEA because it's a tractable problem that lets us prove these principles work. The future may hold more, but we're building it one grow at a time.