Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
29f91f9531
Builds the experimental control Bob correctly identified as still missing after HB-ON/HB-OFF (§XXXIII.5): walk the shuffled matrix of concurrency-level x workload-mode cells, birth the right worker count per cell, drive each with two VM-EXEC touches, check VM-ERROR?, kill them, print a trial marker. Built entirely from existing primitives (WORKER-BIRTH, VM-EXEC, VM-HEAT, VM-ERROR?, KILL, HB-ON/HB-OFF) plus doe.4th's own RUN-MATRIX/SHUFFLE-MATRIX pattern -- no new C primitives. Real capsule-format bug found and fixed: a first draft, chunked purely by a fixed 16-line count with no regard for word boundaries, split several CASE...ENDCASE structures and one oversized colon definition across Block headers. Result was a cascading [CAPSULE][DEFER] failure from the first split forward -- every subsequent line failed to compile, and MU-RUN-TRIAL was never actually defined (confirmed: UNKNOWN WORD when called). Root cause traced to capsule_loader.c directly: a :...; word and any control structure inside it must fit entirely within one 16-line block -- the loader's per-block compile pass has no persistent record of an open CASE's (or an overlong definition's own) state across a Block boundary. Not previously documented anywhere in this project's capsule-authoring guidance. Fixed via manually curated block boundaries and factoring oversized bodies into smaller helper words. Reps ratified at 60/cell (not the 10 first drafted), matching this project's own "rule of 3's" DoE convention (ACL-RWT's 3 seeds/30 reps, std79's 3x9x3). 6 cfgs x 60 reps = 360 main-block trials. MU-MAX-REPS raised 20 -> 63 for run-matrix headroom. Verified live on amd64: one isolated trial (0 0 999 MU-RUN-TRIAL) produced two real concurrent births, two clean kills, and the exact expected marker (MU-TRIAL run=999 cfg=0 rep=0 nw=2 mode=0 fail=0). Hera stayed healthy throughout. Clean 3-arch qemu boot. Not yet run: the full 360-trial MU-EXEC-CAMPAIGN itself (a genuinely long-running action under TCG, deliberately not started without explicit confirmation) or the WIREBIND-automation fixed arm. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BWpNjdwPtFLuVLaAq44L9K
LithosAnanke v2.0.1
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs the StarForth VM as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Status — M7.1 (Capsule System · Multi-VM Fleet)
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console (v1.5.1-FINAL) | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol · Mama FORTH vocabulary · Tripod multi-VM fleet (Hermes/Artemis) · Word-level ACL (Phases 1–7) | 🔄 In Progress |
| M8 | REPL — keyboard input, interactive Forth | Planned |
| M9 | Block storage — AHCI driver | Planned |
POST at boot: parity hash verified across amd64/aarch64/riscv64 · Mama capsule dictionary: 453 words
What's live in M7.1
- Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet (Hera the Mama VM, Artemis, two Hermes instances) births, runs, and re-births independently, verified booting live pre-REPL on all three architectures.
- Hermes — a 17-block inter-VM messaging/channel layer between fleet members, with async delivery and channel negotiation.
- Artemis — a Block Allocation Map (BAM) storage subsystem with Q48.16
block-heat tracking and cooldown/reclamation (
ART-COOL/ART-REAP). - Word-level ACL — every dictionary entry carries a TTL/allow/mode/pin
access-control record. Strict, TTL, and pinned modes; two console layers
(emergency
ok>and superuserzuse)ok>). Phases 1–7 complete (C infrastructure, FORTH policy layer,zusebootstrap superuser, Isabelle proof stubs, kernel parity); Phase 8 (Ed25519 PKI / thumbdrive challenge-response) is the only item remaining. Measured overhead once active on every check: +0.0054%–+0.0088%, CV = 0.000%, across a 3×3 Latin-square DoE campaign (architecture × seed × 30 replicates) — three orders of magnitude below the measurement floor. - VM Fleet Attractor physics — the L8 Jacquard mode selector now has a real per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning, replacing hardcoded compudynamics constants with a dynamically-inferred rate.
- Kconfig build configuration — every physics/heartbeat/pipelining/ kernel-only tuning knob (~40 total) is now a discoverable, optional Kconfig symbol shared with the hosted VM build. See Quick Start below.
Quick Start
# Build kernel (requires cross-compilation toolchain, or native gcc)
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64
# Run in QEMU with OVMF
make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu
# Other architectures
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=aarch64 qemu
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=riscv64 qemu
Artifacts: build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
For the hosted VM by itself (Linux, no cross-compiler needed, no bare-metal tooling): see
the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside that repo,
now it's its own project with its own master.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob (STARFORTH_ENABLE_VM, PARITY_MODE, the shared
physics/heartbeat family, etc.) is an optional Kconfig symbol — a plain
make -f Makefile.starkernel uses the same defaults it always has unless
you opt in:
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
| System Architecture | Full kernel + VM design |
| HAL Reference | Hardware abstraction layer interfaces |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol design |
| VM Fleet Attractor design log | Tripod/Hermes/Artemis physics + build-system history |
| Getting Started / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both build targets |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
| Roadmap | Milestone plan through self-hosting |
License
Starship License 1.0 (SL-1.0) — free for personal, research, and educational use. Commercial use requires a separate agreement. Attribution to R.A. James (Captain Bob) must be preserved in all distributions.
Patent pending. USPTO provisional filed December 2025 — physics-grounded self-adaptive runtime system. This license does not grant patent rights. Licensing inquiries: rajames440@gmail.com
Robert A. James (Captain Bob) · Systems Engineer · Hacking since 1973