LithosAnanake/FABRIC-3.md

# FABRIC-3.md — the Stadium, continued again

**Status:** Living working document, opened 2026-08-25 as the successor to `FABRIC-2.md`
(now closed/archival — see its own header). This document does not repeat `FABRIC-2.md`'s
design argument or history; it restates only outcomes, with pointers back to the section
that derived them. Read `FABRIC.md` for the original "why," `FABRIC-2.md` for everything
derived through 2026-08-25, this document for what's left as of that date onward.

**Provenance.** Everything in Section A below is a full, non-sampled carry-forward of every
open (`- [ ]`) item in `FABRIC-2.md` as of 2026-08-25 — 51 items, confirmed by
`grep -c '^- \[ \]' FABRIC-2.md`, none dropped (Section A itself holds 49: the other 2,
`FABRIC-2.md` §F.3's own two checkbox lines, were pure summaries cross-referencing items
already listed individually elsewhere — 4.4s/1.11/4.3/§17.4 and 5.1/ACL-RWT re-measurement,
both of which are carried forward as their own individual items above — not distinct content,
confirmed by diffing item text programmatically before writing this document, not assumed).
Extracted mechanically (a script pulling each checkbox item's own text, stopping at the first
blank line rather than the next checkbox, to avoid pulling in unrelated already-resolved
narrative that happened to sit between two open items in the source document) and spot-checked
against the original. Item numbers/labels are
carried forward unchanged, for traceability — this is not a renumbering or a re-prioritization.
Section groupings match `FABRIC-2.md`'s own (documentation debt, xHCI WRITE(10), Milestone
3–9 punch lists, etc.) — items are relocated, not reorganized.

**How to use this document going forward.** New findings, new punch-list items, and new
decisions get added here, not to `FABRIC-2.md`. Follow the same discipline `FABRIC-2.md`
§(intro) established for how work gets picked up, closed, and recorded.

---

## A. Carried forward from FABRIC-2.md (51 items, all still open as of 2026-08-25)

### From FABRIC-2.md §A — Blocked or scoped, not started

- [ ] **1.11 — Dirty-event granularity.** Leaning region-based. Blocked on item 4.3 — settled
  as part of the console migration, not speculatively before it. *Refs (FABRIC.md):* §17.5,
  §23.2, §23.4 #1.

- [ ] **4.3 — Console.** Umbrella item; settles 1.11 as part of the work. Nearly everything
  under it (4.3.1–4.3.7f, 4.4–4.4ac) is done — the parent stays open only because 4.4s below
  is still blocked and nothing has formally closed the umbrella. *Refs (FABRIC.md):* §17.5,
  §27.

- [ ] **4.4s — `(user)` prompt segment.** Scoped, blocked, not started. Extends 4.4's prompt
  format. *Refs (FABRIC.md):* §27.8, 4.4.

- [ ] **5.1 — Re-run the DoE on the new substrate.** A green POST suite is not evidence that
  determinism holds under the Stadium migration — needs its own campaign. Not started.

### From FABRIC-2.md §D — Design questions still genuinely open

- [ ] **§17.4 — the framebuffer utility's internal heat/decay dynamics are undesigned.**
  Explicitly "Open, deferred": not a Stadium patron, but what physics (if any) governs it
  internally was never designed. Not blocking anything. Blocked on item 1.11 specifically
  (dirty-event granularity), not "the framebuffer work" in general — see `FABRIC-2.md` §D's
  own 2026-08-13 refinement of this item before assuming it's ripe.

### From FABRIC-2.md §E — Documentation debt

- [x] **Already done — stale carry-forward, closed 2026-08-26.** This item was never marked
  complete when the actual work concluded. `FABRIC-2.md` Sections M through T (2026-08-19 to
  2026-08-21) already re-ran this measurement — and in the process found the original
  "ACL-RWT" name itself was wrong: the Rolling-Window-of-Truth mechanism it was named after
  was dead code, removed 2026-07-08 (`ACL-RECHECK-RW` was never reachable — `acl_recheck()`
  only ever looks up the 11-char `ACL-RECHECK`, never the 14-char `-RW` variant). What the
  original campaign actually measured was the live `ACL-TTL` mechanism under a misleading
  name. **Final, accepted result (`FABRIC-2.md` §T): +0.0603% ACL-TTL enforcement overhead,
  architecture-independent (identical across amd64/aarch64/riscv64), fully deterministic
  (CV=0.000%)** — see also memory `project_acl_ttl_overhead_final.md`. No new campaign run
  here; this entry corrects the bookkeeping, not the measurement.

### From FABRIC-2.md §J — Maintainability sweep (2026-08-18)

- [x] **Fixed 2026-08-26 (commit `cbe7b49`), stale carry-forward closed 2026-08-28.**
  `docs/lithosananke/ROADMAP.md` and `M7.1.md` — stale `Branch: lithosananke` (no such
  branch exists post-split), `M7.1.md`'s "Status: Design Complete" (shipped and live, not
  just designed), `ROADMAP.md`'s self-contradiction (M8 marked OBSOLETE in one place, still
  a live success criterion in another), and its stale "AHCI driver" claim for M9 (real
  implementation is `virtio_blk.c`) — all corrected by `cbe7b49`; `ROADMAP.md` also gained
  corrected `BLOCK`/`BUFFER`/`UPDATE`/`FLUSH` and block-device-abstraction `[x]` marks.

- [x] **Fixed 2026-08-26 (commit `cbe7b49`), stale carry-forward closed 2026-08-28.** Top-level
  `ROADMAP.md` (StarForth-era, "Phase 0 Complete... Phase 1 Starting," dated
  2025-12-14) — marked OBSOLETE by `cbe7b49` (Captain Bob's call: more than stale), pointing
  to `docs/lithosananke/ROADMAP.md` and `FABRIC*.md` for current status.

- [x] **Fixed 2026-08-26 (commit `cbe7b49`), stale carry-forward closed 2026-08-28.**
  `docs/03-architecture/word-acl/DESIGN.md` says ACL Phase 7 (LithosAnanke kernel parity)
  is still "remaining" — direct contradiction with `.claude/CLAUDE.md`, which states Phase 7
  is independently verified complete. Phase 7 restated as independently-verified complete and
  the stale lithosananke-branch-parity framing removed by `cbe7b49`.

- [x] Confirmed accurate, not stale (2026-08-26): `VM-FLEET-ATTRACTOR-DESIGN-20260705.md`'s
  claim that `doe-campaign.4th` is "broken and being superseded." Live-ran `SMOKE-CAMPAIGN`
  from the current capsule (amd64) — it completes without error and correctly conserves fleet
  heat (`VM-PHYSICS: conserved=CONSERVED`, `fleet_heat_sum=65536`). Initially read that as
  contradicting the doc's claim; **Captain Bob corrected this directly — it's broken.**
  "Doesn't crash" and "runs" are not the same claim: the doc's actual argument is that the
  capsule has no real controlled-experimental-factor mechanism (no manual heat-injection
  point under the current design, so it cannot drive the fleet through controlled scenarios
  the way a DoE campaign needs to), a methodological gap a clean execution trace doesn't
  surface or disprove. Doc's claim stands; not touched.

- [x] Tracked (2026-08-26) — real proof-modeling gap, not just stale prose, so not fixed
  here. Confirmed by reading `StarForth_Loop4_Pipeline.thy`'s own comment (lines 127–137):
  `pipeline_metrics_state`'s `pm_last_accuracy_num`/`pm_last_accuracy_den` fraction pair
  doesn't correspond to anything in the real C struct — `include/vm.h`'s
  `PipelineGlobalMetrics` has a single `double last_checked_accuracy` field, no num/den pair
  anywhere. The `.thy` file's own comment already scopes the real fix correctly: "a full
  field-level pass over `pipeline_metrics_state` is its own separate task" — matches this
  project's standing caution that each remaining Isabelle gap needs its own subsystem model,
  not a documentation-sprint patch. The punch-list ask was tracking this outside the buried
  `.thy` comment, which it now has here — the actual re-model stays unattempted, on purpose.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 2 — USB hardware stack

- [x] **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (FABRIC-3.md §F.3).** Decide and implement where the hotplug event
  surfaces to the rest of the kernel. Re-checked directly against `sk_repl_idle()` and the
  `bot_msc_attach_pending`/`bot_msc_detach_pending` doc comments in `xhci_driver.h`: Milestone
  2h's flag-set-by-xHCI/flag-consumed-by-`sk_repl_idle()` pattern isn't literally a registered
  callback, but its own doc comment confirms it was built deliberately to achieve the same
  goal — *"keeps xhci.c decoupled from block_subsystem.c"* — and that decoupling is real,
  live on all three arches. Closed as written; no further design work on this node itself.

- [x] **BUILT + VERIFIED 2026-08-28 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.17).** CBW/data/CSW for SCSI WRITE(10),
  a direct mirror of READ(10) with the data direction flipped. Verified live via a genuine
  cold-reboot round-trip on all three architectures (amd64/aarch64/riscv64), not just a
  same-session read. `blkio_usb.c` is read-write now; `read_only` flipped to `0`. Real hardware
  (Milestone 8) remains untested — QEMU-only so far.

- [ ] Implement basic error/stall recovery (CSW failure status, endpoint stall clear) — at
  minimum enough to not wedge the controller on a single bad transfer. **SCOPED 2026-08-27
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.14)**: full BOT-spec recovery designed — new `STALL_ERROR` completion code,
  new xHCI Reset Endpoint + Set TR Dequeue Pointer commands, `CLEAR_FEATURE(ENDPOINT_HALT)` via
  existing control-transfer plumbing, escalating to a full Bulk-Only Mass Storage Reset on a
  second stall, bounded via a new retry counter mirroring `bot_tur_retries`'s own precedent.
  Real gap closed today: CSW status handling (PASS/FAILED/PHASE ERROR) already existed; nothing
  distinguished a STALL specifically, and no recovery of any kind existed before this pass.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 3 — Block subsystem extensions

- [ ] Implement the CA-signed-cert verification path (Milestone 6 dependency — the cert chain
  validator doesn't exist yet either). **Now confirmed a hard prerequisite of `WIREBIND` too
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.5), not just an M3 item in isolation. SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.7)**: format
  and trust root decided (Zuse-signed X.509/DER cert, not the offline capsule-PKI chain); the
  actual DER signature-extraction code is new work, not yet built.

- [ ] Implement the first-touch allocation function: given a verified identity pubkey and a
  requested block count, either read an existing range from the drive's map or claim a new
  one at `g.total_user_lbn` and write it back. *(Single-block relocation itself — the
  mechanism this would allocate ranges for — is done: `blk_subsys_relocate_block()`/
  `RELOCATE-BLOCK`, `FABRIC-2.md`, commit `36d832f`. This item is about the identity→range
  allocation that decides what to relocate blocks* into*, still unbuilt.)* **Scope clarified
  2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.6, decision 3): a user's pool is their entire thumbdrive by
  default (never contested) plus any system-resident device blocks they additionally claim,
  first-come-first-served — this function only governs that second, system-side extension,
  not the drive itself.** **SCOPED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.11)**: the "claim at
  `g.total_user_lbn`" phrasing above is stale, predating `BMAPFMT`'s distributed-ownership
  decision — claims are found by scanning Artemis's already-attached device's own `blk_meta_t`
  records for unowned devblocks, not by extending a counter. Claims may be a scattered chain
  (reusing `blk_meta_t`'s existing `prev_block`/`next_block`/`chain_length` fields), found via
  a full linear scan each time, no cached index.

- [x] **SCOPED 2026-08-27 (FABRIC-3.md §F.4).** Design the on-drive block-map format (Section
  U item 4). Resolved as: no separate table — repurpose the existing, fully-wired-but-
  zero-callers `blk_meta_t`/`blk_get_meta()`/`blk_set_meta()` (`block_subsystem.c`), replacing
  its stale POSIX-flavored ownership fields with a pubkey-fingerprint owner + a fast-deny ACL
  bit + deliberate reserved slack. Field design done; the actual code edit is not.

- [x] **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.12) — already built, not a separate item.**
  `blk_set_meta()`'s dirty-tracking already flows through the exact same `cache_writeback()`/
  `blk_flush()` path ordinary block data uses; the whole devblock (data + metadata) already
  gets written to the device, real and unstubbed. Blocked only on `WRITE(10)` itself, already
  modeled in the graph — nothing else stands between this and working.

- [x] **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.13) — already built, not a separate item.**
  `cache_load_devblock()` already unpacks and validates every devblock's metadata on load.
  Tracing "on insertion" surfaced a real, separate, previously-unflagged conflict instead:
  `homeblocks_sig_t` and the block-subsystem's own generic `'STFR'`/v2 header both wanted
  devblock 0, which would leave a home-blocks drive permanently write-refused or overwrite its
  own identity header. Fixed by relocating `homeblocks_sig_t` to devblock 1; `MINT` must also
  run the ordinary format-confirm path at devblock 0.

- [ ] Design the migration state machine (Section U item 5) — states, transition triggers.
  Session direction, 2026-08-25: **ACL manages *when* to relocate** (capacity pressure, or a
  compudynamics heat/cold signal); migration itself is expected to be rare, not routine. The
  `physics_hotwords_cache.c`-reuse question is settled differently than originally framed —
  see this document's new §B below (Stadium unification), which reframes block/word placement
  as a `compudynamics.c`-driven decision generically, not a `physics_hotwords_cache.c`
  (`DictEntry*`-hardcoded) reuse question specifically.

- [x] **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.10), scoped alongside `DETACH`.** Unclean removal
  runs the exact same VM-kill path `EJECT` (M5) uses, minus the flush step — skipped outright
  since the device is confirmed gone by the time the existing `bot_msc_detach_pending` signal
  fires, not attempted-and-ignored. Design done; the actual wiring into `sk_repl_idle()`'s
  existing detach handling is not yet written.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 4 — Drive/credential security

- [x] **Designed (2026-08-26), not yet implemented — Phase 8 kickoff.** Mirrors two existing
  precedents exactly: `CAPSULE_MAGIC_PACK`'s bit-packed magic (`include/starkernel/capsule.h`)
  and `blk_volume_meta_t`'s magic+version+fields+pad-to-4096 structural convention
  (`include/block_subsystem.h`). Lives at the first 4KiB devblock of the GPT metadata
  partition (the ~1GB partition decided 2026-08-22) — the header format doesn't depend on the
  still-missing GPT parser; it's just what gets written starting at that partition's first
  devblock once something can locate it. Deliberately narrow: identifies/authenticates the
  drive only, does **not** invent the block-map or credential/cert formats (both separate,
  still-open items below) — reserves offset/size pointers to where they'll live instead of
  embedding them.

  ```c
  #define HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_MAGIC   0x4248414CULL /* 'LAHB' -- LithosAnanke Home Blocks,
                                                  * same little-endian ASCII packing as
                                                  * CAPSULE_DESC_MAGIC's 'CAPS' */
  #define HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_VERSION_0 0

  #define HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_PACK(ver) \
      (HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_MAGIC | ((uint64_t)(ver) << 32))
  #define HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_GET_MAGIC(m)   ((uint32_t)((m) & 0xFFFFFFFFULL))
  #define HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_GET_VERSION(m) ((uint8_t)(((m) >> 32) & 0xFF))

  typedef struct {
      uint64_t magic;              /* HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_PACK(...) */
      uint8_t  drive_uuid[16];     /* unique per-mint instance id -- Phase 8 mints multiple
                                    * distinct drives, needs something to tell them apart */
      uint64_t minted_time_ns;
      uint64_t metadata_devblocks; /* size of this GPT metadata partition, in 4KiB devblocks
                                    * -- sanity/bounds check against the GPT entry once a
                                    * parser exists */
      uint32_t cert_offset;        /* devblock offset within this partition where the
                                    * CA-signed cert blob starts; 0 = not yet minted */
      uint32_t cert_devblocks;
      uint32_t blockmap_offset;    /* devblock offset where the block-map (Milestone 3,
                                    * format still undesigned) starts */
      uint32_t blockmap_devblocks;
      uint64_t hdr_crc;            /* REAL from day one, not a placeholder like
                                    * blk_volume_meta_t's "unused yet" hdr_crc -- this
                                    * header's whole job is gating a warn-and-refuse
                                    * security check below, so the crc has to actually work */
      uint8_t  _pad[4096 - 64];    /* pad to one devblock; 64 = sum of the fields above */
  } homeblocks_sig_t;
  ```

  `cert_offset`/`cert_devblocks` are 0 on first design pass — the real CA hasn't been
  generated yet (Milestone 6), so this reserves the *shape* of where a cert will attach
  without committing to a cert format that doesn't exist. Same reasoning for
  `blockmap_offset`/`blockmap_devblocks` against Milestone 3's still-open block-map design.
  **Implemented (2026-08-26):** `include/starkernel/homeblocks_sig.h` — `homeblocks_sig_t` +
  `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_PACK`/`_GET_MAGIC`/`_GET_VERSION` macros, a C99 compile-time size assertion
  (same discipline `stadium.h`'s own header-size checks use), and the identical field layout
  shown above. Verified standalone: `sizeof(homeblocks_sig_t) == 4096`, compiles clean under
  `-std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -Werror`. Not yet consumed by any code — nothing in the block
  subsystem or xHCI driver reads or writes it yet, so no functional kernel change and no
  3-arch acceptance boot needed for this step; that starts with the signature-check
  implementation, the next punch-list item below.

- [x] **Implemented (2026-08-26): the check function itself, real and complete — not yet
  wired to any write path.** `include/starkernel/homeblocks_sig.h` +
  `src/starkernel/homeblocks_sig.c`: `homeblocks_sig_check(dev, sig_start_fblock, out_sig)`
  reads the 4 consecutive 1KB `blkio` forth-blocks the 4KB header spans, verifies magic →
  version → CRC-64 in order, returns one of `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK`/`_BLANK`/`_BAD_VERSION`/
  `_BAD_CRC`/`_READ_ERROR`. Reuses `block_subsystem.c`'s existing CRC-64/ISO
  (`compute_crc64`, previously `static`/file-local, now exposed) rather than a second CRC
  implementation — same algorithm already proven via per-block checksums. Takes the header's
  starting block as a plain parameter rather than resolving it internally: this function
  verifies a signature given a location; finding that location (GPT-partition-relative,
  once a parser exists) stays the caller's job, not invented here.

  **Verified against the actual shipped code**, not a reimplementation: a standalone host
  test links the real `homeblocks_sig.c` against a fake in-memory `blkio_dev` and exercises
  all four outcomes — blank media → `BLANK`, a correctly-minted header → `OK` (round-trips
  `drive_uuid`/`minted_time_ns` correctly), a flipped CRC → `BAD_CRC`, an unrecognized
  version → `BAD_VERSION`. All four pass. A full QEMU-hotplug live test isn't proportionate
  yet — nothing calls this function from the live kernel path (deliberately; wiring it into
  the attach path is the next item below), so a live boot check has nothing to exercise.
  Clean zero-warning compile and clean boot on all three architectures confirms no
  build/link regression from exposing `compute_crc64` and adding the new source file to
  every kernel build.

- [x] **Implemented (2026-08-26): the "warn" half, live and wired.** Wired into
  `sk_repl_idle()`'s USB hotplug attach handler (`repl.c`), right between
  `blkio_usb_open_msc()` succeeding and `blk_subsys_attach_device()` — calls
  `homeblocks_sig_check(&usb_blk_dev, 0, &sig)` and logs a distinct message per outcome
  (recognized / blank-or-foreign / bad-version / bad-crc / read-error).

  **The "refuse" half is deliberately not implemented — there is nothing real to gate yet.**
  `blkio_usb.c` has no SCSI `WRITE(10)` support at all (Milestone 2's biggest open item), so
  there is no write path today to refuse; the only thing attach currently enables is
  read-only access, which is also the general-purpose USB block I/O path this repo already
  relies on for unrelated testing, not exclusively a home-blocks identity workflow. Refusing
  attach on blank media would have broken that legitimate use without protecting anything
  real — building that gate now would be enforcement with no live consumer, the same
  "don't build ahead of a real caller" reasoning `EXPIRE`'s deferral used. Refuse belongs on
  the write path once `WRITE(10)` exists to give it something to gate against.

  `sig_start_fblock` is hardcoded to `0` at the call site — correct for today's unpartitioned
  raw test/real media (no GPT parser exists yet), explicitly flagged in the code comment as
  the one place that will need to change to a real GPT-partition-relative lookup once that
  parser lands, isolated from `homeblocks_sig.c`'s own location-agnostic check logic.

