Alpha features

This is the planned public shape of the downloadable alpha. Availability in the PowerPC application is the default. Optional means bundled but not installed or required by default, and excluded means source may exist while the alpha does not promise or package it.

This profile is the target contents of an alpha, not the maturity label of the current build. The current product lifecycle is checked separately from contract/product_version.h and remains pre-alpha until its qualification criteria are deliberately advanced.

Product area	Alpha state	Runtime binding	Notes
PowerPC Carbon guest	Included	Built in	Primary classic guest and the supported alpha path.
NOW Extension	Optional	Connected-guest capability negotiation	Bundled with the alpha; install it only for the resident-backed features listed below.
Pre-Carbon support (NOW-68K)	Excluded	classic.pre-carbon flag; default disabled	The current NOW-68K build is stale and excluded from the alpha.

The table is rendered from product/features.yaml, which also drives the availability notices and generated host and PowerPC runtime definitions. Release inclusion and runtime flags are separate decisions: a runtime override cannot add a profile-excluded feature, and guest capability negotiation still decides whether a connected Macintosh can serve an admitted feature.

The separate distribution standard maps those feature decisions to the DMG, embedded host resources, generic classic image, loose update pairs, manifest, and checksums. CodeKitten and the retained NOW-68K source are not part of that bundle profile.