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0001 — Parse fonts with fontations

Status: accepted, 2026-09-03

Context

We need a correct, fast, safe OpenType parser covering variable fonts, color tables, layout tables and collections. Options: hand-written parser, ttf-parser, allsorts, fontations (read-fonts + skrifa).

Decision

fontations. It is maintained by Google Fonts, used by Chrome/Skia, zero-copy, fuzzed, tracks the spec closely and exposes every table we need through typed accessors.

Consequences

Metadata quality follows fontations releases. WOFF2 decoding is out of scope for fontations and handled separately (ADR 0005). We never hand-parse a table it exposes.