  **Verified live**, not just compiled: hot-attached `disk/usb-thumbdrive-test.img` (blank
  media, no `LAHB` magic) through a running amd64 instance's QMP socket (`blockdev-add` +
  `device_add usb-storage,bus=xhci0.0`) — captured exactly 4 real TUR+READ10 BOT cycles
  (matching the header's 4 forth-block span) followed by `xhci: USB drive not recognized
  (blank or foreign media) -- read-only general use only`, then normal attach completing
  successfully afterward (no regression — no `MSC block-subsystem attach failed`).
  Conservation intact, no panic. Clean zero-warning compile and clean boot on all three
  architectures.

- [x] **Resolved (2026-08-26): reuse `acl_pinned` directly, no new flag needed.** The open
  question assumed credential data "isn't a dictionary word" — but the design already chosen
  for it (`ZUSE-CERT-LO`/`HI`, `ACL-CA-KEY-LO`/`HI`) are `CONSTANT` words, i.e. real
  `DictEntry`s. `acl_pinned`'s enforcement is more general than assumed: `vm_create_word()`
  (`dictionary_management.c:394-404`) — the single choke point every word-defining construct
  goes through — unconditionally refuses to let *anything* shadow a pinned name ("Pin is
  permanent: no word may shadow a pinned entry — ever, by anyone"), a real general
  redefinition guard, not just an ACL-mode-change lock. `zuse.4th`'s `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` already
  pins both cert constants today — the mechanism is already wired for this.

  **Real gap surfaced along the way, not yet fixed:** `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` self-activates and pins
  `ZUSE-CERT-LO`/`HI` unconditionally on *every* boot — before any legitimate minting step
  could ever run, permanently locking in the `0` placeholder on the very first boot. The boot
  sequence needs to distinguish "already minted, pin it" from "not yet minted, don't pin yet"
  before minting can work at all.

  **This directly shaped the next design pass (2026-08-26, Captain Bob):** a dedicated
  `disk/zuse.img` QEMU test thumbdrive, "bleachable" back to pristine/unminted state for
  repeated first-boot testing; a one-time first-boot mint-Zuse flow (mint → write real cert →
  blow the fuse → *then* pin, resolving the gap above); a separate, ongoing `S" name" MINT`
  word for an authenticated Zuse session to mint additional regular users; and a Zuse recovery
  path, explicitly flagged as unresolved and risky if rushed — not to be designed casually,
  since the earlier "no software recovery, mint a new one" rule existed specifically to close
  a hole a careless recovery path could reopen.

  **First piece implemented (2026-08-26): the `zuse.img` bleach mechanism.**
  `disk/zuse.img` (64MB, blank, matching the existing USB-fixture convention exactly — see
  `disk/README.md`) + `scripts/bleach_zuse_img.sh` (idempotent reset back to blank). Verified
  live: hot-attached via QMP (same method as the warn-and-refuse verification above) — reads
  back as `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK` (`xhci: USB drive not recognized (blank or foreign media)`),
  correctly simulating a genuine first boot. Deliberately flat/raw, not GPT-partitioned,
  matching `homeblocks_sig_check()`'s current `sig_start_fblock=0` call site — both move to a
  real GPT-partition-relative offset together once a parser exists, not attempted here. No
  kernel code touched this step (host-side test tooling only), so no 3-arch acceptance boot
  needed — single live amd64 QMP-hotplug confirmation is the right verification tier.

  **Correction (Captain Bob, 2026-08-26): drives are not bound to any particular size.**
  64MB was only ever this fixture's arbitrary test-convenience size, matching
  `usb-thumbdrive-test.img`'s existing BOT-driver-testing precedent — never a real-world
  constraint. Audited for anywhere this might have implied otherwise: the actual format
  (`homeblocks_sig_t`) already carries its own `metadata_devblocks` field and hardcodes no
  size anywhere, confirmed clean. `scripts/bleach_zuse_img.sh` gained a `--size-mb` override
  so this was never a hidden assumption baked into the tooling either. The earlier
  `project_usb_thumbdrive_gpt_layout.md` memory's "16GB reference size" phrasing (already
  hedged as tentative, but risked reading as a target) corrected to state the point
  explicitly — the GPT layout's design point is the *proportions* (small metadata partition,
  everything else block storage), not any absolute size.

  **Still open, not attempted:** the mint-then-pin boot-sequence fix itself, the `MINT` word,
  and the Zuse recovery path.

  **Correction, supersedes the "reuse `acl_pinned`" resolution above (2026-08-26): a pinned
  `CONSTANT` is not actually tamper-proof.** `ACL-PIN`/`acl_pinned` only guards against
  *redefinition* — `vm_create_word()`'s pin check blocks a second `: ZUSE-CERT-LO ... ;`, but
  nothing stops `' ZUSE-CERT-LO >BODY !` from overwriting the same word's data field in place.
  A `CONSTANT`'s value lives in its data field, so the earlier design left the cert mutable
  from FORTH despite being "pinned." Found while starting the mint-then-pin boot-sequence fix
  itself; fixing that gap came first since building a real mint flow on top of a tamperable
  store would just re-open the hole later.

  **Fixed (2026-08-26): moved cert storage out of the dictionary entirely.** New
  `VM` struct fields (`include/vm.h`): `zuse_cert_lo`/`zuse_cert_hi` (the cert value) +
  `zuse_cert_installed` (one-time fuse bit). New `vm_zuse_cert_install(vm, lo, hi)`
  (`src/vm.c`) — C-only, no FORTH word wraps it, returns `-1` on a second call rather than
  silently re-installing (a second call is a caller bug, not a runtime condition to recover
  from). No FORTH store word exists or should exist for these fields, closing the `>BODY`
  path structurally rather than by convention. Three new read-only C primitives
  (`src/word_source/starforth_words.c`, same shape as the existing `HEARTBEAT-TICKS@`):
  `ZUSE-CERT-LO@`, `ZUSE-CERT-HI@`, `ZUSE-CERT-INSTALLED?`. `capsules/zuse.4th`'s old
  `ZUSE-CERT-LO`/`HI` `CONSTANT` words (and `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT`'s two now-pointless `ACL-PIN`
  calls on them) deleted outright rather than left as dead/insecure scaffolding — `mkcapsule
  --lint` clean (31/31) after the edit. `vm_zuse_cert_install()` has no caller yet: the real
  mint flow still doesn't exist (Milestone 6 CA + the `MINT` word are both still open), and
  calling it with a placeholder value would just be a stub wearing the shape of a fix — so
  this stays an honest, complete slice (storage + read accessors) with the actual mint-then-
  pin sequence still explicitly open, not faked. **Verified:** hosted `make` build clean,
  zero warnings; clean boot to `ok>` on all three architectures (amd64/aarch64/riscv64),
  Stadium conservation intact (43691/21845/65536) on all three, no panics or guest errors.
  ACL is opt-in (`init.4th`'s `S" ACL.4th" EXEC` commented out by default) so the new words
  weren't exercised live from the REPL this pass — compile/lint/boot verification only.

  **MINT word design, picked up 2026-08-26.** Before scoping `MINT` itself, found a real
  conflict with an existing, deliberate decision: `include/starkernel/ed25519.h` is verify-
  only by design — "this kernel never signs or generates keys (no entropy source to do so
  safely anyway); signing happens in the host-side build tool" (`FABRIC-2.md`, Milestone 6,
  2026-08-22). But the vision for `MINT` (§D below) is an *interactive*, on-device
  `S" name" MINT` word — an authenticated Zuse session signing a new user's cert live, at
  runtime. A kernel that structurally never signs can't do that as envisioned. Raised
  directly; **decided (Captain Bob, 2026-08-26): give the kernel a real signing capability**
  rather than reshape `MINT` around verify-only. This reopens the prior "no entropy source"
  constraint deliberately, not by accident.

  **Phase A — `virtio-rng`, done 2026-08-26.** Checked what entropy is actually available
  before choosing a design: `include/starkernel/vm_uuid.h` already found, for VM UUIDs, that
  amd64 has RDRAND and riscv64 has the Zkr extension, but QEMU's aarch64 CPU models (including
  `max`) expose neither RNDR nor any RNG property at all — confirmed directly against QEMU
  10.2.1. That's why VM UUIDs use a deterministic PRNG uniformly instead of a per-arch split;
  that same choice is **not safe for Ed25519 keygen** — a seed drawn from a known value makes
  the private key predictable. Decided: add a `virtio-rng` device instead of a per-arch
  RDRAND/Zkr split with a weaker aarch64 fallback — QEMU supplies real host entropy
  identically on all three arches, closing the aarch64 gap directly (QEMU-only; real hardware
  at Milestone 8 needs a real per-arch RNG driver, a separate later problem).

  New `include/starkernel/virtio_rng.h` + `src/starkernel/virtio/virtio_rng.c`, transport
  plumbing (PCI capability walk, common-cfg feature negotiation, split virtqueue) mirroring
  the existing `virtio_blk.c` exactly — same device family, same quirks. Simpler shape than
  block: one virtqueue, one device-writable descriptor, no request header or status byte (the
  entropy device has none); `virtio_rng_get_bytes()` loops internally since the device may
  return fewer bytes than requested per round. `-object rng-random,id=rng0,filename=/dev/urandom`
  + `-device virtio-rng-pci` added to all three arches' QEMU invocations
  (`Makefile.starkernel`). Wired into boot (`kernel_main.c`, right after the existing
  `virtio_blk_find_artemis()` call site, same graceful-noop-on-absence precedent).

  **Verified live, not just compiled:** a temporary probe (written, run once, captured,
  reverted — per this project's standing probe convention) pulled 16 real bytes through the
  full request/notify/poll/used-ring round trip on all three architectures and printed them:
  amd64 `be9223909b86a8ccbfff705ccae2caa6`, aarch64 `861487df65a6d7a26b2c9c34f5ff96ee`, riscv64
  `fec51d80e8c169a35aad9d908eab2f39` — three different values, confirming real entropy, not a
  stale or repeated buffer. Probe reverted; permanent code is just the driver + init call. A
  second, final 3-arch acceptance boot ran against that reverted code (not the probe build) to
  confirm the shipped state itself is clean. Clean zero-warning compile and clean boot to
  `ok>` on all three architectures, Stadium conservation intact (43691/21845/65536), no panics
  or guest errors on either pass.

  **Still open: Phase B (real Ed25519 keygen/signing, seeded from this entropy) and Phase C
  (the `MINT` word itself, cert format, and whether Zuse's own keypair needs to chain to the
  Milestone 6 offline root CA or is a self-sovereign instance-local root of trust).**

  **Phase B — real Ed25519 keygen/signing, done 2026-08-26.** Extended
  `include/starkernel/ed25519.h`/`src/starkernel/crypto/ed25519.c` (previously verify-only)
  with `ed25519_keygen(seed, pubkey_out)` and `ed25519_sign(seed, msg, msg_len, sig_out)`, per
  RFC 8032 §5.1.5/5.1.6, reusing every point-arithmetic primitive verify already had
  (`scalar_mult`, `point_compress`, the base-point constants) — no new curve code, only the
  seed-expansion/clamping and per-message nonce derivation verify never needed. Signing is
  deterministic (nonce derived from seed+message, not fresh randomness): only keygen ever
  touches entropy, via a caller-supplied seed (`virtio_rng_get_bytes()`, Phase A) — keygen
  itself still generates nothing and trusts the caller for randomness quality, matching this
  file's original design philosophy exactly.

  New `scalar_muladd()` (`scalar25519.c`/`.h`) for signing's `S = (k*a + r) mod L` step, the
  one piece of scalar arithmetic verify never needed (verify only ever reduced or compared,
  never multiplied scalars). Schoolbook 256×256-bit multiply into a `u128` wide accumulator
  with exactly one final carry-propagation pass — deliberately the same shape as `fe25519.c`'s
  existing field multiply, because that file's own history records a real bug from trying to
  carry mid-accumulation instead of in one final pass; structurally can't repeat that mistake
  this way. Reduces the result via the existing, already-proven `scalar_reduce512()` rather
  than writing new modular-reduction logic.

  **Verified against an independent implementation, not self-consistency** — this project's
  own standing lesson (two real, invisible-by-inspection bugs in the original from-scratch
  field arithmetic, an off-by-one-hex-digit hand-transcribed SHA-512 vector) means a passing
  self-check proves nothing on its own. Built a throwaway host test harness (compiled, run,
  discarded — the crypto files have no `__STARKERNEL__` gate, so they link as an ordinary
  Linux binary) against Python's `cryptography` library (OpenSSL-backed). Six trials — five
  random seed/message pairs (message lengths 1, 32, 255, 1000 bytes) plus the empty-message
  case — every one produced a byte-for-byte identical public key and signature to the
  independent implementation, not just a signature this codebase's own verify accepted.
  **Verified on-target too:** clean zero-warning compile of the crypto files on all three
  architectures, and a full 3-arch QEMU acceptance boot (amd64/aarch64/riscv64) — all clean to
  `ok>`, Stadium conservation intact, no panics or guest errors. Nothing calls
  `ed25519_keygen()`/`ed25519_sign()` from the live kernel path yet (Phase C's job); this pass
  is compile/link/boot-regression verification for the crypto library itself.

  **Still open: Phase C** — the `MINT` word itself, cert format, and whether Zuse's own
  keypair needs to chain to the Milestone 6 offline root CA or is a self-sovereign
  instance-local root of trust.

  **Phase C scoping, 2026-08-26.** Three findings before any code:

  1. **Resolved, not a real conflict: Zuse doesn't need Milestone 6's CA.** That CA chain is
     specifically for *capsule/code signing* (root → snakeoil intermediate → per-capsule
     Ed25519 signatures verified at capsule-load time) — a different trust domain from *user
     identity*. The vision's own framing ("we mint one and only one Zuse user and blow a fuse
     ... the only way around is a new system") already implies Zuse's authority comes from
     being the unique first-boot mint on *this instance*, not from an external chain.
     **Decided: Zuse is a self-sovereign, instance-local root of trust**, keypair generated
     on-device from real entropy (Phase A+B). Regular users, minted later via `MINT`, get
     certs signed by *Zuse's* key, not the Milestone 6 CA — two independent PKI domains.
  2. **A real gap in this session's own earlier work:** `vm_zuse_cert_install(vm, lo, hi)`
     (the very first change this session made, before Phase A existed) only holds two
     `uint64_t` (16 bytes) — sized against the old placeholder `ZUSE-CERT-LO`/`HI` FORTH-cell
     design, not against what a real Ed25519 keypair needs (32-byte pubkey alone, well over
     100 bytes for a full cert). Needs expanding before Phase C can store anything real.
  3. **A genuine blocker, found by asking where the cert would actually live:** "mint once,
     ever" requires surviving reboots, but `Makefile.starkernel`'s `qemu` target copied a
     fresh, pristine `OVMF_VARS.fd` on *every* invocation (not just after `clean`) — so a
     UEFI-NVRAM-based cert (the real-hardware-compatible option, and this codebase already has
     a live `SetVariable`/`GetVariable` precedent via `SF_VAR_REBOOT_TRIES`/`SF_VAR_BOOT_ARGS`)
     would never actually persist under this project's own normal test workflow. Digging
     further: aarch64's `qemu` recipe had no persistent NVRAM store *at all* — a single
     combined `-bios $AAVMF_CODE` argument, no separate writable VARS pflash drive like
     amd64/riscv64 have. **Decided (on request): fix the harness rather than switch
     substrates.** amd64/riscv64: the VARS-template copy is now conditional on the destination
     not already existing, so `clean` (which deletes the whole `build/$(ARCH)/kernel` tree,
     `OVMF_VARS.fd`/`RISCV_VARS.fd` included) is the bleach step, and a bare `make qemu` now
     preserves NVRAM across runs — exactly matching the existing "always pass `clean` before
     `qemu`" acceptance convention, no new bleach script needed. aarch64: restructured to
     split CODE(ro)/VARS(rw) pflash drives matching the other two (host has
     `/usr/share/AAVMF/AAVMF_VARS.fd` alongside the existing `AAVMF_CODE.fd`), with a
     graceful fallback to the old single-`-bios` mode (and a console note) on a host that only
     has non-split firmware packaged, so this doesn't regress environments without one.
     **Verified live:** all three architectures still boot clean to `ok>` with the new
     pflash arrangement, Stadium conservation intact, no panics or guest errors — this is
     infrastructure-only (no cert code yet), so a plain boot-regression check is the right
     verification tier.

  **Still open:** the actual cert struct (expanding past the 16-byte placeholder), the
  first-boot mint-vs-already-minted boot sequence using `SetVariable`/`GetVariable`, and the
  `MINT` word itself.

  **Cert struct expanded (2026-08-26):** `vm_zuse_cert_install()` (both `src/vm.c`'s hosted
  copy and a new kernel-side duplicate in `src/starkernel/vm/vm_core.c` -- the kernel build's
  `VM_EXCLUDE` list drops `src/vm.c` entirely, same reason `vm_set_base()` already has two
  independent copies) now takes a real 32-byte seed + 32-byte pubkey instead of the old
  16-byte placeholder. FORTH-side `ZUSE-CERT-LO@`/`HI@` replaced with `ZUSE-PUBKEY@ ( i -- u )`
  (8-byte LE chunk `i`, 0..3, of the public half only -- the seed has no FORTH access at all).
  `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` now checks `ZUSE-CERT-INSTALLED?` before authenticating rather than
  authenticating unconditionally. Verified: clean compile and clean boot on all three
  architectures.

  **NVRAM persistence attempt: crashed, root-caused, reverted -- do not retry as designed.**
  First attempt placed the mint-or-load `GetVariable`/`SetVariable` logic right after
  `virtio_rng_init()` (before `capsule_birth_mama()`); it page-faulted (`CR2` inside the OVMF
  flash MMIO window, a supervisor write to a not-present page) partway through boot. Moved the
  same logic to the one place in this codebase already calling `SetVariable` post-
  `ExitBootServices` successfully (`SF_VAR_REBOOT_TRIES`, much later in boot) — **identical
  crash, same RIP and CR2** — which disproved the "too early in boot" theory outright: it isn't
  a timing issue.

  **Localized precisely (advisor-directed, one boot, debug markers around each call):**
  `GetVariable` returns fine. `SetVariable` **with real 64-byte data** never returns — that's
  the exact fault site. The pre-existing `SF_VAR_REBOOT_TRIES` call that looked like a working
  precedent is actually a **delete of a variable that's never existed** (`size=0, data=NULL`) —
  a fundamentally different, much cheaper internal path than a real data write, so it proved
  nothing about real persistence being safe. **Root cause: this kernel's VMM never maps
  whatever memory region OVMF's variable service needs to actually write flash-backed variable
  data** — a real gap in UEFI runtime-services support, not specific to Zuse. Fixing it for
  real means walking the UEFI memory map for the relevant regions and mapping them into the
  kernel's own page tables, and per Section U's own note, the flash window's location is
  firmware/arch-specific (OVMF's differs from AAVMF's and EDK2-riscv64's), so "walk the map and
  map everything" is not guaranteed 3-arch-uniform even once attempted.

  **Second, independent finding (not a bug, a design flaw in the persistence choice): storing
  the raw 32-byte seed in NVRAM was a real defect regardless of the crash.** `SetVariable` was
  called with `EFI_VARIABLE_RUNTIME_ACCESS`, meaning any later-loaded UEFI application or the
  booted OS itself could read Zuse's private key straight out of NVRAM. For an irrevocable
  "one and only one Zuse, ever" root of trust, that undermines the property the design exists
  to provide — this would have needed fixing even had the crash not happened.

  **Decision needed, not yet made:** given virtio-blk writes are already proven working on all
  three architectures in this repo (`vblk_write`, Artemis's own persistence across runs), a
  dedicated file-backed system-identity disk (mirroring `disk/artemis.img`'s existing pattern,
  separate from Artemis's internal storage and separate from home-blocks USB thumbdrives) is
  the substrate with no open unknowns today — recommended over either fixing the UEFI
  flash-mapping gap (real but large, unscoped VMM work) or accepting the NVRAM approach as
  originally designed (has the exposed-seed defect regardless). Not decided or built yet.
  **Reverted to a known-safe state:** all Zuse mint/NVRAM code removed from `kernel_main.c`
  (only two harmless includes remain), `init.4th`'s `ACL.4th` line back to its documented
  commented-out default. Verified clean compile and clean boot on all three architectures in
  this reverted state.

