Capturing the precise hardware configuration of an instrument that has generated scientificdata is critical to understanding, reproducing, and sharing the results. Though registries exist to provideunique identifiers for instrument models (e.g., RRID) and individual instruments themselves (e.g.,PIDINST), no current method exists to capture the hardware configuration of an instrument with sufficientdetail to promote data quality, reproducibility, and FAIR sharing. This proposal introduces PersistentHardware Descriptors (PHDs), specifically in light-microscopy, to solve the problem of inadequatemetadata capture and storage, which hinders research reproducibility, data integrity, and cross-disciplinarycollaboration. By providing a standardized framework for capturing this essential information, the projectenhances the reliability of scientific results, makes advanced technologies more accessible, and supportslong-term data preservation, ultimately advancing scientific research practices. Specifically, Imaging-PHDwill (1) establish a vendor-friendly framework for describing hardware configurations that can be used inpublications associated with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), (2) create a collaborative space whereconfigurations can be reviewed and edited before being published, including a user-friendly Graphical User Interface(GUI) for authoring microscopy configurations when vendor software does not create themautomatically, and (3) launch a coordinated outreach effort to educate vendors and users, provide trainingfor utilizing the resulting tools effectively, and generate a corpus of hardware descriptions to driveimprovements in quality control and enable community-wide LLM approaches through high-qualitytraining data. All components of this proposal are designed to be interoperable and expandable forimplementation at multiple other sites and within various scientific disciplines.