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A node is a shared library that Omega loads to give a device a new domain of operations: .dylib on macOS, .so on Linux, .dll on Windows. Once a node is registered, each of its ops appears as a button in the Console, can be a step in an OTA plan, and can run on a schedule. Omega ships three built-in domains this way (sbom, hbom, pbom inventory). Your node uses the same model.

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One contract, two calling conventions

Every node answers the same five questions. Only the mechanism differs by platform. The five questions, in call order: The JSON that crosses those calls is byte-identical on every platform. See Node contract for the exact shapes and the return-code rules.

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The contract lives with Omega, not in your node

The interface has exactly one home, and it is the Omega repository. A node imports the contract and never redeclares it.
This split is deliberate and load-bearing. On Windows, nodes that each carried their own copy of the interface type library fought over one registry key, and uninstalling any one of them broke every other node with E_NOINTERFACE. Omega now embeds and registers the interface itself, and a node’s type library only references it. On macOS and Linux the same rule keeps every node’s five exports and JSON shapes identical to what Omega was built against, so an ABI bump is one change in one place.
Do not copy omega_node.h, omega_node.idl, or the node-abi source into your node. Reference them from a pinned Omega revision.

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Lifecycle

1

Build

Compile your node for each target platform and architecture. Build a node walks through the hello node in Rust and C, and cross-compiling a Linux .so from a Mac.
2

Upload as a release artifact

Add the library to an OTA release. The platform signs the artifact’s SHA-256 with its role key.
3

Ship with a place_file step

Mark the step Register in node registry. Omega verifies the signature, lands the file under dll/{domain}/, introspects it in a child process, and writes the node to its local registry. See Ship a node.
4

Operate

The device publishes its node catalog on node/report/registry. The Console’s Node Registry view lists the domain, version, health, and ops, with Run per op and Enable / Disable per node.

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Reference nodes

Both implement the same hello domain with two ops, greet and ping, so the platform sees them identically.