  **Substrate corrected (Captain Bob, 2026-08-26): no files, ever — this OS's entire reason
  for being is anti-POSIX, anti-file.** The "dedicated system-identity disk" recommendation
  above was framed in file/filesystem language by mistake; corrected before any code was
  written. The only real persistence primitives here are content-addressed capsules and raw
  LBN-numbered blocks (`block_subsystem.c`) — never a filesystem, never file paths. Saved as
  `feedback_no_files_anti_posix.md` so this isn't re-learned next session.

  **Design, agreed on request: a growable metadata fence at the TOP of a device's block
  space, mirroring the bottom BAM reservation from the opposite end.** `block_subsystem.c`'s
  BAM already reserves the bottom `BLK_DISK_SYS_RESERVED` (32) blocks of every attached
  device, invisible to FORTH's `BLOCK`/`BUFFER`. Zuse's cert (and future system metadata)
  gets a second reservation at the *top* of the same device, starting at
  `BLK_META_FENCE_INIT` (128) blocks and growing downward as needed — the two reservations
  grow toward each other from opposite ends, never colliding, same shape as a stack/heap.
  Explicitly never RAM-backed (the fast-RAM/ramdrive LBN ranges are documented as volatile in
  this same file's own header comment — losing Zuse's identity to a RAM eviction is exactly
  the failure this is designed against). Reuses Artemis's own already-attached, already-proven
  virtio-blk device — no new device attachment. Rejected reusing BAM's own bottom-reserved
  zone directly: those 32 blocks are fully claimed by BAM/volume-metadata bookkeeping, not
  free space.

  **Step 1 (field round-trip) implemented and verified 2026-08-26, allocator not yet
  touched.** New `meta_fence_blocks` field in `blk_volume_meta_t`, appended after
  `reloc_devblocks` and carved from `_pad[]` — identical graceful-default technique the
  `reloc_start`/`reloc_devblocks` fields already established (a pre-existing formatted volume
  reads the field back as 0 via its zeroed former padding, not a format-breaking change).
  Added a compile-time `_Static_assert(sizeof(blk_volume_meta_t) == 4096, ...)`, same
  discipline `homeblocks_sig.h` already uses — caught a real bug immediately: the hand-summed
  `_pad[]` size formula was off by 4 bytes (a compiler-inserted alignment gap before
  `tracked_blocks` that the manual byte-count missed), found via `offsetof()` rather than by
  re-deriving the arithmetic by hand again, consistent with this project's standing rule to
  never trust a hand-derived numeric claim in this class of code.

  Worked against disposable clones throughout, never the real `disk/artemis.img`
  (`ARTDISK=...` is `?=`-overridable) — `disk/artemis-metafence-fresh.img` (blank, exercises
  the fresh-format path) and `disk/artemis-metafence-test.img` (a copy of the pre-existing
  `artemis.img`, exercises the graceful-default-on-reload path), both kept as regression
  fixtures per `disk/README.md`'s existing convention (mirrors `artemis-reloc-test.img`
  exactly). **Verified independently via direct byte reads of the disk image, not the
  kernel's own self-report** (`log_message(LOG_INFO, ...)` turned out not to reach serial
  output at all in this build — an unrelated, pre-existing log-level gap, not a regression):
  fresh format writes `meta_fence_blocks=128` at header byte offset 184; a second boot without
  reformatting reads it back unchanged; the pre-existing old-format image correctly reads back
  0. Full 3-arch acceptance boot against the real, untouched `disk/artemis.img` also clean —
  conservation intact, no panics.

  **Step 2 (allocator + read/write accessors), done 2026-08-26.** Units corrected from "Forth
  1 KiB blocks" to 4 KiB devblocks (matching `bam_devblocks`/`reloc_devblocks`) before anything
  depended on the original meaning — a clean fix, not a migration, since nothing consumed the
  field yet. This let the fence fold directly into `compute_totals_from_B()`'s existing
  `payload4k` calculation (`total_devblocks - 1 - B - R - F`, F = `meta_fence_blocks`) instead
  of needing a second, separate subtraction against `user_blocks` — `total_blocks`,
  `user_blocks`, and `free_blocks` all shrink correctly for free, in both the fresh-format and
  reload code paths, from this one formula change.

  New `blk_meta_zone_read()`/`blk_meta_zone_write()` (`block_subsystem.c`/`.h`) — raw, unpacked
  4 KiB devblock I/O (no Forth-block packing, same shape as the header/BAM/reloc-table
  regions), addressed by `devblock_from_top` counting down from the device's last physical
  devblock, refusing (not silently clamping) if the index isn't within the on-disk
  `meta_fence_blocks`. No FORTH word wraps either — C-only, same discipline as
  `vm_zuse_cert_install()` itself, which will be this zone's first real tenant.

  **Verified independently at every step, never trusting the kernel's own report:**
  - Capacity math: read a freshly-formatted image's header bytes directly and independently
    recomputed the expected `total_blocks` in a separate Python script using the same formula
    — exact match (22647, down from what it would have been without the fence).
  - Accessor correctness: a temporary probe (written, run, captured, reverted) wrote a known
    256-byte-repeating pattern via `blk_meta_zone_write(0, ...)`, read it back via
    `blk_meta_zone_read(0, ...)`, and compared in-memory (`PASS`) — then, independently,
    read the raw image file at the exact expected physical byte offset
    (`(total_devblocks-1)*4096`) and confirmed the pattern landed there byte-for-byte.
  - `log_message(LOG_INFO, ...)` still doesn't reach serial output in this build (same
    pre-existing gap noted in Step 1) — all verification here used `console_println` (which
    does reach serial) for the temporary probe, and direct file reads for everything else.

  Full 3-arch acceptance boot (real, untouched `disk/artemis.img`, probe code fully reverted)
  clean on all three architectures — conservation intact, no panics.

  **Still open:** wiring `vm_zuse_cert_install()`'s seed+pubkey to actually persist through
  these new accessors (the zone exists and works; nothing writes Zuse's cert into it yet), and
  the `MINT` word itself.

  **Step 3 (Zuse's cert wired to the fence), done 2026-08-26 -- first-boot mint-then-load is
  real, end to end.** New `include/starkernel/zuse_cert_devblock.h`: a small, standalone
  on-disk record format (`zuse_cert_devblock_t` -- magic + version + 32-byte seed + 32-byte
  pubkey + a real CRC-64/ISO from day one, same "real from day one" discipline
  `homeblocks_sig_t` already established, since this gates a real security check) occupying
  devblock_from_top=0 of the fence. Deliberately its own header, not inlined at the boot-time
  call site: the still-open `MINT` word will be a second consumer of this exact format later.

  `kernel_main.c`'s mint-or-load logic moved from the crashed NVRAM approach to this: read
  devblock 0 of the fence, and if magic/version/CRC all check out, install the existing
  cert; otherwise, if `virtio_rng` is ready, mint a fresh one (Phase A+B) and write it. Runs
  right after `virtio_rng_init()`, well before `capsule_birth_mama()` -- unlike the crashed
  NVRAM attempt, raw block I/O against Artemis's already-proven virtio-blk device has no
  boot-timing risk at all, so the earlier "re-invoke `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` after Mama birth"
  workaround is no longer needed; `ACL.4th`/`zuse.4th`'s self-activating `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` sees
  a correctly-populated cert on its one, ordinary first pass.

  **Verified live, independently, across every real scenario, never trusting the kernel's own
  report:**
  - **Fresh mint** (blank `disk/artemis-metafence-fresh.img`): boot logs `Zuse: minted, fuse
    blown`; the on-disk record at the exact expected physical offset independently decodes to
    magic bytes `b'ZUSE'`, version 1, a real 32-byte seed and pubkey, and a CRC that an
    independent from-scratch Python re-implementation of the exact CRC-64/ISO algorithm
    (table generation included, not just the check) confirms byte-for-byte.
  - **Reload** (reboot the same now-minted image, no reformat): boot logs `Zuse: cert loaded
    from block fence`; the on-disk seed and pubkey are byte-for-byte identical to the first
    boot's -- genuinely "mint once, ever," not a silent re-mint.
  - **Graceful refusal on a pre-fence volume** (`disk/artemis-metafence-test.img`,
    `meta_fence_blocks=0`): `blk_meta_zone_read`/`write` both correctly refuse (no space to
    read or write), so the kernel mints a cert for RAM/this-boot-only use and honestly reports
    `Zuse: minted but fence write FAILED (not persistent)` -- no crash, no silent data loss,
    no corruption of a device with no fence at all.
  - **Real disk regression check:** the same graceful-refusal path exercised identically
    against the real, untouched `disk/artemis.img` (which has no fence yet either) on all
    three architectures -- clean boot, conservation intact, no panics, `disk/artemis.img`
    itself reverted afterward (no committed churn).

  **Phase 8's core arc is now functionally complete:** real entropy (Phase A) → real signing
  (Phase B) → real, anti-file, block-native persistence (Phase C) → a working first-boot mint
  that survives reboots. **Still open:** the ongoing `S" name" MINT` word for an authenticated
  Zuse session to mint additional regular users (needs `zuse_cert_devblock_t`-format certs
  signed by Zuse's own key, not just installed) -- the real remaining piece of the original
  vision.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 5 — Console/VM key-match binding

- [ ] Settle the still-open question: reuse `ACL-PIN`/`acl_allow` directly, or build a
  separate key-matching primitive — `ACL-PIN` gates word execution specifically and nothing
  today gates console-session-to-VM ownership, so this decision needs to happen before any
  code gets written here.

- [ ] Design the key/lock data shape (what the console presents, what the VM carries, how
  they're compared).

- [ ] Wire drive insertion (Milestone 2e's hotplug signal, post-identity-authentication) to a
  call into `capsule_birth_baby()` (confirmed a real, callable, on-demand birth path already)
  to spin up or re-attach that identity's VM. **Traced 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.5): this
  has no mechanism behind it yet — depends on both `CERTVERIFY` (identity-authentication) and
  a new `RUNCAP` mechanism (§F.6, scoped) for per-identity VM content, since
  `capsule_birth_baby()` today only births fixed, build-time-baked capsules.**

- [ ] Implement the actual attach/bind step — extending `sk_repl_set_active_vm()` (confirmed
  to exist, currently an unguarded raw pointer-set) with the key-match check from above, so a
  console can only bind to the one VM whose lock matches its key. **SCOPED 2026-08-27
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.9)**: real gate is `USE` (`mama_forth_words.c:430-480`), the live,
  already-working, currently-unguarded retarget word — check re-verifies the attached drive
  live on every call; `installed=0` VMs stay freely targetable.

- [ ] Implement detach behavior on console disconnect or VM teardown. **SCOPED 2026-08-27
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.10)**: a new `EJECT` word — flush via the existing `blk_vm_flush_all()`,
  reset the console's active VM if bound to the departing VM, then `capsule_vm_kill()` (already
  complete, no new teardown mechanism needed). Needs one small new piece of state `WIREBIND`
  must own: which `VMUuid` is currently attached via the home-blocks USB path.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 6 — Kernel/capsule PKI signing chain

- [ ] Generate (offline, outside the kernel/repo entirely) the real root CA keypair — "stays
  unrevocable," never embedded, never loaded by any kernel code.

- [ ] Generate the "snakeoil" intermediate certificate, signed by that real root CA (this is
  a real CA-signed intermediate, not a self-signed/untrusted cert despite the name —
  "snakeoil" names its informal/private-project status).

- [ ] Embed the already-CA-signed snakeoil intermediate as a capsule blob at build time
  (mechanically proven already via the font-capsule precedent — no new embedding
  infrastructure needed, just a new payload). **Bootstrapping resolved: no kernel-boot-time
  verification of a hardcoded CA public key is needed at all** — trust is established once,
  at build time, by whoever holds the real root CA and produces the build.

- [ ] Add a signing step to the `mkcapsule` build tool (or a separate signing tool) that
  produces a signature alongside each capsule's existing xxHash64.

- [ ] Extend `MANIFEST_AUTO.md`'s generation to add a signature-status column, matching the
  existing xxHash64 column's generation pattern.

- [ ] Implement magic-number-based content-type detection (Section U item 14) — a shared
  primitive, also usable for Milestone 4's foreign-drive check.

- [x] **Root CA + snakeoil intermediate generated 2026-08-26**, entirely offline, in a sibling
  directory outside this repo (`/home/rajames/CLionProjects/lithosananke-ca/`, not tracked by
  git here). Ed25519, OpenSSL 3.5.5. Root: self-signed, 20-year validity (2026–2046),
  `CN=LithosAnanke Root CA`. Intermediate: a real CA-signed cert (not self-signed despite the
  name), 10-year validity, `CA:TRUE, pathlen:0` (can sign capsules, can't mint further
  intermediates), chain verified (`openssl verify` returns `OK`). Both private keys `chmod
  600`. The root key never touches this repo or any kernel code, per the design's own
  requirement.

- [x] **Snakeoil intermediate embedded as a capsule, 2026-08-26.** Exported to DER
  (`capsules/pki/snakeoil-intermediate.der`, 418 bytes) and dropped under `capsules/` —
  confirmed the font-capsule precedent needed zero new infrastructure: `mkcapsule`'s
  `process_file()` embeds any non-`.4th` file verbatim already. Shows up as capsule
  `pki:snakeoil-intermediate.der` in the generated capsule table (38 capsules total, up from
  37) — retrieve via `capsule_find_by_name()` + `capsule_get_payload()`, never
  `capsule_exec_payload()` (it's a passive data blob, not executable capsule code).

- [x] **Minimal DER/X.509 parser written and independently verified, 2026-08-26.** New
  `include/starkernel/x509_ed25519.h` + `src/starkernel/crypto/x509_ed25519.c`:
  `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()`, a from-scratch, narrow DER walker (not a general ASN.1/
  X.509 parser, per this milestone's own design decision) — walks `Certificate →
  TBSCertificate → SubjectPublicKeyInfo`, handles the optional `[0] EXPLICIT Version` field
  (present on v3 certs), verifies the `AlgorithmIdentifier` OID is exactly `1.3.101.112`
  (RFC 8410 Ed25519) rather than assuming, and extracts the raw 32-byte key from the trailing
  `BIT STRING`. Handles both short-form and long-form DER lengths (a real cert with v3
  extensions routinely exceeds the 127-byte short-form limit). Every step bounds-checked
  against the buffer end — refuses malformed input, never faults.

  **Verified against ground truth, not self-consistency:** run against the real embedded
  `snakeoil-intermediate.der`, the extracted 32-byte key matched `openssl pkey -pubin -text`'s
  own reported public key byte-for-byte. Refusal path verified too: truncated input, 10 random
  garbage bytes, an empty file, and a real RSA certificate (algorithm-mismatch case, not just
  structural malformation) all correctly return failure rather than misreading or crashing.
  Compiles clean on all three kernel architectures (no `__STARKERNEL__` guard needed — same
  freestanding-safe shape as the other crypto files).

  **Still open:** the signing step in `mkcapsule` (needs a new `sig[64]` field on
  `CapsuleEntry` and a parallel emitted array in `capsule_generated.c`, since `CapsuleDesc`
  itself has no spare bytes — confirmed exactly 64 bytes, every field used), wiring
  `ed25519_verify()` into the three `capsule_validate()` call sites in `capsule_birth.c`
  (**decided: land as WARN-only first, prove correct on all three architectures against both a
  valid and a deliberately-corrupted capsule, then flip to hard-refuse in a separate step** —
  a bug here has a much larger blast radius than anything else in Phase 8, since a false
  refusal on Mama's own capsule means no `ok>` at all, on any architecture), and the
  signature-status column on `capsules/BLOCK_MAP.md` (confirmed the real, live manifest target
  — `capsules/MANIFEST_AUTO.md` is stale/dead, not regenerated since 2026-07-05, flag as docs
  drift rather than a real target).

  **mkcapsule signing + capsule_birth.c wiring, done 2026-08-26 -- landed WARN-only exactly as
  decided.** First attempt shelled out to `openssl pkeyutl -sign` (`fork`/`execlp`, not
  `system()` -- interpolating the key path into a shell string would have been a real, if
  narrow, injection vector). **Corrected on request: no new external host binary dependency
  when the repo's own code can do the job** — this project's standing preference, same theme
  as the earlier anti-file correction. Rewritten to link `ed25519_sign()`
  (`src/starkernel/crypto/ed25519.c`, already independently verified against OpenSSL in Phase
  B) directly into `mkcapsule`. This needed one more small piece: `tools/pkcs8_ed25519.c`, a
  narrow DER walker (same shape as `x509_ed25519.c`, deliberately not shared code — small
  enough that duplicating a few TLV-walking lines was simpler than threading a header between
  the kernel crypto tree and host tooling) extracting the raw 32-byte seed from the
  intermediate's PKCS#8 private key, plus a minimal self-written base64 decoder (PEM is
  `openssl genpkey`'s default output, not raw DER — checked the repo for an existing decoder
  first, found none). **Verified end-to-end before wiring anything in:** the extracted seed,
  run through this project's own `ed25519_keygen()`, reproduces the exact pubkey embedded in
  the cert; a full self-contained sign+verify round-trip (zero openssl involvement) passes.

  `CapsuleDesc` had no spare bytes (confirmed exactly 64, every field used), so signatures live
  in a new parallel array, `CapsuleSigEntry capsule_signatures[]` (`{ sig[64], has_sig }`,
  mirroring `capsule_names[]`'s existing shape), emitted by `mkcapsule --sign-key <path>` (new
  optional CLI flag; omitted or the key file missing → every capsule gets `has_sig=0`,
  graceful, not a build failure -- CI has no access to the offline key). New
  `Makefile.starkernel` variable `SIGN_KEY` (defaults to this machine's actual key path,
  `?=`-overridable, gated by `$(wildcard ...)` so a fresh checkout or CI never fails for
  lacking it).

  New `capsule_sig.c`/`.h`: `capsule_verify_signature()`, deliberately a separate, additive
  function, not folded into the already-tested `capsule_validate()` (whose signature and
  behavior stay untouched). Finds and parses the embedded `pki:snakeoil-intermediate.der`
  capsule's pubkey once per boot (cached — every later capsule birth reuses it, the cert can't
  change mid-boot), then `ed25519_verify()`s the requested capsule's payload against its stored
  signature. Wired into all three `capsule_validate()` call sites in `capsule_birth.c`
  (`capsule_birth_mama`, `capsule_birth_baby`, `capsule_run_experiment`) via
  `log_message(LOG_WARN, ...)` on anything other than `CAPSULE_SIG_OK` — never refuses.
  (Hit one unrelated build snag wiring this in: `vm.h` and `log.h` both define `LOG_LINE_MAX`
  for two completely unrelated concepts — vm.h's own is the persistent block-log line size,
  unconditional `#define`; log.h's is `#ifndef`-guarded. `log.h` has to be included *after*
  `vm.h` in any TU that needs both, or the build fails under `-Werror`; fixed and commented in
  `capsule_birth.c` so the next person touching includes there doesn't rediscover it the hard
  way.)

  **Verified independently, both directions, live in the real kernel:** a full clean build (38
  real capsules, all signed) boots clean on all three architectures with zero signature
  warnings — the expected outcome when every signature is genuinely valid, not merely an
  absence of testing. Separately, hand-corrupted one byte of Mama's own `init.4th` capsule's
  *stored signature* (not its payload/hash, which `capsule_validate()` already checks
  independently and would have masked the test) directly in the generated
  `capsule_generated.c`, without regenerating from source, and rebuilt only the changed object:
  produced exactly `capsule sig: init.4th: INVALID -- signature does not verify` on boot, and
  **the kernel still reached `ok>`** — proving warn-only genuinely doesn't refuse anything yet,
  precisely as decided. Reverted the tampered build before the final acceptance pass. Final,
  untampered state: clean 3-arch acceptance boot, conservation intact, zero warnings, real disk
  untouched.

  **Still open:** flipping WARN to hard-refuse (a separate, deliberate step once this has run
  clean for a while, not bundled into this pass) and the `BLOCK_MAP.md` signature-status
  column.

