How I structure firmware extraction and reverse-engineering notes so every conclusion can be traced back to an artifact.
Preserve the original artifact
Keep the untouched image, record a cryptographic hash, and do analysis on copies. A later patch or extraction should always be traceable to the original bytes.
Separate observation from interpretation
Offsets, strings, signatures, regions, and checksums are observations. The role of an unknown structure is an interpretation until there is stronger evidence. Writing them separately prevents a plausible guess from becoming an undocumented assumption.
Research path
Acquire image→
Hash + preserve→
Extract structures→
Analyze→
Validate on hardware
Make recovery part of the experiment
Low-level firmware work has a different failure model from normal application code. Before changing a device, document the known-good image, recovery path, programmer or interface requirements, and the exact write/verify sequence.
Keep evidence next to conclusions
Screenshots are useful, but machine-readable logs, hashes, scripts, and small parsers are better long-term evidence because they can be rerun when the firmware changes.