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+# 0046: Ekklesia's branding is never forced on an installation
+
+- Status: Proposed
+- Date: 2026-10-03
+- Related: [ADR 0021](0021-modules-as-hostable-products.md),
+  [ADR 0034](0034-host-owned-browser-authentication.md),
+  [ADR 0037](0037-host-provided-outbound-email.md),
+  [ADR 0038](0038-email-verification-and-password-recovery.md),
+  [ADR 0039](0039-shared-design-tokens-and-elements.md),
+  [ADR 0043](0043-display-offline-code-fallback.md),
+  [ADR 0045](0045-split-dashboard-and-api-origins.md)
+
+## Context
+
+Ekklesia is software a church runs for its own people. The people who use an installation (members,
+visitors, volunteers running a screen) know the church, not the software behind it, and the church
+decides how it presents itself to them. Today the platform names itself in places those people see:
+the sign-in screen asks them to "Sign in to Ekklesia", the Dashboard's heading and page title read
+"Ekklesia", emails ask them to verify "your Ekklesia email address", and an offline screen in the
+sanctuary says it is "waiting for Ekklesia".
+
+None of those were decided; they accumulated. This records the rule they should have followed, so
+every later screen, message, and module is held to it.
+
+## Decision
+
+### The principle
+
+**Ekklesia's branding is never forced on an installation.** Anything a member, visitor, or volunteer
+can see is configurable by the installation and removable entirely. That includes, and is not
+limited to:
+
+- page titles, headings, and the name of the application in a browser tab, an installed web app, or
+  a bookmark;
+- sign-in, verification, recovery, and every other authentication screen;
+- emails: the sender's display name, the subject, and the body;
+- display screens, pairing screens, and offline and failure screens on a display;
+- error pages and error messages a person reads;
+- application names and icons, and any "powered by" or attribution text.
+
+"Removable entirely" means an installation can show its own name, or no product name at all, and in
+either case no screen or message a person sees names Ekklesia.
+
+### What is exempt
+
+Internal identifiers are not branding and stay as they are: package names, module ids, URL paths
+(`/api/v1/…`, `/assets/ekklesia-dashboard/…`), HTTP header names, environment variable names, cookie
+names, CSS custom property names, element ids and `data-` attributes, storage, cache, and database
+names, and log field names. A person can find them only by opening developer tools or reading
+configuration, and renaming them would break installations for no one's benefit.
+
+Tooling an operator runs to administer the installation (the command-line tools, Doctor, server logs,
+and startup messages) names the software being operated, as a package name does, and is exempt too.
+So are messages written only for developers: thrown errors that reach a console and never a page, and
+build-time diagnostics for module authors.
+
+### How installations configure it
+
+The platform takes the installation's name from configuration, once, and uses it everywhere a
+person-facing string would otherwise have said "Ekklesia". When no name is configured, the wording is
+neutral ("Sign in", "Verify your email address", "Waiting for the server") rather than falling back to
+"Ekklesia". The default installation therefore names nothing, which is what makes the principle
+checkable: a test can render every person-facing screen and message with no name configured and fail
+on any occurrence of "Ekklesia".
+
+Browser pages receive the name the way they receive the API origin (ADR 0045): the API renders it
+into the page it serves at startup, so the image stays generic and nothing is decided at build time.
+An email's sender display name is the existing `EKKLESIA_SMTP_FROM_NAME` (ADR 0037); its subject and
+body use the same installation name.
+
+Visual identity follows the same rule. The platform ships no logo, favicon, or icon today; any it
+ships later must be replaceable by the installation and removable entirely, and must not appear by
+default. Colours and type are the installation's theme (ADR 0039), not a mark.
+
+### It applies to modules
+
+A module's user-visible text follows the same principle. A module that names its host ("Open the
+Ekklesia Dashboard") also ties itself to one host, which ADR 0021 already asks modules not to do.
+Modules refer to the host generically ("the Dashboard") or not at all.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- Every person-facing string that names the platform today becomes either the configured name or
+  neutral wording. An implementation slice makes that change and adds the test that keeps it true.
+- New screens, emails, and modules are reviewed against this rule; "Ekklesia" in a person-facing
+  string is a defect.
+- Internal identifiers, operator tooling, and developer diagnostics keep the name, so nothing
+  operational is renamed.
+- An installation that wants to credit Ekklesia can do so in its own words; the platform never
+  inserts that credit.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+- **Keep "Ekklesia" as the default and let installations override it.** Rejected: an installation
+  that never thought to configure it would show the software's name to its people, which is forcing
+  it by default, and "no occurrence of Ekklesia" could not be tested in the default state.
+- **Rename internal identifiers too.** Rejected: invisible to the people this protects, and costly
+  to every installation and module.
+- **A configurable "powered by" line, on by default.** Rejected for the same reason as the first
+  alternative.
+- **Per-string customization of every message.** Not needed for this principle: one installation
+  name and neutral wording remove the product's name everywhere. Richer copy customization, if
+  wanted, is separate work.
+
+## Deferred
+
+- The implementation: the setting, its delivery to pages and emails, the rewording, and the
+  regression test.
+- Installation-supplied logos, icons, and favicons, and a web app manifest.
+- Translation and per-string copy customization.
diff --git a/docs/architecture/decisions/README.md b/docs/architecture/decisions/README.md
index baf92b0..9f1f2e1 100644
--- a/docs/architecture/decisions/README.md
+++ b/docs/architecture/decisions/README.md
@@ -54,3 +54,4 @@ ADRs capture durable choices that affect more than one package or phase.
 - [0043: The display caches its shell and declared code, and nothing else](0043-display-offline-code-fallback.md) — Accepted
 - [0044: Ekklesia ships one self-hosted reference deployment, composed from pinned sources](0044-self-hosted-reference-deployment.md) — Accepted
 - [0045: The Dashboard and the API may live on separate origins](0045-split-dashboard-and-api-origins.md) — Proposed
+- [0046: Ekklesia's branding is never forced on an installation](0046-installation-owned-branding.md) — Proposed