  **`BLOCK_MAP.md` signature-status column, done 2026-08-26.** `--manifest` mode's file scan
  (`manifest_file()`) is a completely separate code path from build mode's `process_file()` —
  confirmed it only ever walks `.4th` files (never the embedded PKI cert or font capsule), and
  the Makefile invokes `mkcapsule` twice per build for two different purposes (once to emit
  `capsule_generated.c`, once for the manifest). Extended `--manifest` to accept the same
  optional `--sign-key <path>` prefix as build mode (factored the key-loading code, previously
  inline in build mode's arg parsing, into a shared `load_sign_key()` used by both) so the
  manifest can report real per-capsule signing status without touching or requiring a rebuild
  of `capsule_generated.c`. New `Signed` column on the capsule summary table: `yes`/`no` when
  `--sign-key` was given, `n/a` (with an explanatory footnote) when it wasn't — never a bare
  blank that could be misread as "unsigned." `Makefile.starkernel`'s manifest-generation call
  site updated to pass the same `$(SIGN_KEY_ARGS)` the real build already uses, so
  `capsules/BLOCK_MAP.md` reflects this machine's actual signed state by default. Verified:
  clean compile, `capsules/BLOCK_MAP.md` correctly shows `yes` for all 31 tracked `.4th`
  capsules on a real signed build; a quick amd64 boot (no kernel code touched by this step,
  only host tooling) confirmed no regression, zero signature warnings, conservation intact.

  **This closes every open item from FABRIC-2.md's original Milestone 6 punch list except
  magic-number content-type detection (Section U item 14, shared with Milestone 4, not
  started) and the hard-refuse flip (deliberately deferred).**

  **Hard-refuse flip, done 2026-08-26 -- and it landed narrower than the original plan
  assumed.** Before flipping, found that `CAPSULE_SIG_MISSING` (no signature at all) is the
  *normal* state on every machine except this one -- CI and any other checkout have no access
  to the offline key, by design. Refusing on `MISSING` the same as `INVALID` would brick boot
  everywhere but here, not catch anything real. **Decided (on request): enforce ONLY on
  `CAPSULE_SIG_INVALID`** (a signature that IS present but doesn't verify -- unambiguous
  tampering/corruption evidence, safe to refuse on regardless of who's building).
  `MISSING`/`NO_ROOT_KEY` stay WARN-only permanently, not as a transitional state.

  All three `capsule_birth.c` call sites now `return CAPSULE_RUN_ERR_INVALID` on
  `CAPSULE_SIG_INVALID`, after logging the same WARN as before. **Verified on all three
  architectures, both directions, exactly per the original rollout commitment:** the positive
  case (real signed capsules) reboots clean with zero warnings on amd64/aarch64/riscv64,
  identical to before this flip. The negative case (the same one-byte signature corruption
  technique used for the WARN-only proof, on Mama's own `init.4th`) now genuinely refuses --
  `capsule_birth_mama()` returns the error -- on all three architectures identically:
  `capsule sig: init.4th: INVALID` followed by `Init: Mama birth FAILED`. **The feared "no
  ok> at all" blast radius didn't materialize**: `kernel_main.c` already had graceful
  error handling for a failed Mama birth (log and continue, pre-existing code, not written for
  this feature) -- the kernel reaches a degraded `ok>` rather than crashing or hanging, on all
  three architectures. Final acceptance pass (real, correctly-signed capsules, all tampering
  reverted) clean on all three, zero warnings, conservation intact, real disk untouched.

  **Milestone 6 is now fully closed** except magic-number content-type detection (shared with
  Milestone 4, genuinely separate scope, not started).

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 7 — Contributor capsules / trust tiers

- [ ] Create the `capsules/contrib/` directory (mechanically trivial, matches existing
  subdirectory convention — the directory itself is not the work).

- [ ] Add a `FLAG_CONTRIB` bit to `mkcapsule.c`'s flag system, assigned by path match
  (`contrib/` prefix), same pattern as how `init.4th` already gets `FLAG_MAMA_INIT`.

- [ ] Decide and implement one of the four spitballed trust-tier directions (signature-
  authority tiers / block-namespace sandboxing / QEMU-vs-real-hardware conditional
  enforcement) — none chosen yet, this is a real decision point, not just an implementation
  task.

- [ ] If block-namespace sandboxing is chosen: extend `mkcapsule`'s existing conflict-
  detection logic to also reject a `contrib/`-path capsule claiming blocks outside its
  reserved range.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 8 — Bare-metal boot from physical USB

- [ ] Build a fresh `starkernel.iso` via `make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 clean` + the
  ISO-build step.
- [ ] Identify the exact block device path for the target USB drive on the host doing the
  flashing (`lsblk`/`dmesg` after insertion — care needed, wrong device = data loss).
- [ ] `dd if=build/amd64/kernel/starkernel.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress` (or
  equivalent) — confirm `dd` is the right tool for an El Torito ISO vs. needing `isohybrid`
  first (open question, not yet verified).
- [ ] Physically boot the real machine from the flashed drive (BIOS/UEFI boot-order menu,
  Secure Boot may need disabling — unknown until tried).
- [ ] Capture what happens with no serial-socket log available (real hardware has no
  `qemu-serial-*.sock` to `socat` into) — decide the observation method.
- [ ] Confirm POST reaches the same 1012/0/0 result on real hardware as every QEMU acceptance
  run.
- [ ] Confirm `ok>` prompt is reachable and a basic command (e.g. `HEARTBEAT-TICKS@ .`) works
  identically to QEMU.
- [ ] Document the result (pass/fail, and if fail, what diverged from QEMU) — first real
  external validation this project has ever had outside QEMU TCG emulation.

### From FABRIC-2.md §X, Milestone 9 — Networking / capsule distribution server

- [ ] (Deferred) Revisit and punch-list this milestone once Milestone 7 closes, not before.

---

## B. Stadium unification — words/VMs/blocks/messages on the same engine

Raised 2026-08-25: "words are stadium patrons, VMs are patrons, blocks are patrons, messages
are stadium patrons, all should be operated on by THE SAME ENGINE." Investigated before
designing anything — the real state is more nuanced than "everything's a stub," verified via
direct reads and `git log`, not assumed:

**`FABRIC.md` §18.3 already decided the mapping** (not invented here): blocks → `MIGRATE`,
messages → `DELIVER`, ACLs → `EXPIRE`, words and VMs both → `COOL`. `stadium_evict()`
(`src/starkernel/vm/stadium.c`) — real, tested infrastructure: bitmap tracking, pin/`contains`
refusal, the Hera-patron-zero panic guard, heat-conservation back to the owner's reservoir on
every reap — calls `stadium_dispatch()` for the actual payload action when a patron departs.

**Per-behaviour status, as of 2026-08-25:**

- **`MIGRATE` (blocks)** — zero consumer, genuinely stub (`stadium_dispatch()`'s case prints
  `"MIGRATE (stub)"` and returns). This session already built the real mechanical primitive
  it needs: `blk_subsys_relocate_block()`/`RELOCATE-BLOCK` (`FABRIC-2.md`, commit `36d832f`),
  live-verified (redirect + content survive an abrupt kill and reboot) but never wired to
  `stadium_dispatch()` — it's a separate, parallel, already-working mechanism today, not
  routed through Stadium at all.
- **`COOL` (words *and* VMs, same tag)** — half real. **Words are fully live**, but via a
  *separate, bespoke* mechanism, `stadium_word_dispatch()` (`stadium_words.c`, item 4.1),
  wired directly into the real VM word-execution hot path (`vm_core.c:690,885,896`) — it does
  **not** go through the generic `stadium_dispatch()` switch at all. `ONTOLOGY.md` §IX
  claiming words are "not yet migrated" is itself stale documentation drift (same class of
  bug as the "glibc" misattribution corrected earlier this session — flagged as a small,
  separate fix below, not blocking). **VM cooling has no evidence of ever being wired
  anywhere** — still genuinely stub.
- **`DELIVER` (Hermes messages)** — `FABRIC.md` (~line 3452) records this explicitly as
  "Open, surfaced not resolved": Hermes's message/channel heat already integrates with
  Stadium's reservoir accounting (`STADIUM-HEAT@`, `STADIUM-RES-PULL/PUSH`), but which Hermes
  lifecycle event maps to `DELIVER` vs. `EXPIRE` was never decided, let alone wired. Real,
  substantial, Hermes-specific integration work.
- **`EXPIRE` (ACL TTL expiry)** — no evidence of any wiring anywhere; `ACL.4th`/
  `acl_recheck()` has zero Stadium involvement today. Also substantial, separate work.

**Why `DELIVER`/`EXPIRE` aren't being resolved in the same pass as `MIGRATE`:** each is a
full subsystem integration (Hermes lifecycle mapping; ACL-to-Stadium wiring where none has
ever existed) in its own right — attempting all four stubs at once risks exactly the rushed,
shipped-but-incomplete outcome the no-stubs rule (below) exists to prevent. `MIGRATE` gets
resolved for real because this session already has a tested primitive underneath it; the
other three become honest, explicit punch-list items instead of being touched speculatively.

**Punch list:**

- [x] **Investigated (2026-08-25): block-patron admission does not exist yet, but is
  architecturally straightforward, not blocked.** Confirmed via `stadium_admit()`'s own doc
  (`stadium.h`) that it REFUSES any candidate with `mass != 1`, and that a `mass > 1`
  multi-cell patron would need a continuation chain nothing has ever designed — this looked
  at first like a hard blocker for a 1024-byte block. It isn't: confirmed via
  `stadium_word_dispatch()`'s real candidate construction (`stadium_words.c:245-252`) that
  Stadium cells carry pure identity/heat/bookkeeping only — `candidate.identity = word_id`,
  `payload[32]` unused — the actual word content stays in the dictionary; Stadium never holds
  it. By the same pattern, a block patron's cell would carry `identity = LBN`, `mass = 1`,
  `payload` unused — the actual 1024 bytes of block content stays exactly where it already
  lives (block cache / disk via `block_subsystem.c`), unmoved. So `mass != 1` is a non-issue;
  the real gap is just that nothing has ever built the LBN→cell_index residency map (the
  block-patron analogue of `stadium_word_dispatch()`'s `resolve_resident_cell()`) or the
  touch-on-access hook (the analogue of `vm_core.c`'s three `stadium_word_dispatch()` call
  sites). Not yet built — this is real, scoped, buildable work, not a stub-around candidate.
  **Still open**, plan to be presented before implementation per the no-stubs/no-early-coding
  conventions.
- [x] **Resolved (2026-08-25): real block-patron admission + real `MIGRATE` dispatch, both
  live.** New `stadium_blocks.h`/`stadium_blocks.c` mirror `stadium_words.c`'s shape (Option B
  starter-grant admission, redirected Loop #3 cooling, self-healing stale-entry detection) but
  key residency by `(quota_slot, lbn)` in a fixed-capacity open-addressing hash table sized off
  `stadium_cell_count()` (tombstone-based deletion, since LBN space isn't densely bounded like
  `word_id`), not a dense array. Wired into `block_word_block()`/`block_word_buffer()`/
  `block_word_update()` (`block_words.c`), `#ifdef __STARKERNEL__`-guarded. `stadium_dispatch()`'s
  `MIGRATE` case now calls `blk_flush(lbn)` for real (confirmed `blk_flush()`, not
  `blk_subsys_relocate_block()`, is the right primitive — the latter is for compudynamics-driven
  relocation to a *different* LBN mid-residency, not ordinary reap write-back). Three new Kconfig
  tuning constants (`STADIUM_BLOCK_HEAT_QUANTUM`/`STADIUM_BLOCK_COOL_RATE_Q48`/
  `STADIUM_BLOCK_TRACK_CAP_MULT`) mirror the word-patron ones exactly, same three-layer wiring.
  **Verified:** clean compile, zero warnings, on all three architectures; clean boot to
  `zuse)ok>`/`ok>` REPL on all three, conservation (`resident_sum + reservoir == Q48_ONE`) intact
  identically across all three; `BLOCK`/`BUFFER` touches exercised live from the REPL on amd64 and
  riscv64 with no crash; a 22,000-distinct-block flood loop (amd64, artificially shrunk to a
  20,971-cell Stadium via a one-off smaller `-m` to make quota pressure reachable) ran clean under
  heavy admission-path load with no corruption. **Live `MIGRATE` fire confirmed (2026-08-26):**
  interactive flooding alone never triggered it — Hera's reservoir was already sitting exactly at
  the `Q48_ONE / 3` floor from the boot-time self-tests, so every block-touch candidate pulled 0
  heat, and a 0-heat candidate can never be *strictly denser* than an existing resident, so
  `stadium_admit()`'s eviction fallback correctly refuses rather than evicts once the free list is
  exhausted (a pre-existing reservoir-floor/density-eviction interaction, applies equally to word
  patrons, not introduced by this pass). Closed deterministically instead with a temporary boot
  probe (`kernel_main.c`, inserted into the existing Artemis 4.6 self-test block, reverted
  immediately after capture — no code left behind): `100 65536 0 STADIUM-ADMIT ... STADIUM-EVICT`
  against the live Artemis VM. Captured live: `Stadium: dispatch cell=63257 behaviour=MIGRATE
  lbn=100`, followed by `DBG err after MIGRATE probe=0` — `blk_flush(100)` fired for real, with
  the correct LBN threaded through from the departing patron's `identity` field exactly as
  designed. (Artemis's own reservoir went briefly out of Q48_ONE-balance during the probe — raw
  `STADIUM-ADMIT` doesn't debit the reservoir on its own, by its own doc, so a heat value handed
  to it directly is invented, not pulled; harmless here since Artemis is killed and her whole
  economy discarded immediately after, and Hera's own conservation was independently confirmed
  back at the normal 43691/21845/65536 baseline afterward.)
- [x] **Bug found, reported, then fixed on request (2026-08-25/26): `capsules/lib.4th:13-14`
  shadowed the C primitives `USE`/`RUN`.** While chasing the live-MIGRATE test above,
  `S" Artemis" USE` (meant to redirect the REPL into Artemis's own vocabulary,
  `mama_word_use()`) instead printed `EXEC: failed: Artemis`. Root cause: `capsules/lib.4th:13`
  defined `: USE ( addr u -- ) EXEC ;` — a FORTH word with the same name but a completely
  different meaning ("load/exec a capsule"), which shadowed the C-registered `USE` in
  dictionary search order since `lib.4th` loads after primitive registration. `lib.4th:14` did
  the identical thing to `RUN`, which CLAUDE.md also names as an untouchable C primitive
  ("BIRTH, RUN, USE are primitives — registered in C exactly like DUP, BYE, EXEC"). Same bug
  class as the K-PUSH dictionary-shadowing issue
  (`docs/working/architecture/K-PUSH-DICTIONARY-SHADOWING-BUG-20260704.md`). Reported first
  per CLAUDE.md's rule against unrequested fixes; Captain Bob then explicitly asked for the fix.
  **Fix:** traced every real caller before touching anything — `RUN`'s alias was dead (never
  called anywhere as bare `RUN`); `USE`'s alias had exactly one real caller,
  `capsules/hermes/init.4th:397` (`S" common:msg.4th" USE`, intentionally exploiting the shadow
  to load that capsule right after `lib.4th` itself loaded). Both aliases were pure
  `EXEC` wrappers with zero added behavior, so the fix deleted both definitions from `lib.4th`
  outright and changed the one real call site plus its matching doc comment
  (`capsules/common/msg.4th:4`) to call `EXEC` directly — no new names invented, the C
  primitives untouched, `mkcapsule --lint` clean (31/31 pass). **Verified live:** rebuilt and
  booted amd64 — Hermes still births and her `COMMON-CH`-eviction self-test (which depends on
  `common:msg.4th` having loaded) still passes exactly as before; interactively, `S" Artemis"
  USE` now correctly prints `USE: now using Artemis` and switches the REPL's console-name
  coloring, confirming the C primitive runs unshadowed. Clean compile and clean boot with
  conservation intact on all three architectures (amd64/aarch64/riscv64).
- [x] **Resolved (2026-08-26): real VM-patron admission + real explicit-KILL eviction, both
  live.** Re-scoped on request: confirmed `capsule_vm_kill()` had zero Stadium involvement
  (`vm_cleanup()`/`sf_free()` only) and child-VM birth only ever called
  `stadium_grant_quota()` (a resource pool for the VM's *own* future word/block patrons) —
  never `stadium_admit()` for the VM *itself*. The only precedent, `stadium_birth_hera()`,
  admits Hera into her own quota as a permanently pinned cell 0, which can never reach
  `stadium_evict()` — not a working example of `COOL` firing for a VM. On closer look this
  turned out NOT to be entangled with the still-iterating Tripod/Zuse/messaging vision after
  all (§D) — birth and kill already funnel through two single choke points, so the earlier
  2026-08-25 deferral was overcautious. **Design:** added `size_t stadium_patron_cell` to
  `VMRegistryEntry` (`capsule_run.h`). At birth, right after the existing
  `stadium_grant_quota()` call (`capsule_birth.c`), admit a candidate into the new VM's own
  quota mirroring `stadium_birth_hera()`'s shape (`identity=0`, `mass=1`, `behaviour=COOL`)
  but deliberately **unpinned** — pinning would need a new "unpin" primitive (none exists) to
  ever evict it later, and adding a pin-bypass to `stadium_evict()`'s refusal logic isn't
  something to do casually; unpinned costs nothing since nothing wires `COOL`'s dispatch body
  to actually kill anything, so the worst case of an unrelated natural eviction is
  `stadium_patron_cell` going stale, which is tolerated the same way `stadium_word_forget()`
  already tolerates staleness. At `capsule_vm_kill()` and `capsule_vm_kill_all_nonmama()`:
  `stadium_evict()` the tracked cell if still resident, silently tolerating refusal (already
  gone). `stadium_dispatch()`'s `COOL` case needed no new payload body — same as it already is
  for words, where `COOL` has no defined extra action beyond `stadium_evict()`'s own universal
  reservoir credit; the missing piece was admission and a genuine trigger, not dispatch-body
  logic. **Verified live:** a second, new `Stadium: dispatch cell=... behaviour=COOL` now
  fires immediately before every `PARITY:KILL` line, for both Hermes and Artemis, confirmed on
  amd64 (distinct from the pre-existing `COMMON-CH` word-eviction self-test's own COOL print).
  Conservation (`resident_sum + reservoir == Q48_ONE`) intact throughout. Clean zero-warning
  compile and clean boot on all three architectures (amd64/aarch64/riscv64).
- [x] **Re-scoped and resolved (2026-08-26): `DELIVER` (Hermes) was never actually a gap —
  the earlier "zero consumer, needs substantial Hermes lifecycle mapping" framing above was
  wrong, carried over unverified from `FABRIC.md`'s old "open, not resolved" note about
  *which* Hermes event maps to `DELIVER` vs. `EXPIRE`. Item 4.2 already answered that in code
  (messages → `DELIVER`, channels → `COOL`) without the prose ever catching up — same
  documentation-drift class as the stale `ONTOLOGY.md` words note and the earlier glibc
  misattribution. Confirmed live: `capsules/hermes/init.4th`'s `MSG-ALLOC` already admits
  every message with `SB-DELIVER`, and `MSG-FREE-NODE` (called from both `MSG-ACK-LAST` and
  heat-driven `MSG-REAP`) already evicts it — `behaviour=DELIVER (stub)` has been printing on
  boot logs since at least 2026-08-05. Checked whether the dispatch body needed a real payload
  action the way `MIGRATE` did: `MSG-DELIVER` (the FORTH word) already runs the actual
  delivery (`VM-EXEC` of the payload) *before* eviction, decoupled from Stadium reap — so by
  dispatch time delivery is already done, same shape as `COOL`, which needs no extra action
  beyond `stadium_evict()`'s own universal reservoir credit. **Fix:** `stadium_dispatch()`'s
  `DELIVER` case now prints the departing message's real identity (`DELIVER msg_idx=N`, same
  shape as `MIGRATE`'s `lbn=` print) instead of a misleading `(stub)` label — confirmed live
  via a forced `MSG-SEND`/`MSG-DELIVER-ALL`/`MSG-ACK-LAST` sequence from Hermes's own REPL
  context (`Stadium: dispatch cell=73653 behaviour=DELIVER msg_idx=1`). `COOL`'s case was in
  the identical situation (real for both words and VMs, no extra action needed) and, on
  request, got the same fix (2026-08-26): now prints `COOL identity=N` (word_id for a word, 0
  — the patron-zero convention — for a VM) instead of `(stub)`. Confirmed live: both shapes
  fired correctly on the same boot — `COOL identity=0` at Hermes's/Artemis's own explicit
  channel-eviction self-test and again at their VM-patron eviction at `PARITY:KILL`,
  `COOL identity=1` at a second channel eviction — conservation intact throughout. Clean
  zero-warning compile and clean boot on all three architectures for both fixes.
- [ ] `EXPIRE` (ACL) — confirmed genuinely unscoped (2026-08-26), not a case of stale
  documentation like `DELIVER` turned out to be. Two findings below, then four open questions
  — **decided directly on request (2026-08-26)**, decision recorded after the questions, no
  code written (a decision isn't a green light to build, per this session's own convention):

  **Finding 1 — `acl_ttl` and Stadium's `ttl` are different things wearing the same name.**
  `DictEntry.acl_ttl` (`vm_core.c:756`) is a per-word countdown that batches how often
  `ACL-RECHECK` runs — when it hits 0, `acl_recheck()` calls the FORTH word `ACL-RECHECK`
  (`ACL.4th:50`), which **always renews**: STRICT mode sets `allow=1, ttl=0` (recheck every
  time); TTL mode computes a fresh heat-based TTL and sets `allow=1`. Denial isn't a live path
  anywhere in current policy. This is a *renewal* cycle, not a *residency-ending* event —
  nothing about it resembles "leaving the Stadium floor."

  **Finding 2 — `StadiumPatronHeader.ttl` is completely inert.** Every candidate constructor
  across the whole codebase (`stadium.c`, `stadium_words.c`, `stadium_blocks.c`, Hermes's
  `MSG-ALLOC`/`CH-ALLOC`) sets `candidate.ttl = 0`, and nothing anywhere ever reads,
  decrements, or reaps on it. The generic TTL-expiry *mechanism* `EXPIRE` would need to fire
  from doesn't exist in Stadium's own engine at all — a gap one level deeper than "ACL isn't
  wired to Stadium."

  **Open questions:**
  1. Is "ACL patron" even the right model, or was `FABRIC.md`'s original "ACLs → EXPIRE"
     mapping a category mismatch from the start — conflating `acl_ttl`'s recheck-amortization
     counter with Stadium's residency `ttl`?
  2. If it is the right model: what gets admitted as a patron? One per ACL-guarded word would
     be redundant with the word's own patron cell item 4.1 already tracks. A different unit
     (e.g. per zuse session) might fit better once PKI/session auth lands (Phase 8, still
     open per `.claude/CLAUDE.md`'s ACL section).
  3. Building this for real means building Stadium's generic ttl-decrement/reap-on-zero
     mechanism first — nothing to hook `EXPIRE` into today. Is that in scope here, or its own
     separate item?
  4. What should the reap action actually *do*, given current ACL policy never revokes — would
     `EXPIRE` force an `ACL-RECHECK`, or something else entirely?

  **Decision:**
  1. Not at the per-word level. `acl_ttl`-hits-zero always renews, never revokes — forcing
     `EXPIRE`'s residency-ending tag onto it would misuse the tag. But "ACLs → EXPIRE" isn't
     wrong in spirit, just aimed at the wrong unit: the one place in this system where
     something ACL-related genuinely has a lifetime and should be revoked is a **zuse
     superuser session** (Phase 8, not yet built) — authenticate, hold elevated privilege for
     a bounded time, then actually drop back to non-zuse. That's a real residency-ending
     event; per-word recheck isn't.
  2. A zuse session, not a per-word ACL entry — a session is the thing with a genuine
     start/lifetime/end. A word already has its own patron via item 4.1; a second one for ACL
     purposes would be redundant bookkeeping, not a new concept.
  3. **Not in scope now.** This is the decision that actually resolves the item: Phase 8
     doesn't exist yet, so there is no session to admit as a patron regardless of any other
     choice made here. Building the generic ttl-decrement/reap mechanism now, with nothing
     real to feed it, would be speculative infrastructure ahead of its only consumer — close
     in spirit to what the no-stubs standard exists to prevent, just inverted (a real
     mechanism with no real caller, instead of a fake mechanism with a real caller).
  4. Revoke the session's elevated privilege and drop the console back to its non-zuse state —
     a real action, unlike `DELIVER`/`COOL`, which needed none.

  **`EXPIRE` stays explicitly deferred until Phase 8 (PKI/zuse session minting) lands** — not
  abandoned, not left ambiguous: revisit it as part of that work, admitting the session itself
  (not a word) as the patron, once there is something real for it to represent.
- [x] Fixed (2026-08-26): `ONTOLOGY.md` §IX's "words (dictionary, warehouse-resident today,
  not yet migrated)" line was stale — corrected to state words are fully migrated and live
  via `stadium_word_dispatch()`. Doc-only, no build/boot verification needed.

---

## C. Standing rule: no stubs or TODOs, ever

Stated directly, 2026-08-25, after the `stadium_dispatch()` stub investigation above:
**"I've never allowed stubs before."** Saved as a persistent memory
(`feedback_no_stubs_or_todos.md`) so this applies across sessions, not just this one. Full
statement: no stub function that prints a placeholder and returns, no `TODO`-and-move-on
comment in place of real logic, in any language, ever committed as if it were finished work.
Small, honest increments are still fine and encouraged — each increment just has to be a
complete, real implementation of whatever slice it covers, never a placeholder for a later
slice. A pre-existing stub found while working nearby (as here) gets flagged and resolved,
not built on top of or left in place.

---

## D. Tripod final shape — minting, one-time Zuse fuse, messaging-only (vision, substantially expanded 2026-08-27)

Stated directly by Captain Bob, 2026-08-25: "we're going to have to iterate because I know
what the final shape of the tripod will be." Originally captured as a forward-looking vision,
not yet broken into implementable items. **2026-08-27: expanded into a much fuller picture**
after Phase 8/Milestone 6 closed and unblocked this design pass — captured here in full before
any of it gets scoped into implementable items, per direct request ("capture EVERYTHING first
then we'll build a plan"). Full detail also in memory `project_tripod_final_shape_vision.md`.

### D.1 — Original vision (2026-08-25), still accurate

- **Thumbdrive presentation → legality check → mint.** A newly presented thumbdrive is
  checked for legality (against the CA-root-derived identity/certificate scheme). If not
  legal, it is "minted" — formatted for system use — which (1) spins a new user VM and (2)
  attaches the console VM to it.
- **One-time Zuse mint + fuse-blow on first install.** A brand-new system instance
  ("Install"/"Try It") mints exactly one Zuse superuser, then irreversibly "blows a fuse":
  direct quote, "we mint one and only one Zuse user and blow a fuse. The only way around is a
  new system." Post-fuse, no further Zuse can ever be minted on that instance — but the
  system is NOT bricked: the existing Zuse superuser keeps working, and ordinary users can
  still "thumb in" via regular thumbdrives. **This half is now actually built** — Phase 8's
  entropy→signing→block-fence persistence work (2026-08-26, `project_phase8_milestone6_complete.md`)
  implements exactly this, minus the physical thumbdrive itself (see D.4, WRITE(10) gap).
- **Messaging-only once Tripod is fully live.** All inter-VM interaction becomes Hermes
  messaging, not direct calls/shared state — a stated end-state, not the current
  implementation. **Reaffirmed and sharpened 2026-08-27: hardwired/direct-call
  implementations are acceptable *during development only* — no piece of this design is
  considered actually finished until its hardwired calls are replaced with real Hermes
  messages.** This is a standing completion criterion for everything in this section, not a
  separate future milestone.
- **Polymorphic block-boundary behavior for user VMs.** Still just one sentence, still not
  elaborated — genuinely unresolved since 2026-08-25, needs its own follow-up conversation.
  **CLOSED 2026-08-27, see `D.4`/§F.16** — that follow-up happened; already true of the live
  block-subsystem code.
- **`ClaudeEXPORT/`** — a prior Claude data export, "concepts and thoughts as guidelines,"
  explicitly flagged as possibly containing superseded/conflicting ideas, not authoritative.
  See memory `project_claude_export_archive.md`.

### D.2 — The session model (2026-08-27): a session IS a VM

Direct correction to how this document and the earlier `EXPIRE` framing (§B) had been
thinking about "sessions": **a session is any VM client running in the Stadium fabric — Zuse
is no different from any other VM.** The Stadium/FABRIC metaphor restated by Captain Bob:
the fabric floats inside the Stadium; VMs actually doing work are "players on the field"
(system perturbances); user interaction is "fans in the stands" providing patron-driven noise.
Zuse is a player like any other, not a special boolean flag on Hera.

**This directly invalidates the `EXPIRE`-as-TTL-on-`zuse_session`-boolean plan this session
had started scoping (§B's `EXPIRE` decision, and the implementation research begun
2026-08-27 before this correction landed).** Today's `zuse_session` field on the VM struct is
not what a "session" actually is in this model — a session ending is a **VM detaching**, far
closer to the existing, real, working `COOL`/`capsule_vm_kill()` path than to a new
Stadium-behaviour-tag TTL sweep. **`EXPIRE` as originally scoped is superseded, not merely
deferred** — when Stadium/ACL session-lifetime work is picked up again, it should be framed
as "what happens when a user-VM's owning thumbdrive detaches," reusing `COOL`, not as a
timeout on a flag.

When Hera has no VM attached beyond fleet-servicing strata, she idles, watching services and
maintaining a serviced fleet foundation — her normal steady state, not a special case.

**Validated against the original Stadium foundation, not just today's intuition (mined
2026-08-27 from `FABRIC.md` §17.1/§20, the oldest, most foundational layer of this whole
design — see D.2b below for the full mining pass).** `FABRIC.md` §17.1's own patron/departure
table already says VMs depart via heat decay (`COOL`) and only messages/ACLs ever used TTL —
meaning the `EXPIRE`-as-TTL-on-a-flag plan this session had started scoping didn't just become
inconvenient once "session = VM" landed, **it contradicted the original design from the
start**: a VM was never one of the two patron kinds TTL governs. §20's outer/inner Stadium
nesting (VMs as outer-Stadium patrons; words/blocks/ACLs/messages as inner-per-VM patrons)
already anticipated exactly "attach = admit a VM patron" as the outer-Stadium case — no new
Stadium theory is needed for this, only a new *admission trigger* (thumbdrive attach) feeding
the existing admit/evict machinery.

### D.2b — The pentagon: five VMs, minimum, to service one attached user (2026-08-27)

Stated directly: **"Just to get a user, 5 VMs are needed — if we draw every connection to
every node they can make a pentagon."** The five: **Hera, Hermes, Artemis, the user's own VM,
and the Console.** Drawing every pairwise connection among five nodes (a complete graph, K5)
draws a pentagon with all its diagonals — visually a pentagram. Noted in passing, and worth
keeping since this project's naming is already steeped in Greek mythology (Hera, Hermes,
Artemis, Ananke/Lithos, Zuse for Zeus): a pentagram at the foundation of a "pagan" system fits
the theme, not an accident to explain away.

**The Console is a full peer node, not a passive terminal that merely "attaches to" a user
VM** — D.3 step 4 undersells this; the Console is architecturally one of the five, with (at
minimum) its own binding relationship to the user's VM and, per the messaging end-state,
eventually its own message traffic to Hera/Hermes/Artemis too, not just a one-way relay.
Reconciling D.3's "console attaches to the new user VM" phrasing against this five-node,
fully-connected picture is real remaining work, not done here — captured as a gap in D.4.

Why each of the five is load-bearing, best understanding as of this capture (not all edges
independently confirmed — see D.4's gaps):
- **Hera** — governs the fleet, births/kills the user VM (existing `capsule_birth_baby()`/
  `capsule_vm_kill()` path), holds the outer-Stadium quota the new VM draws from.
- **Hermes** — the messaging fabric itself; per the standing "nothing is done until it's
  messaging" criterion, every other edge in this pentagon is ultimately meant to route through
  Hermes, making Hermes both a node in the graph and (eventually) the medium connecting every
  other edge — worth being explicit that this is a two-level relationship (Hermes as a peer VM
  *and* as the substrate other peers communicate over), not a design tension to smooth over
  by treating it as an ordinary fifth node.
- **Artemis** — persistent block storage; the identity/system-metadata store (Phase 8's
  block-fence) and, per D.3, wherever a user's own working data actually lives during a
  session, live here.
- **The user's own VM** — where the user plays (D.3 step 5).
- **Console** — the human-facing binding point (D.3 step 4, Milestone 5).

### D.3 — The attach/mint flow, end to end

1. **Idle loop watches for thumbdrive connects** (`sk_repl_idle()`, already the right hook —
   confirmed 2026-08-27 during the (superseded) `EXPIRE` research: ~1s cadence, already used
   for `xhci_poll_events()`/MSC attach).
2. **Cert-only authentication — no password, no username.** A presented thumbdrive's identity
   is *entirely* the cert on it. Verification means checking the cert's fields directly (chain
   of trust, most likely signed by *Zuse's own key* — the same `x509_ed25519.c`/
   `ed25519_verify()` primitives Milestone 6 already built and proved work end to end, just
   verifying against Zuse's pubkey instead of the snakeoil intermediate's). **The system has
   no requirement to maintain any single identity itself** — no user directory, no central
   registry of who exists. Each thumbdrive is a fully self-contained, portable identity
   record.
3. **A dedicated user VM is born** from the identity's own data — "the users/agents/services
   metadata can reside in their capsule and [get] encoded directly into their dictionary when
   they attach and their init.4th executes." This is a *runtime*-constructed capsule from
   drive content, not a build-time-embedded one like `pki:snakeoil-intermediate.der` — a
   materially different mechanism from anything `mkcapsule` does today (gap, see D.4).
4. **The console VM attaches to the new user VM** — this is exactly Milestone 5's still-open
   "Console/VM key-match binding" item, now with its open question *resolved*: "the bumps on
   a thumbdrive have to fit the holes on the VM... (ACL territory)" — **reuse the existing
   ACL primitive (`acl_mode`/`acl_allow`/`acl_pinned`) for the key-match check, don't build a
   separate mechanism.** Exact comparison semantics still undesigned (see D.4).
5. **The user plays entirely inside their own VM** — all their FORTH activity happens in
   their own isolated VM context, never Hera's or anyone else's.
6. **Ongoing minting**: while Zuse is attached/active, a second blank thumb presented can be
   minted with a new named identity (worked example given: `S" CaptBob" MINT`-shaped flow)
   and ejected — this is the still-open `MINT` word from Phase 8's own punch list, now with a
   concrete attach-flow context to design it against.
7. **Detach**: working state is copied back to the user's own thumb and flushed before eject.
   **Explicitly deferred — stated directly as "going to be a maintenance operation later,"
   not needed now.**

### D.4 — Gaps identified 2026-08-27, sorted by whether they're answered

**Answered (resolved during capture, not deferred):**
- Milestone 5's "reuse `ACL-PIN` vs. build a new key-match primitive" question — reuse ACL.
  **Now grounded, not just intuited** (mined 2026-08-27 from `FABRIC-2.md` §C/§D,
  lines ~2884-2918): `acl_pinned`'s one-way-ratchet (`include/vm.h:346`, C-only mutation, no
  FORTH clear path) was *already* identified as the right-shaped precedent for exactly two
  things — Zuse's own one-way "burn" and console-session ownership — but in both cases only
  the *pattern* was precedented, never actually built past word-execution gating. The
  "still genuinely open" framing in `FABRIC-2.md` is accurate as of that writing; today's
  decision closes it, the comparison *semantics* remain the real gap (below).
- `EXPIRE`'s framing — superseded by "session end = VM detach," see D.2. **Now shown to be
  required, not just cleaner**, by `FABRIC.md` §17.1's own patron/departure table (see D.2's
  addendum above) — TTL was never a valid mechanism for a VM patron in the first place.
- Regular-user cert chain-of-trust mechanism — signed by Zuse's own key, verified with
  already-built, already-proven Ed25519/X.509 primitives (Milestone 6). No new crypto work
  needed, only a new verification *call site* using existing functions. **Correction,
  2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.7): partially wrong.** `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()`
  deliberately stops at `SubjectPublicKeyInfo` — no signature extraction, no TBS-byte-range
  capture, no chain/issuer check of any kind (`x509_ed25519.h`'s own doc comment). Verifying a
  *signed* cert (not just reading a pubkey out of one) is new DER-walking work, not a pure
  reuse. Trust root is also confirmed separate from the capsule-PKI chain: Zuse's own
  on-device key (`zuse_cert_devblock_t`), never the offline root CA / snakeoil intermediate.
- Whether the system needs a central user directory — no, by design; each thumbdrive is
  self-contained (reinforces D.3 point 2, was implicit, now explicit).
- **The concrete target shape for message-bus migration** (mined 2026-08-27 from
  `FABRIC-2.md`, cross-checked against live `capsules/hermes/init.4th`): a message is
  `MSG-CELLS` = 9 cells (`TYPE, FROM, TO, PADDR, PLEN, STADIUM-CELL, SEQ, CH, ORIG-TYPE`), 72
  bytes, payload **out-of-line** (a pointer+length to caller-owned bytes — there was never a
  fixed inline payload field, an earlier open question in `FABRIC-2.md` §23.4 that its own
  design already closed as moot). Live API: `MSG-ALLOC ( heat -- addr|0 )`,
  `CH-ALLOC ( heat -- addr|0 )`, `MSG-DELIVER ( m -- )`, `MSG-DELIVER-ALL ( -- )`. A future
  "thumbdrive attach event" or "cert verify request" message type follows this exact shape —
  allocate, fill `TYPE`/`FROM`/`TO`/`CH`, point `PADDR`/`PLEN` at an out-of-line event struct,
  send. Not built, but no longer an abstract "use messaging someday" — there's a real API to
  target.

**Real, unanswered gaps — deferred on purpose (per "answer what we can, defer what we
can't"):**
- **How does thumbdrive content actually become a capsule at runtime?** `mkcapsule` only
  ever builds capsules at build time, baked into `capsule_generated.c` — nothing today
  constructs a capsule from data read off a live-attached device. This is new mechanism, not
  a variation on anything that exists. **SCOPED 2026-08-27, `FABRIC-3.md` §F.6**: no new
  birth machinery needed — `capsule_birth_baby()` is already generic; construct a
  self-contained heap-allocated single-entry directory (mirroring `kernel_main.c`'s own
  heap-copy of the compile-time directory) and feed it straight in. Source-location-on-drive
  and read-path details still open.
- **Exact ACL "bumps and holes" comparison semantics.** Which specific ACL fields, compared
  how, constitute a console-to-VM match? Direction is settled (reuse ACL), the actual
  comparison logic is not designed.
- **Message-bus migration scope.** Which specific interactions (attach detection, cert
  verify, console bind) move to Hermes messages, and what do those message shapes look like?
  Entirely unscoped, explicitly deferred until after a hardwired version exists to migrate
  *from*. **SCOPED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.15)**: `MSG-DELIVER` already executes arbitrary
  FORTH text on the target VM (`VM-EXEC`), so no new dispatch mechanism is needed. Real target
  is a genuine Console VM (already real: serial+framebuffer+PS2), two-hop flow (Hera→Console
  reports attach; Console→Hera requests the privileged operation with literal arguments).
  Surfaced a substantial new vision detail along the way: blank-media minting is a Console-
  driven interactive onboarding form, not a bare word call (§D.6).
- **Polymorphic block-boundary behavior for user VMs** — still just the one original sentence
  from 2026-08-25, never elaborated. **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.16)**: clarified by
  the user as an architectural principle (the block layer should have no idea what backs it),
  then confirmed already true of `blk_get_buffer()`'s live RAM/raw/disk-cache abstraction —
  not a missing feature.
- **SSD identity-store scope** — does the system-resident store (the block-fence built in
  Phase 8) ever hold anything about *regular* users, or is it purely Zuse/system bookkeeping
  with regular users staying purely thumbdrive-resident? Best read of what was said: the
  latter, but not stated explicitly enough to treat as settled. **CLOSED 2026-08-27
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.16)**: confirmed the latter, both by D.3's own explicit "no central
  registry" statement and structurally by where this session's own scoping put every piece of
  user identity data (§F.6-F.8, all on the user's own drive).
- **Does a user's VM/session state round-trip across multiple attaches** (unplug, come back
  later, resume exactly where you left off), given detach explicitly copies state back to the
  drive? Implied yes by the detach description, not confirmed directly. **CLOSED 2026-08-27
  (`FABRIC-3.md` §F.16)**: confirmed as a structural consequence of decisions already made —
  the user's pool being their own drive plus `EJECT`'s flush-before-kill means the data simply
  never leaves; no separate resume mechanism needed. **Checked against
  `FABRIC.md` §24's mutation/identity-stability rules (mined 2026-08-27) — no conflict either
  way**: identity is only pinned stable *within one residency*, so a thumbdrive re-attaching
  later and being admitted as a fresh VM patron (possibly reusing an identity value derived
  from its cert/pubkey) is simply a new residency each time. Nothing in the foundational
  theory blocks or answers round-tripping; it stays a pure implementation decision.
- **Reconcile D.2b's five-node, fully-connected pentagon against D.3 step 4's "console
  attaches to the user VM" phrasing.** The Console is a full peer node (Hera/Hermes/Artemis/
  User-VM/Console, K5), not just a passive relay that binds to one other node — D.3's
  wording undersells this. Which of the ten pentagon edges are real *today* versus aspirational
  once messaging lands is not worked out; only Hera↔UserVM (birth/kill) and
  UserVM↔Artemis-via-Hera's-quota (existing Stadium quota mechanics) are clearly already
  real in some form.
- **Confirmed baseline before any message-bus migration can start** (mined 2026-08-27,
  `FABRIC-2.md` cross-checked against live `src/starkernel/repl.c` and the xHCI/USB driver):
  today's hotplug→MSC-attach→`homeblocks_sig_check()`→`blk_subsys_attach_device()` chain is
  **100% hardwired, direct C calls, zero messaging at any point** — confirmed empirically, not
  assumed. This is the exact, real starting point "hardwire now, message later" describes;
  there is no partial messaging implementation anywhere in this path to build on yet.
- **The single biggest hard blocker underneath all of it: SCSI `WRITE(10)` still doesn't
  exist** (`blkio_usb.c` is read-only — Milestone 2's biggest open item, unchanged). Minting
  a blank thumb, and flushing state back on detach, both need real writes to physical USB
  media. None of D.3's flow can run on real hardware until this lands; QEMU testing would need
  to proxy through a writable virtio-blk stand-in the same way Phase 8's cert persistence did
  for Zuse's own identity.

**Small, unrelated, real bug found along the way:** the prompt shows `zuse)ok>` (a stray
trailing paren, "never corrected typo") — should be `(Zuse)ok>`, both parens around the
identity name, generalizing to any attached identity (e.g. `(CaptBob)ok>`). Independent of
everything else in this section; safe to fix any time. **CLOSED 2026-08-27 (`FABRIC-3.md`
§F.16)**: traced for the literal string — it doesn't exist in any live code path today
(`SK_PROMPT_TEXT` is unconditionally `"ok> "`); the typo lives only in a doc comment
describing not-yet-implemented behavior. Correct intended form recorded for whenever it's
actually built.

**Why this affects §B:** VM-`COOL` (and any inter-VM Stadium wiring) sits close to this
design — see D.2's `EXPIRE` supersession above, the concrete example of exactly this risk
materializing.

**Next step:** no implementation yet — this section is capture only, per direct request. Next
session should turn D.3/D.4 into an actual scoped, ordered plan (the user's own framing:
"identify gaps, answer what we can, defer what we can't... push the pile out in front of us").

---

## E. The pile as a graph (2026-08-27)

Stated directly: "if this is all documented, scoped and correctly interwoven we can begin
iterating... I see no reason to not create this as a graph, it might better handle the way I
think." Auditing D.1-D.4/D.2b against the older Milestone 2/3/5 punch lists (§X in this
document) confirms the instinct is right, not just stylistic — several items across
*different* milestones are, on inspection, **literally the same open question**, and one
single blocker (`WRITE(10)`) gates work in at least four unrelated-looking places. A flat
punch list hides that; a graph doesn't.

```mermaid
graph TD
    W10["✅ WRITE(10) SCSI support<br/>BUILT + VERIFIED 2026-08-28 (§F.17), all 3 arches"]
    HOTPLUG["✅ Hotplug event surfacing<br/>CLOSED 2026-08-27, M2 (§F.3)"]
    STALL["❌ USB error/stall recovery (M2)<br/>SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.14) — full BOT-spec recovery designed"]

    M6["✅ Milestone 6 — capsule PKI<br/>DONE 2026-08-26"]
    PH8["✅ Phase 8 — Zuse identity<br/>+ block-fence, DONE 2026-08-26"]

    CERTVERIFY["❌ Zuse-signed user-cert verification (M3)<br/>SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.7) — X.509/DER, own trust root"]
    FIRSTTOUCH["❌ First-touch identity→block-range<br/>allocation (M3) — SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.11)"]
    BMAPFMT["❌ On-drive block-map format (M3)<br/>SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.4) — repurpose blk_meta_t"]
    BMAPWRITE["✅ Write block-map to drive (M3)<br/>CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.12) — already built, blocked only on W10"]
    BMAPREAD["✅ Read/validate block-map on insert (M3)<br/>CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.13) — already built"]
    MIGSM["🟡 Migration state machine (M3)<br/>partially answered: ACL decides *when*"]
    UNCLEAN["❌ Unclean-removal handling (M3)<br/>DESIGN CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.10), code not yet written"]

    ACLKEY["❌ ACL 'bumps and holes' comparison<br/>semantics — SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.2)"]
    WIREBIND["❌ Wire hotplug → capsule_birth_baby() (M5)"]
    BINDSTEP["❌ Extend sk_repl_set_active_vm()<br/>with key-match (M5) — SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.9)"]
    DETACH["❌ Detach behavior / new EJECT word (M5)<br/>SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.10)"]

    EXPIRE["✅ EXPIRE reframed: session end<br/>= VM detach via COOL (§B + D.2)"]
    RUNCAP["❌ Runtime capsule construction<br/>from thumbdrive content — SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.6)"]
    MINT["❌ Ongoing MINT word (Phase 8 + D.3)<br/>SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.8) — GPT dropped, single-device confirmed OK"]
    PENTAGON["📍 Pentagon: Hera/Hermes/Artemis/<br/>User-VM/Console, K5 (D.2b)"]
    MSGSHAPE["✅ Hermes message shape known<br/>(MSG-CELLS, MSG-ALLOC/DELIVER)"]
    MSGMIGRATE["❌ Message-bus migration of<br/>attach/verify/bind (D.4) — SCOPED 2026-08-27 (§F.15)"]

    SSDSCOPE["✅ SSD identity-store scope<br/>for regular users — CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.16)"]
    ROUNDTRIP["✅ Session state round-trip<br/>across attaches — CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.16)"]
    POLYBLOCK["✅ Polymorphic block-boundary<br/>behavior — CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.16), already true"]
    PROMPTBUG["🐛 (Zuse)ok> prompt typo<br/>CLOSED 2026-08-27 (§F.16) — doc-comment only, not live code"]
    EMPTYBUFBUG["🐛 EMPTY-BUFFERS mass-zeros every<br/>block on every device (§F.17) — found 2026-08-28, NOT FIXED"]

    W10 -->|unblocked, §F.17| BMAPWRITE
    W10 -->|unblocked, §F.17| MINT
    W10 -->|unblocked, §F.17| DETACH
    W10 -.->|QEMU-verified; real hardware still untested| M8["Milestone 8 — bare metal"]

    M6 -->|unblocks| CERTVERIFY
    PH8 -->|supplies crypto primitives| CERTVERIFY
    PH8 -->|supplies mint-then-pin precedent| MINT

    BMAPFMT --> BMAPWRITE
    BMAPFMT --> BMAPREAD
    BMAPFMT --> FIRSTTOUCH
    BMAPREAD -.->|found: sig must relocate off devblock 0, §F.13| MINT

    CERTVERIFY --> RUNCAP
    RUNCAP --> MINT

    HOTPLUG --> WIREBIND
    CERTVERIFY -->|"post-identity-authentication" per M5 wording, SCOPED 2026-08-27 §F.5| WIREBIND
    RUNCAP -->|no per-identity VM content until this exists, SCOPED 2026-08-27 §F.5| WIREBIND
    ACLKEY --> BINDSTEP
    WIREBIND --> BINDSTEP
    BINDSTEP --> DETACH
    UNCLEAN -.->|same kill path, no flush| DETACH
    DETACH -->|triggers| EXPIRE

    MSGSHAPE --> MSGMIGRATE
    WIREBIND -.->|hardwired version must exist first| MSGMIGRATE
    BINDSTEP -.->|hardwired version must exist first| MSGMIGRATE
    CERTVERIFY -.->|hardwired version must exist first| MSGMIGRATE
    PENTAGON -->|which of the 10 edges get messaged| MSGMIGRATE

    classDef done fill:#1a3,stroke:#333,color:#fff
    classDef blocked fill:#a33,stroke:#333,color:#fff
    classDef unblocked fill:#a83,stroke:#333,color:#fff
    classDef open fill:#666,stroke:#333,color:#fff
    classDef partial fill:#883,stroke:#333,color:#fff
    class M6,PH8,EXPIRE,MSGSHAPE,HOTPLUG,BMAPWRITE,BMAPREAD,SSDSCOPE,ROUNDTRIP,POLYBLOCK,W10 done
    class STALL,FIRSTTOUCH,WIREBIND,BINDSTEP,DETACH,MINT,BMAPFMT,CERTVERIFY,RUNCAP,UNCLEAN,MSGMIGRATE,ACLKEY blocked
    class MIGSM partial
```

**Legend:** ✅ done · 🔓 unblocked-but-not-built · ❌ not started, no open design question left
(just needs building) · ❓ real open design question, not just missing implementation ·
🟡 partially addressed · 📍 topology/context node, not a work item itself · 🐛 trivial,
independent bug. Solid arrows = hard dependency (A must exist before B can be built or
finished). Dashed arrows = softer "gates/informs" relationships.

**What the graph makes visible that the flat lists didn't:**
- **`WRITE(10)` is a true hub**, not just "the M2 punch list's biggest item" — it independently
  gates the block-map write path, `MINT`, detach/flush-back, *and* all real-hardware testing.
  Landing it once unblocks four separate-looking fronts at once.
- **`ACLKEY` (the exact ACL comparison semantics) is one node, not two** — Milestone 5's "key
  and lock data shape" and D.4's "bumps and holes" gap are the literal same open question,
  asked in two different sessions/documents. Answering it once closes both.
- **`RUNCAP` (runtime capsule construction) sits on the critical path to `MINT`** — a gap that
  read as "D.4 leftover detail" is actually load-bearing for the ongoing-minting flow, not a
  side note.
- **`MSGMIGRATE` has three separate hardwired prerequisites**, all currently unbuilt — the
  message-bus migration can't even start until `WIREBIND`/`BINDSTEP`/`CERTVERIFY` exist to
  migrate *from*, confirming this is correctly the last thing to tackle in this whole area, not
  a parallel track.
- **Only `SSDSCOPE`, `ROUNDTRIP`, `POLYBLOCK`, and `PROMPTBUG` are genuinely standalone** —
  everything else in the pile connects to at least one other node.
- **`WIREBIND` was missing two real incoming edges** (found scoping it, §F.5): `CERTVERIFY`
  and `RUNCAP` both gate it, not just `HOTPLUG`. Without a verified identity there's nothing
  to bind to, and without `RUNCAP` there's no per-identity VM content to birth — today's
  `capsule_birth_baby()` only runs fixed, build-time-baked capsules by name, so "spin up that
  identity's VM" had no real mechanism behind it at all until this pass traced it.
- **`CERTVERIFY` and the capsule-PKI chain are two separate trust roots, not one** (§F.7) —
  easy to conflate since both use Ed25519/X.509, but user certs are signed by Zuse's own
  on-device key while capsules are signed by the offline root CA's snakeoil intermediate.
  Neither chain validates the other; a future audit pass should keep this distinction explicit
  rather than let "PKI" get treated as one undifferentiated mechanism.
- **`MINT` closed out the GPT question for the whole arc, not just itself** (§F.8) — GPT was
  never actually load-bearing anywhere in this design; every node that referenced it
  (`CERTVERIFY`, `WIREBIND`, `RUNCAP`, `HOTPLUG`) was already treating raw devblock-0 as the
  working format. Dropping GPT converts all of those from "interim, revisit later" to simply
  "the design," retroactively.
- **`BINDSTEP` already has a live target to gate, not new plumbing** (§F.9) — `USE`
  (`mama_forth_words.c`) is a real, working, currently-unguarded retarget word. The only
  genuinely new code this node needs is a small cross-file accessor for the currently-attached
  device (mirroring `sk_repl_get_active_vm()`'s own precedent) plus the comparison itself.
- **`UNCLEAN` (M3) and `DETACH` (M5) were the same node wearing two names, in a different way
  than `ACLKEY` was** (§F.10) — not identical questions asked twice, but one shared teardown
  path (`capsule_vm_kill()`, already complete) forked by whether a flush is physically possible.
  Scoping them together closed a long-open M3 item as a side effect of an M5 pass.
- **Found a real, pre-existing, independent bug while tracing `DETACH`** (§F.10): plain `KILL`
  today never resets `g_repl_active_vm`, so killing the VM a console is currently `USE`'d onto
  leaves a dangling pointer. Reported, not fixed — the new `EJECT`/hot-unplug call sites handle
  this correctly, but the existing `KILL` word's own call sites do not.
- **`FIRSTTOUCH`'s own punch-list wording was stale** (§F.11) — "claim at `g.total_user_lbn`"
  predates `BMAPFMT`'s distributed-ownership decision and doesn't describe a workable
  mechanism against the current design. A second, unrelated discovery in the same pass —
  `blk_meta_t`'s existing chain fields — turned what looked like a fragmentation problem into
  a non-issue for free.
- **`BMAPWRITE` was already done** (§F.12) — `BMAPFMT`'s decision to repurpose the existing
  `blk_meta_t` accessors instead of a new table meant "write the map" and "write a block" were
  never actually two operations. The only reason this hasn't been seen working is `WRITE(10)`
  itself, already the graph's known hub.
- **`BMAPREAD` closed the same way, but tracing it surfaced a real, load-bearing bug that had
  nothing to do with reading at all** (§F.13) — `homeblocks_sig_t` and the block-subsystem's
  own generic disk header physically collide at devblock 0. Every earlier node that touched
  `homeblocks_sig_t` (`CERTVERIFY`, `WIREBIND`, `RUNCAP`, `MINT`) inherited this without anyone
  noticing, because each only traced `homeblocks_sig_check()` itself, never the ordinary attach
  path running alongside it. Fixed now (relocate to devblock 1) rather than left to surface
  later as a real, confusing runtime failure.
- **`STALL` closes out Milestone 2 entirely** (§F.14) — the last item on that punch list.
  Unlike most nodes this session, this one designs genuinely new protocol machinery rather than
  finding existing infrastructure already covers it: no completion-code distinction and no
  recovery of any kind existed before this pass, only a bounded-timeout safety net.
- **`MSGMIGRATE` needed no new mechanism, only a routing decision** (§F.15) — `MSG-DELIVER`
  already executes arbitrary FORTH text on the target VM. Scoping it also surfaced a real,
  substantial vision expansion (§D.6): blank-media minting is meant to be an interactive,
  Console-driven onboarding form, connecting forward into both `RUNCAP`'s deferred
  "default personality content" question and `MINT`'s own scope.
- **`WRITE(10)` (§F.17), the graph's original highest-leverage node, is built and verified —
  the whole arc's single hard blocker is gone.** `BMAPWRITE`, `MINT`, and `DETACH`/`EJECT` all
  move from "scoped, blocked" to "scoped, genuinely buildable." Validating it surfaced a real,
  separate, serious bug (`EMPTYBUFBUG`) — a stark reminder that this pile still has more
  surprises in it than the scoping pass alone can find; the "full codebase audit pass" already
  flagged as deferred (§D.5) has real work waiting for it.

**Not yet done:** an ordered plan (which node to attack first, given the graph). Per Captain
Bob's own framing, that's the next pass — "start asking and answering questions iteratively
until we've planned as much as possible."

## F. Scoped plans (iterative Q&A pass, started 2026-08-27)

One node at a time: surface the concrete decisions the node's own doc comments/code don't
already answer, get a ruling, record it here. This section grows as the pass continues — it's
the output of "the punch list of punch lists," not a duplicate of §E.

### F.1 — `WRITE(10)` (the graph's highest-leverage node)

Traced against the live READ(10) implementation in `src/starkernel/usb/xhci.c`
(`xhci_bot_read_block()` / `xhci_bot_send_read10()` / the `XHCI_XFER_*`/`BOT_CMD_*`/
`XHCI_NEXT_ACTION_*` deferred-dispatch state machine) before asking anything — the mechanism
already exists for READ10 and WRITE10 is a direct mirror of it, not new protocol work:

- **Data direction flips.** READ10's Data-In stage rides `bulk_in_ring`; WRITE10's Data-Out
  stage must ride `bulk_out_ring` instead (new `XHCI_XFER_BOT_DATA_OUT` /
  `XHCI_NEXT_ACTION_BOT_DATA_OUT`, reusing the existing `xhci_bulk_out_enqueue_and_ring()`
  against `bot_data_buf` rather than the CBW). CBW's `bmCBWFlags` clears the DATA_IN bit
  (host→device) instead of setting it.
- **New SCSI opcode** — `SCSI_CMD_WRITE10` (0x2A) — plus `BOT_CMD_WRITE10` /
  `BOT_TUR_CHAIN_WRITE10`, mirroring READ10's TUR-preflight chain exactly (same first-command
  UNIT ATTENTION handling on a fresh target).
- **`blkio_usb.c`'s `usb_blk_write()`** stops being the `BLKIO_ENOSUP` stub: `memcpy` the
  caller's `src` into `xdev->bot_data_buf`, then call the new `xhci_bot_write_block()` — same
  shape as `usb_blk_read()`.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27 (iterative Q&A pass):**

1. **`read_only` flag in `blkio_info()`** — flips to 0 immediately once `xhci_bot_write_block()`
   is proven in QEMU. No separate "bring-up mode" gate to design or later retire.
2. **Validation target** — a new disposable QEMU-only test image (e.g.
   `disk/usbwrite-test.img`, following the same disposable-clone convention as
   `disk/artemis-metafence-*.img`), attached via `-drive` + `-device usb-storage,drive=...`.
   Never `disk/artemis.img` itself, matching [[project_disk_images_in_repo]]'s standing rule
   and how Phase 8's block-fence work was validated
   ([[project_metadata_fence_design]]'s verification method).
3. **Scope boundary** — `WRITE(10)` alone is the unit of work. `MINT`'s write-the-identity step
   and `DETACH`'s flush-back-to-thumb step are separate graph nodes; each gets its own scoping
   pass once `WRITE(10)` lands, rather than being pulled into this one preemptively.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** exact CSW failure/residue handling for a
partial write (READ10's PASS/FAILED logic likely transfers unchanged, not independently
verified); whether a write needs a follow-up `TEST UNIT READY` or cache-flush SCSI command
before the transfer is considered durable on real media (QEMU's `usb-storage` backend may mask
this — a real-hardware-only question, revisit at Milestone 8).

### F.2 — `ACLKEY` (the "bumps and holes" comparison semantics)

Traced against the actual code before asking anything: `acl_mode`/`acl_allow`/`acl_pinned`
(`include/vm.h:343-346`, `src/word_source/acl_words.c`) are **`DictEntry` fields — per word,
not per VM.** There is no VM-level ACL structure anywhere today. So D.3/D.4's "reuse the
existing ACL primitive" resolution can only ever have meant reuse the *pattern* (a cached
decision plus a C-enforced one-way ratchet — `if (e->acl_pinned) return;` at every mutating
primitive) — the actual data has to live somewhere new. `sk_repl_set_active_vm()`
(`starkernel/repl.c:64`) is confirmed to be exactly what its own doc comment says: an
unguarded raw pointer swap, no credential concept at all.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27 (iterative Q&A pass):**

1. **Where the lock lives.** A new dedicated type in its own header —
   `include/starkernel/vm_identity.h`, a `VMIdentity { uint8_t owner_pubkey[32]; uint8_t
   installed; }` — embedded by value as a field on `struct VM`, exactly the way `VMUuid
   stadium_vm_id` (`vm_uuid.h`, its own header, embedded field) already does. **Explicit
   standing instruction from Captain Bob**: don't grow `struct VM`/`vm.h` feature-by-feature
   with more inline fields — when a feature's data has real shape, it gets its own header and
   gets *integrated* as a field, not inlined ad hoc. `VMUuid` was already the right precedent;
   `VMIdentity` follows it. Deliberately holds only the public key, not a seed — unlike
   Zuse's own `zuse_cert_seed`/`zuse_cert_pubkey` pair, a regular VM's lock never needs to
   sign anything itself, so no private material belongs on it at all.
2. **Zuse override.** Zuse keeps an always-allowed override to attach to any VM (consistent
   with the existing `emergency_console`/`zuse_session` bypass precedent, and avoids the
   bricking risk of Zuse ever being locked out of a VM by its own cert state) — **but the
   override must be a distinct, explicit call path** (e.g. a separate function/word, not a
   silently-taken branch inside the normal bind check), so invoking it requires a deliberate
   acknowledgment rather than happening as a side effect of an ordinary bind attempt. Exact
   acknowledgment UX (a confirm prompt? a two-step word?) is not designed yet — the
   architectural commitment is only that it can't be silent.
3. **Binding pin.** No pin. `sk_repl_set_active_vm()` stays freely retargetable — matches
   today's Tripod-fleet `USE`-word behavior, and is needed for real cases where a single
   console legitimately moves between VMs mid-session (Zuse doing maintenance work in another
   service VM; a user's console retargeting to update something in a second VM they own). The
   credential check runs at each bind call, not just once at first attach.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the exact acknowledgment UX for the Zuse
override path; whether `VMIdentity.installed` needs its own one-way fuse semantics (probably
yes — the *lock itself* being immutable once set at a VM's birth is a different axis from
"binding stays retargetable," and shouldn't be conflated with decision 3 above) — worth a
dedicated look when this is actually built, not decided in this pass.

### F.4 — `BMAPFMT` (on-drive block-map format)

Worked through conversationally, one step at a time, rather than dumped as a finished design —
each step below only followed once the previous one was grounded in real code, not assumption.

**Step 1 — does a map cell need a state field, not just ownership?** Yes, confirmed against
existing precedent before answering: the internal Artemis BAM entry
(`blk_bam_entry_t{allocated, dirty}`, `block_subsystem.h:257-261`) already conflates ownership
and state in the simplest map this codebase has. More importantly, `MIGSM` and `UNCLEAN` (two
already-identified, currently-blocked graph nodes) have nowhere else to record "this range is
mid-migration" or "this range's flush was interrupted" without a state field — this node was
quietly upstream of both.

**Step 2 — should a cell also carry an ACL?** Yes, and it can't reuse `acl_mode`/`acl_allow`/
`acl_pinned` directly for the same reason `ACLKEY` (F.2) couldn't — those are `DictEntry`
fields. Decided: the owner field and any future ACL grant should share **the same identity
representation** `VMIdentity` already established (a pubkey), not a second encoding — keeps
"identity is one common primitive" (D.5) actually true in practice, not just in name.

**Step 3 — ACL check ordering.** "ACL denial is the fast exit path" — grounded directly
against `vm.c:611-624`'s live word-execution ACL check: a cached `acl_allow` bit is
checked *first*, before any other work, and denial short-circuits immediately. A block cell's
ACL needs the identical shape at its top: one cheap cached allow bit, checked before range/
state/owner logic runs.

**Step 4 — buffering/granularity, and a major discovery.** Confirmed: this kernel already
buffers a whole 4 KiB devblock on any block touch (`LOAD` and friends), and
`BLK_META_PER_BLOCK` (`block_subsystem.h:83`, `341u /* 341×3 ~= 1023, padded to 1024 */`)
already packs **exactly** 3×1 KiB Forth-block metadata slices into that same devblock's spare
1 KiB — the "3-block cluster + 1 KiB metadata" shape volunteered in conversation *already
exists as `blk_meta_t`*, with real, wired, non-stub accessors (`blk_get_meta()`/
`blk_set_meta()`, cached, dirty-tracked, `block_subsystem.c:1175-1207`). **Grepped and
confirmed it has zero callers anywhere in the codebase** — fully built, fully unused. Its
existing "Security & ownership" 40 bytes (`owner_id`/`permissions`/`acl_block`/`signature[2]`)
predate and directly conflict with both the anti-POSIX principle and `VMIdentity`'s
pubkey-based model — flagged, not silently reused.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **`BMAPFMT` is not a new structure — it's repurposing `blk_meta_t`.** No separate on-drive
   block-map table gets built. Ownership/ACL/state travel *with* the block itself
   (distributed), not in a centralized table (the shape Milestone 3's original wording
   pictured). One I/O gets payload and map info together; nothing separate to keep in sync.
2. **Consequence flagged, not silently absorbed:** `homeblocks_sig_t`'s reserved
   `blockmap_offset`/`blockmap_devblocks` fields (`homeblocks_sig.h:93-95`) become unnecessary
   under this decision — that header reserved space for a centralized table this design no
   longer needs. Needs a comment update in that file once this is actually built, not left
   silently stale.
3. **Replacement for the 40-byte "Security & ownership" block** (same budget the old
   `owner_id`/`permissions`/`acl_block`/`signature[2]` occupied; nothing else in `blk_meta_t`
   moves):
   ```
   uint8_t  owner_fp[8];      /* truncated fingerprint of owner's VMIdentity pubkey, not the
                                  full 32 bytes -- keeps this cheap per-block; full pubkey
                                  resolves via the drive's own identity record. */
   uint8_t  acl_allow;        /* cached fast-deny bit, checked first -- vm.c:611-624's exact
                                  pattern, applied to a block instead of a word. */
   uint8_t  acl_reserved[7];  /* explicitly undecided -- deliberate slack per "flexibility
                                  until we understand the recipe," not a placeholder to fill
                                  reflexively. */
   uint64_t reserved_future;  /* untouched budget, same reasoning. */
   ```
   `flags` (already existing, already generic) does double duty as the **state** field from
   Step 1 — no new field, just future-defined bit values (`CLAIMED`/`MIGRATING`/`STALE`/etc.).
   Everything else in `blk_meta_t` (`checksum`, timestamps, `content_type`, hash, chain links,
   `app_data[15]`) is untouched.
4. **Allocation granularity**: claims quantize to whole devblocks (3 Forth blocks), matching
   the existing packing — a cell never needs to describe partial-devblock ranges.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the actual allow-list/grant shape beyond the
single fast-deny bit (lands in `acl_reserved`, once designed); the specific `flags` bit
values for each state; whether `blk_get_meta()`/`blk_set_meta()` need new FORTH word wrappers
or stay C-only like `zuse_cert_seed`'s "no FORTH access" precedent; the actual repurposing
edit to `block_subsystem.h`/`.c` itself (this pass produced the field design, not the code
change).

### F.5 — `WIREBIND` (breadcrumb only — followed into `RUNCAP` instead, 2026-08-27)

Traced against the live code before asking anything: `capsule_birth_baby()`
(`capsule_birth.c:473-614`) only ever births a fixed, build-time-baked `(p)` capsule looked up
by name — `BIRTH`'s own mapping is literally `S" Artemis" → "artemis:init.4th"`
(`mama_forth_words.c:216`). The PERSONALITY stage — where a baby would load *its own*
per-identity content — is a confirmed no-op today: `dispatch_init_forth(new_vm)`
(`capsule_birth.c:605`) does nothing, with its own comment stating "per-VM block storage is
M9 scope; no-op until then."

**Finding: the M5 punch-list wording — "spin up or re-attach *that identity's VM*" — has no
mechanism behind it yet.** Two real prerequisites were missing from the §E graph and are now
added:
- **`CERTVERIFY`** — M5's own wording calls this step "post-identity-authentication"; there's
  nothing to bind an identity to without a verified identity first. **Decision: required, not
  optional** — matches the literal M5 wording and avoids birthing VMs for unauthenticated
  drives before any lock/key concept (`ACLKEY`/`BINDSTEP`) exists to protect them.
- **`RUNCAP`** — without it, "that identity's VM" can only ever mean the one generic,
  same-for-everyone capsule that happens to exist at build time. Real per-identity content is
  blocked on `RUNCAP` (or M9's per-VM block storage, a larger and further-out mechanism).

**Working assumption recorded for whenever this node is actually scoped:** a `WIREBIND`-
triggered birth always creates a fresh VM (matches `capsule_birth_baby()`'s existing shape).
Recognizing a *returning* identity and re-attaching to a prior VM/session is `ROUNDTRIP`'s
question, not `WIREBIND`'s — deliberately not folded in here.

**Not scoped further — by design.** Rather than decide `WIREBIND`'s generic-capsule shape in
the abstract, the pass followed the real blocker down into `RUNCAP` itself (§F.6). Revisit
`WIREBIND` once `CERTVERIFY` and `RUNCAP` both exist.

### F.6 — `RUNCAP` (runtime capsule construction from thumbdrive content)

Traced against `capsule.h`/`capsule_birth.h` before assuming new birth machinery was needed.
Two things, read directly from the code, changed the shape of this node:

1. **`capsule_birth_baby()` is already generic** — it takes `dir`/`descs`/`names`/`arena` as
   plain parameters; it is not wired to the compile-time `capsule_descriptors[]` global in any
   way. `mkcapsule` sets `.desc_capacity = capsule_count` always (`mkcapsule.c:955`) — despite
   `capsule.h`'s own comment calling this "fixed at compile time for **Phase A**" (implying
   headroom for a later phase), there is zero spare capacity reserved today, and no
   runtime-append mechanism exists into the baked-in directory. Not a blocker, though —
2. **...because `RUNCAP` doesn't need to touch the baked-in directory at all.** It can
   construct its own self-contained, heap-allocated `CapsuleDirHeader` + one `CapsuleDesc` +
   one `CapsuleNameEntry` + a small arena — the exact same shape `kernel_main.c:729-750`
   already builds when it heap-copies the compile-time directory before Mama's own birth, just
   sized for a single entry instead of the whole set — fill the arena with raw FORTH source
   text read off the thumbdrive, and hand that straight to the existing, unmodified
   `capsule_birth_baby()`. No directory-merge logic, no changes to the birth path itself.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **Mechanism: heap-built single-entry capsule directory, not baked-in-directory extension.**
   Confirmed safe and minimal per the trace above.
2. **Location of the source content on the drive.** `homeblocks_sig_t`'s `blockmap_offset`/
   `blockmap_devblocks` fields are already dead weight per `BMAPFMT`'s decision (§F.4) that
   ownership/ACL/state travel with `blk_meta_t`, not a centralized on-drive table. **Repurpose
   those two fields** (rename to `identity_src_offset`/`identity_src_devblocks`) to point at
   this identity's raw FORTH init/personality source instead of adding new fields — reuses
   already-reserved header space, keeps `homeblocks_sig_t`'s byte budget untouched. (Comment
   update in `homeblocks_sig.h` still owed when this is actually built, same as `F.4` already
   flagged.)
3. **Scope of a user's pool — clarified 2026-08-27, corrects the framing this node started
   from:** a user's pool is **their entire thumbdrive by default**, plus any system-resident
   device blocks they additionally claim, first-come-first-served, plus the required metadata.
   The thumbdrive itself is never contested — it's already theirs, no claiming logic needed
   there. `FIRSTTOUCH`'s "claim a new range at `g.total_user_lbn`" logic (M3) applies only to
   the *system*-device extension, not the drive itself. This simplifies the personality-source
   question in decision 2 above: no allocation contention to resolve, just a pointer into the
   drive's own metadata partition.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the exact read path (which forth-blocks within
the metadata partition, how `identity_src_devblocks` bounds a variable-length FORTH source);
whether the source is plain FORTH text authored once at mint time or something a user can edit
and have re-read on next attach; the interaction with `CERTVERIFY` (does verification gate
reading this content, or only gate the resulting birth). **Partially settled by `MINT`'s own
scoping pass (§F.8, decision 2):** this region's first devblock holds a new
`user_identity_seed_t` record, and the FORTH source itself occupies the remaining devblocks —
narrows "the exact read path" question above, though the read-side code is still unwritten.

**BUILT + VERIFIED 2026-08-28 (§F.18).**

### F.7 — `CERTVERIFY` (Zuse-signed user-cert verification)

Traced against the actual crypto/cert code before assuming D.4's "no new crypto work needed"
framing was still accurate. Two files settle the trust-root question outright:
`x509_ed25519.h`'s own doc comment ("no signature verification, no chain validation, no
extension parsing — this only answers *what public key does this cert claim to hold*") and
`zuse_cert_devblock_h`'s design (Zuse's own on-device Ed25519 keypair, persisted in the system
block-fence, `FABRIC-3.md` §C). **Confirmed: a regular user's cert has a completely separate
trust root from the capsule-PKI chain** — it's signed by Zuse's own locally-resident key, never
the offline root CA / snakeoil intermediate. No chain walk is needed at verify time; it's one
signature check against a pubkey the kernel already holds.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27 (iterative Q&A pass):**

1. **Format: X.509/DER**, not a simple custom struct (the `zuse_cert_devblock_t` precedent
   would have been simpler, but explicitly not chosen). The cert's `SubjectPublicKeyInfo`
   holds the owner's Ed25519 pubkey (same field `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()` already reads).
2. **Drive binding: the cert's `serialNumber` field holds the 16-byte `drive_uuid`** (matching
   `homeblocks_sig_t.drive_uuid`) rather than adding a new X.509v3 extension — `serialNumber`
   is an early, shallow `SEQUENCE` member (actually simpler to reach than
   `SubjectPublicKeyInfo`, which the existing parser already walks past), so this avoids
   needing any extension-parsing support at all. Binding to the drive means a valid cert's
   bytes alone, copied onto a different physical drive, will not verify there.
3. **Revocation: explicitly deferred.** Matches this project's incremental-scope precedent
   elsewhere (capsules have a `REVOKED` flag; user-cert revocation is separate, unbuilt
   surface). `CERTVERIFY` v1 only checks magic/structure, the embedded algorithm OID
   (Ed25519, rejecting anything else — same check `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()` already
   does for the pubkey field), the `serialNumber`-vs-`drive_uuid` match, and the signature
   itself.
4. **Real added scope, flagged honestly rather than assumed away:** verifying (not just
   reading) this cert requires genuinely new DER-walking code beyond
   `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()` — that function stops at `SubjectPublicKeyInfo` by design.
   `CERTVERIFY` additionally needs: the raw `TBSCertificate` byte range (the exact bytes
   Zuse's signature covers), the outer `signatureValue` `BIT STRING` contents, and the
   `serialNumber` `INTEGER` bytes. Verification itself is then one call:
   `ed25519_verify(zuse_pubkey, tbs_bytes, tbs_len, signature)`, where `zuse_pubkey` comes
   from this system's own `zuse_cert_devblock_t`, not from anything read off the user's drive.
5. **Location on drive:** `homeblocks_sig_t.cert_offset`/`cert_devblocks` — already reserved
   for exactly this ("the CA-signed cert blob") since that header was first designed. No
   header changes needed here, unlike `RUNCAP`'s repurposing of the block-map fields.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the actual new DER TBS/signature-extraction
function's design (this pass decided *what* it must extract, not its implementation); whether
`x509_ed25519.c` grows this capability in place or a sibling file holds it; how `MINT` (which
shares this exact cert format on the signing side) constructs the DER bytes in the first place
— DER *encoding* has never been needed in this kernel before, only decoding.

### F.8 — `MINT` (the last piece of the original Tripod vision)

Two real dependencies surfaced while scoping this node that weren't in the §E graph, both
resolved before any design decision was needed:

1. **GPT.** The earlier-decided drive layout (`project_usb_thumbdrive_gpt_layout`:
   ~1GB GPT metadata partition + remainder) has no parser or writer anywhere in kernel code.
   **Dropped entirely, per direct instruction (2026-08-27) — not deferred, decided against.**
   The raw `homeblocks_sig_t`-at-devblock-0 layout every other node in this arc (`CERTVERIFY`,
   `WIREBIND`, `RUNCAP`, `HOTPLUG`'s own `sig_start_fblock=0`) already treats as an interim
   stand-in is now the **permanent** format. The "small metadata region + remainder is user
   storage" *proportion* from the old GPT design still holds — it's just a plain devblock-count
   convention within one raw device now (metadata = devblocks `0..N` covering the sig header +
   cert + identity-source regions; everything past that is the user's own general block-storage
   pool directly, consistent with `FIRSTTOUCH`'s pool clarification in §F.6). No GPT-parser
   node needed in the graph at all — this closes that thread rather than deferring it.
   **Correction, 2026-08-27 (§F.13): `homeblocks_sig_t` itself moved off devblock 0** to
   devblock 1 (forth-block 4) once a real collision with the block-subsystem's own generic
   disk header was found — the "devblocks `0..N`" metadata-region framing above still holds,
   it just now starts one devblock later than stated here.
2. **Single-device USB driver.** `xhci_dev_t`'s BOT/MSC state (`device_ctx`, `bulk_in_ring`,
   `bulk_out_ring`, `bot_data_buf`) are singular fields, not per-slot arrays — only one USB MSC
   device is usable at a time today. This looked like it might conflict with the vision's
   "while Zuse is active, mint a second blank thumb" (implying two drives attached at once).
   **Confirmed no conflict**: Zuse's own identity is system-resident, loaded from Artemis's own
   top-of-device block-fence at boot (`kernel_main.c:634-687`), never from a removable thumb.
   `MINT` only ever needs the one target blank drive attached — today's single-device path is
   sufficient, no driver work needed for this node.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **The minted identity gets a real keypair**, not just a pubkey badge. `virtio_rng` +
   `ed25519_keygen()` generate a fresh seed/pubkey pair for the new identity, stored on *their*
   thumbdrive (never system-resident — matches `SSDSCOPE`'s "regular users stay
   thumbdrive-resident" read). Keeps the door open for a user VM to sign something itself
   later, per `D.5`'s "identity is common to every VM" direction, without redesigning the cert
   format again.
2. **Storage layout** (direct extension of `RUNCAP`'s already-decided `identity_src_offset`/
   `identity_src_devblocks` region, §F.6 — no further header growth needed): that region's
   *first* devblock holds a new `user_identity_seed_t` record (`magic`/`version`/`seed[32]`/
   `pubkey[32]`/`crc` — same shape as `zuse_cert_devblock_t`, a new type rather than reusing
   that Zuse-specific one, per this project's own "dedicated header per real-shaped feature"
   convention); the *remaining* devblocks in that region hold the raw FORTH personality/init
   source `RUNCAP` reads at birth.
3. **`drive_uuid`**: a fresh, independent 16 random bytes from `virtio_rng` at mint time (not
   derived from the identity seed — two separate random draws, matching `homeblocks_sig_t`'s
   own field being logically "which physical drive," not "whose identity").
4. **Cert construction**: builds the exact `CERTVERIFY` (§F.7) format — `SubjectPublicKeyInfo`
   = the new pubkey, `serialNumber` = `drive_uuid`, signed with **Zuse's own seed** via
   `ed25519_sign()` (real signing capability already exists, Phase 8). This is the first
   confirmed caller that needs DER *encoding*, not just the decoding `x509_ed25519.c` already
   has — flagged in `F.7` already, restated here since `MINT` is where it's actually needed.
5. **Header assembly**: `hdr_crc` via the existing `homeblocks_sig_compute_crc()` — no new
   checksum logic, this function already does exactly what's needed.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the default personality/init FORTH content a
freshly minted identity starts with (shared open question with `RUNCAP`, §F.6: mint-time-fixed
vs. user-editable); a monotonic-ns source for `minted_time_ns` — checked, and there is no
working precedent anywhere in this codebase today (`CapsuleDesc.created_ns` is hardcoded to `0`
at generation time, not a real example to follow); the `S" name" MINT` FORTH word's own
stack/argument shape; whether `MINT` refuses to overwrite a drive that already reads as a
recognized home-blocks drive (`HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK`), mirroring `WRITE(10)`'s
refuse-on-non-blank-media posture — reasonable by analogy, not decided here. The hard blocker
is unchanged and already modeled in the graph: `WRITE(10)` still doesn't exist, so `MINT`
cannot write anything to real or QEMU-emulated USB media yet regardless of the above.

**BUILT + VERIFIED 2026-08-28 (§F.19)** — every "not yet scoped" item above resolved: default
personality is a real, working minimal capsule (not a stub); `minted_time_ns` stays `0`, no
precedent found or invented; `MINT` takes no name argument at all (see §F.19 for why); `MINT`
does refuse an already-recognized drive, decided rather than left as "reasonable by analogy."

### F.9 — `BINDSTEP` (extending `sk_repl_set_active_vm()` with the `ACLKEY` check)

Traced against the live retarget path before assuming new plumbing was needed:
`USE` (`mama_forth_words.c:430-480`) is the real, already-working console-retarget word —
`S" name" USE` looks a VM up by name (case-insensitive) and calls `sk_repl_set_active_vm()`
directly, completely unguarded today. `BINDSTEP` is concretely "add the `ACLKEY` (§F.2)
comparison to this one call site," not a new mechanism.

**Real gap found, not just a policy question:** the "re-verify live" approach (decided below)
needs access to whatever drive is currently attached, but `usb_blk_dev`/`xdev`
(`repl.c:107-108`) are function-static inside `sk_repl_idle()` — invisible to `USE`, which
lives in `mama_forth_words.c`. `BINDSTEP` needs a small new accessor exposing "the currently
attached home-blocks device," mirroring the existing `sk_repl_get_active_vm()` precedent
(`repl.h:67-69`) for exactly this kind of cross-file REPL-state access.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27 (iterative Q&A pass):**

1. **Check freshness: re-verify live, not cached.** Every `USE` call re-runs the
   drive-check/`CERTVERIFY` path against whatever is currently attached, rather than trusting a
   pubkey cached at original attach time. `USE` is a rare, human-triggered, interactive
   operation — the repeated DER-parse + `ed25519_verify()` cost is a non-issue, and this avoids
   any staleness question if a drive was swapped without a clean detach.
2. **VMs with no `VMIdentity` installed yet (`installed=0`) — Hera/Hermes/Artemis today, until
   `D.5`'s per-VM-identity work lands — stay freely targetable, no check applied.** Preserves
   `USE`'s current working behavior exactly; refusing on `installed=0` would be a real
   regression today for VMs that were never in scope for this lock in the first place.
3. **For an `installed=1` target:** `BINDSTEP` refuses (matching `USE`'s existing clean
   early-refusal style for not-found/dead-VM cases) whenever either no drive is currently
   attached, or the freshly re-verified cert's owner pubkey doesn't match the target's
   `VMIdentity.owner_pubkey`. No drive attached is a plain refusal, not a special case — it
   simply means "no identity presented," which can never match.
4. **Zuse's override UX: deferred**, per direct instruction — this pass confirms the
   architectural constraint from `F.2` still stands (a distinct, explicit call path, not a
   branch folded into `USE`'s own logic) without committing to the exact word/interaction yet.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the new accessor's exact name/signature; the
refusal message text (matching `USE`'s existing console-message style); whether a refused
`BINDSTEP` attempt should produce an audit-log record (this codebase has a real precedent for
this — `capsule_parity_log_birth_failed()` and friends, `parity.c` — but nothing says a
security-relevant refusal here needs the same treatment; not decided).

### F.10 — `DETACH` (the last M5 node) — and `UNCLEAN` closed alongside it

Traced `capsule_vm_kill()` (`capsule_birth.c:295-364`) fully before scoping, per D.2's own
framing that detach should reuse it: it's real and complete — evicts the Stadium patron cell
via `stadium_evict()`, `vm_cleanup()`+`sf_free()`s the VM, marks it `DEAD`, logs via
`capsule_parity_log_kill()`, is idempotent, and refuses to kill Hera. `DETACH` doesn't need a
new teardown mechanism, only a caller for this one plus the flush/bookkeeping around it.

**Real finding: D.3's "flush before eject" only makes physical sense as a deliberate
pre-removal step — once a drive is physically pulled, there's nothing left to write to.**
That splits this into two genuinely different paths, and per direct instruction this pass
scopes **both**, closing the previously-separate, long-open `UNCLEAN` node (M3) at the same
time rather than leaving it for later:

- **Graceful path (new `EJECT` word, no name conflict found):** the drive is still physically
  present. Flush, then kill, then it's safe to remove.
- **Abrupt path (the existing `bot_msc_detach_pending` hot-unplug signal, already wired and
  consumed in `sk_repl_idle()` for `blk_subsys_detach_device()`):** the drive is already gone.
  No flush is attempted — data since the last flush is lost, which *is* correct unclean-removal
  semantics, matching what every real OS does on a surprise USB yank. This is `UNCLEAN`'s
  entire remaining scope, now closed as "same kill path as `EJECT`, minus the flush attempt."

**One genuinely new, small piece of state required for both paths** (not a new mechanism, a
missing link): a way to know *which VM* corresponds to the currently home-blocks-attached
drive. `BINDSTEP`'s live re-verify-and-compare approach (§F.9) only works while the drive is
still physically present and readable — useless for the abrupt path, where the device is
already gone by the time the signal fires. Decided: `WIREBIND` (§F.5, itself not yet built)
must set a small tracked `VMUuid` — "the VM currently attached via the home-blocks USB path" —
at successful birth; both `EJECT` and the hot-unplug handler read and clear it. No new registry
machinery needed beyond this: `capsule_vm_registry_get(vm_id, &entry)` (already exists) resolves
the `VMUuid` to a live entry, and `capsule_vm_kill(entry.name)` (already exists, takes a name
not an ID — chain the two rather than adding a kill-by-id variant) does the rest.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **`EJECT` (graceful):** resolve the tracked attached-VM id → entry; `blk_vm_flush_all(vm)`
   (already exists, same function `sk_repl_idle()`'s own periodic sync already calls) while the
   VM is still alive; if the console's active VM (`sk_repl_get_active_vm()`) is this same VM,
   reset it to Hera (`sk_repl_set_active_vm(NULL)`) *before* teardown — necessary, not
   optional, see the dangling-pointer finding below; then `capsule_vm_kill(entry.name)`; clear
   the tracked attached-VM state. `capsule_vm_kill()`'s own idempotency covers the case where
   the VM was already gone by some other path — no extra guard needed.
2. **Hot-unplug (`UNCLEAN`, closed):** identical steps minus the flush — skipped outright, not
   attempted-and-ignored-on-failure, since the device is confirmed gone by the time this signal
   fires. Same active-VM reset-before-kill step applies.
3. **`W10`'s edge to `DETACH` in the §E graph is specifically about the `EJECT` path's flush
   step** — the hot-unplug/`UNCLEAN` path never touches `WRITE(10)` at all (nothing is written
   during an unclean removal), so `UNCLEAN` itself is *not* blocked on `WRITE(10)`, only
   `EJECT` is. Worth keeping distinct now that both share one node.

**Separate, already-existing bug found while tracing this, reported per standing instruction
(not fixed):** `capsule_vm_kill()` never touches `g_repl_active_vm`. Today, plain `KILL` on a
VM the console is currently `USE`'d onto leaves `g_repl_active_vm` dangling — the REPL would
fault on the next command dispatched through it. This is real and reachable *today*,
independent of `DETACH`/`EJECT`; decision 1 above only fixes it for the new `EJECT`/hot-unplug
call sites, not the pre-existing plain `KILL` word.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the exact new tracked-state variable's
name/location (logically `WIREBIND`'s to own, but `WIREBIND` itself isn't built yet); whether
`EJECT` needs a name argument or always targets "whatever's currently attached" (leaning toward
the latter, given the single-USB-device constraint confirmed in `F.8` means there's never more
than one candidate — not committed here); the console message text distinguishing a graceful
eject from an unclean one in the transcript.

### F.11 — `FIRSTTOUCH` (identity → system-device block-range allocation)

Traced `g.total_user_lbn` (`block_subsystem.c:634,650,655,677,688,753`) and `blk_meta_t`'s
existing chain fields before assuming the M3 wording was still accurate. **Finding: it isn't,
fully.** "Claim a new range at `g.total_user_lbn`" predates `BMAPFMT`'s decision (§F.4) to drop
the centralized block-map in favor of distributed per-block ownership. `total_user_lbn` is a
global high-water mark that only grows when an entirely new *device* attaches (RAM, Artemis's
disk, a USB drive) — it says nothing about claiming space *within* an already-attached,
fixed-size device. `FIRSTTOUCH`'s real job is scanning Artemis's own system-resident device's
existing `blk_meta_t` records for unowned devblocks, not extending any counter.

Also confirmed live and unrelated to `BMAPFMT`'s repurposing: `blk_meta_t`'s "Link/chain
support" fields (`prev_block`/`next_block`/`parent_block`/`chain_length`,
`block_subsystem.h:232-236`) are real, general-purpose, block-number-granularity linkage — not
device-chain-specific — and completely untouched by `F.4`'s field redesign.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **A claim is a scattered chain, not a required contiguous run.** Reuses the existing
   `prev_block`/`next_block`/`chain_length` fields directly — immune to fragmentation, and
   this mechanism already exists, unused, waiting for exactly this. The claim's identity to
   the caller is its chain-head devblock number; `owner_fp` is written to *every* devblock in
   the chain (not just the head), so ownership is directly readable from any member block
   without first walking the chain — consistent with `BMAPFMT`'s whole point of making
   ownership locally readable per-block.
2. **Discovery: full linear scan, every time, no cached index.** Matches `BMAPFMT`'s own
   explicit "no centralized table, nothing extra to keep in sync" philosophy exactly. One scan
   pass serves both questions this node needs answered — "does this identity already own a
   claim" (`owner_fp` match) and "which devblocks are free" (`owner_fp` all-zero) — collected
   together in the same walk, not two separate scans.
3. **Failure mode: fail outright, no partial claim.** If the device doesn't have enough free
   devblocks (scattered or not) to satisfy the request, return an error and let the caller
   decide — matches this codebase's existing return-code convention throughout (`capsule_birth_baby()`
   and friends), no new partial-allocation semantics invented.
4. **Allocation unit: whole devblocks**, already decided in `BMAPFMT` (§F.4, decision 4) —
   `FIRSTTOUCH` doesn't revisit this, just inherits it.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the actual function signature/call site (this
pass decided the algorithm, not its C interface); who calls `FIRSTTOUCH` and when — most
likely `MIGSM` (the migration state machine, M3, still 🟡 partial) deciding "this identity
needs N more devblocks," but that call site doesn't exist yet either; whether a first-touch
scan should skip/short-circuit once the caller's own already-attached thumbdrive still has
room (matching the pool-scope clarification in §F.6: the thumb is the default pool, this
node is specifically the *overflow* case) — implied yes by that clarification, not explicitly
re-confirmed here.

### F.12 — `BMAPWRITE` (closed — already built, blocked only on `WRITE(10)`)

Traced `blk_set_meta()`/`cache_writeback()`/`blk_flush()` fully before assuming any new write
path was needed. **Finding: this node is already done.** `blk_set_meta()`
(`block_subsystem.c:1198-1210`) marks the same cache-buffer entry's `meta_dirty` flag that
ordinary block-data writes use; `cache_writeback()` (`block_subsystem.c:274-285`) — called from
both `blk_flush()`'s targeted and flush-all paths, the exact function `blk_vm_flush_all()` and
`SAVE-BUFFERS` already exercise — packs the in-memory `blk_meta_t[]` array back into the
devblock's metadata region (`meta_to_slice()`) and writes the *whole* 4 KiB devblock (data +
metadata together, since they share one physical buffer) via `write_devblock_4k()`, real and
unstubbed all the way down to `dev->write()`.

**Why this closes rather than just narrows:** the M3 item as originally written assumed a
*separate* block-map structure that would need its own bespoke write mechanism. `BMAPFMT`'s
decision (§F.4) to repurpose the already-existing, already-wired `blk_meta_t` accessors instead
of building a new table means "writing the map" and "writing a block" were never actually two
different operations — the infrastructure that already existed for ordinary block persistence
already covers metadata identically, with zero new code. The only reason this hasn't been
observed working end-to-end is the same hard blocker already modeled in the graph: `WRITE(10)`
doesn't exist yet, so `dev->write()` never actually reaches physical media for a USB-attached
drive today. Nothing else stands between this and working.

**Handoff note for `BMAPREAD`'s own future pass:** the read side (`cache_load_devblock()`,
`block_subsystem.c:308-322`) already unpacks and validates metadata (`meta_from_slice()`,
magic-checked, resets to a clean default on a bad/missing magic) on every devblock load — very
likely the same "already built, not a separate item" outcome, but not confirmed here; that
node may have its own distinct question (e.g. whether a home-blocks drive needs an explicit
validate-on-insert step beyond ordinary lazy per-devblock read-through-cache), left for its own
pass rather than assumed away.

### F.13 — `BMAPREAD` (closed — already built) — and a real header collision found and fixed

Confirmed the handoff note from `F.12`: `cache_load_devblock()` (`block_subsystem.c:308-322`)
already unpacks and validates every devblock's metadata on load (`meta_from_slice()`,
magic-checked, resets cleanly on a bad/missing magic) — the read side is exactly as "already
built, not a separate item" as the write side. Same closure, no new mechanism needed.

**But tracing "validate on insertion" turned up a real, previously-unflagged conflict that has
nothing to do with `blk_meta_t` at all.** `blk_subsys_attach_device()` — the *general* attach
path every device goes through, USB drives included — always calls `blk_format_or_load_disk()`
(`block_subsystem.c:581-613`), which reads devblock 0 looking for the block-subsystem's own
`'STFR'`/v2 volume header. `homeblocks_sig_t`'s magic is `'LAHB'`, not `'STFR'`, so a minted
home-blocks drive always reads as "unrecognized" here and lands in `BLK_FMT_PROVISIONAL` —
and `blk_get_buffer()` (`block_subsystem.c:894`) **refuses all writes** to a `PROVISIONAL`
slot until `blk_subsys_confirm_format()` is called. That function
(`blk_commit_format()`, `block_subsystem.c:546-571`) writes a fresh STFR header to the *same*
devblock 0 — which would physically overwrite `homeblocks_sig_t`. Neither outcome (stay
`PROVISIONAL` forever, or get STFR-formatted and lose the identity header) works. This was
invisible to `CERTVERIFY`/`WIREBIND`/`MINT` because each only ever traced
`homeblocks_sig_check()` itself, never the generic attach path running alongside it.

**Decision made 2026-08-27:** `homeblocks_sig_t` relocates to **devblock 1** (forth-block 4),
leaving devblock 0 for the generic STFR/v2 header untouched — no changes to the already-tested
block-subsystem code. `homeblocks_sig_check()` already takes its starting forth-block as a
plain parameter (`sig_start_fblock`, not hardcoded), so this is a call-site change, not a
format-logic change. `MINT` (§F.8) must also run the ordinary `blk_subsys_confirm_format()`
path at mint time (writing a ordinary fresh STFR/v2 header at devblock 0) so the drive is
immediately writable through the normal block-buffer path, in addition to writing
`homeblocks_sig_t`/cert/identity-source starting at devblock 1. `F.8`'s own text has been
corrected in place to point here rather than restate this.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** whether `MINT`'s STFR-format-then-sig-write
sequence needs a specific ordering/atomicity guarantee (e.g. what state a drive is left in if
power is lost between the two writes) — real question, not addressed here; the exact
`sig_start_fblock` value call sites (`CERTVERIFY`, `WIREBIND`, `RUNCAP`, `MINT`) all need
updating from their currently-recorded devblock-0-relative assumption to devblock-1, a
mechanical follow-up once any of this is actually coded, not re-litigated here.

### F.14 — `STALL` (the last M2 item) — full BOT-spec recovery designed

Traced the actual completion-code handling before designing anything. **Real finding: every
transfer completion, control or bulk, shares one gate** — `if (code != XHCI_COMPLETION_CODE_SUCCESS)
{ console_println("xhci: control transfer failed"); break; }` (`xhci.c:1267-1270`). A STALL
isn't distinguished from any other failure today, and there is no recovery of any kind — no
xHCI Reset Endpoint command, no USB `CLEAR_FEATURE(ENDPOINT_HALT)`. There is a real safety net
though: `xhci_bot_wait_for_idle()` (`xhci.c:831-839`) has a bounded iteration count and returns
`BOT_STATUS_TIMEOUT` rather than hanging forever, since the generic bail-out never resets
`bot_cmd_kind`. So today's failure mode is "clean timeout, endpoint left permanently wedged for
everything after it" — not a crash, but not recoverable either.

Also confirmed by inspection: none of the pieces real recovery needs exist yet —
`XHCI_COMPLETION_CODE_STALL_ERROR` isn't defined (only `_SUCCESS`), nor are the `RESET_ENDPOINT`
(xHCI spec value 14) or `SET_TR_DEQUEUE_POINTER` (value 16) command TRB types. Per direct
instruction, full recovery is designed now rather than deferred to Milestone 8.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27 — the recovery sequence, mirroring the existing bounded-retry
precedent `bot_tur_retries`/`XHCI_BOT_TUR_MAX_RETRIES` already establishes for TUR:**

1. **Distinguish the completion code.** Add `XHCI_COMPLETION_CODE_STALL_ERROR` (6, per xHCI
   spec) alongside the existing `_SUCCESS` (1). The shared completion-code gate branches: a
   plain non-success/non-stall code keeps today's behavior (log and bail); a stall specifically
   enters the new recovery path below instead of falling straight to the generic message.
2. **xHCI-level reset (two new command TRB types + two new command functions, mirroring the
   existing `xhci_cmd_disable_slot()`/`xhci_cmd_configure_endpoint()` shape exactly):**
   - `xhci_cmd_reset_endpoint(dev, slot_id, ep_id)` — new `XHCI_TRB_TYPE_RESET_ENDPOINT_CMD`
     (14), transitions the stalled endpoint from Halted back to Stopped in the xHC's internal
     context. Which endpoint is "the stalled one" is already known — it's whichever of
     `bulk_in_ep_addr`/`bulk_out_ep_addr` the in-flight transfer purpose
     (`BOT_DATA_IN`/`BOT_DATA_OUT`/`CBW_SENT`/`CSW_RECEIVE`) was using, both already tracked
     fields.
   - `xhci_cmd_set_tr_dequeue_pointer(dev, slot_id, ep_id, new_dequeue, dcs)` — new
     `XHCI_TRB_TYPE_SET_TR_DEQUEUE_POINTER_CMD` (16), repositions the ring's dequeue pointer
     past the failed TRB so the next enqueued transfer resumes cleanly.
3. **USB-level clear (reuses the existing control-transfer infrastructure already built for
   `GET_DESCRIPTOR`/`SET_CONFIGURATION` — no new transfer-stage machinery, just a new request
   payload):** send `CLEAR_FEATURE(ENDPOINT_HALT)` (standard request, `wValue=0`, `wIndex=`
   the stalled endpoint address) to clear the device's own halt condition and reset its data
   toggle.
4. **Escalation on a second stall (or if step 3 itself stalls):** issue Bulk-Only Mass Storage
   Reset (BOT class request, `bmRequestType=0x21`, `bRequest=0xFF`, no data stage — again the
   existing control-transfer machinery, a different request payload) followed by
   `CLEAR_FEATURE(ENDPOINT_HALT)` on *both* bulk endpoints (BOT spec 5.3.4's full procedure),
   then retry the original command from scratch — the same "fresh target" restart shape the
   existing TUR-chain retry already uses.
5. **Bounded, not infinite:** a new `bot_stall_recoveries` counter capped at a new
   `XHCI_BOT_STALL_MAX_RECOVERIES`, exact value TBD but same shape as `XHCI_BOT_TUR_MAX_RETRIES`.
   Exhausting it sets `bot_last_status = BOT_STATUS_FAILED` and `bot_cmd_kind = BOT_CMD_NONE`
   explicitly — a clean terminal failure signaled to `xhci_bot_wait_for_idle()`'s caller,
   rather than relying purely on the outer timeout the way today's un-recovered stall does.

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the exact `XHCI_BOT_STALL_MAX_RECOVERIES` value;
whether a `WRITE(10)`-specific residual-data concern exists on a stalled Data-Out stage (a
partially-written SCSI command's recovery semantics may differ subtly from a stalled Data-In
read — not analyzed here, `WRITE(10)` itself still doesn't exist); real-hardware validation is
explicitly out of reach until Milestone 8, same caveat `WRITE(10)`'s own CSW-residue question
carries (§F.1) — this design is believed spec-correct but has only QEMU (which rarely if ever
issues real stalls) to test against for now.

### D.5 — Scope expansion (2026-08-27): identity is common to every VM, not just users

Surfaced while scoping `ACLKEY`, stated directly: *"the whole object is to deliver a
functional Tripod plus identities common to all VM's... this means now that we have to
create certificates for Hermes, Artemis and Console along with Zuse and CaptBob's
'thumbdrives.'"* This reframes `VMIdentity` (F.2 above) from a user-VM-specific mechanism into
the **general per-VM identity primitive** — every node in the pentagon (Hera, Hermes,
Artemis, a user's own VM, the Console) is expected to eventually carry one, not only VMs born
from an attached thumbdrive. Doesn't change F.2's design, just its intended reach — worth
remembering when `VMIdentity` actually gets built, so it isn't accidentally scoped narrower
than this.

### F.3 — `HOTPLUG` (closed)

Re-checked directly against the live code before asking anything, per Captain Bob's own
standing note not to "grep-sample" — read `sk_repl_idle()` (`starkernel/repl.c:82-190`) and
the `bot_msc_attach_pending`/`bot_msc_attached`/`bot_msc_detach_pending` doc comments in
`xhci_driver.h:244-265` in full.

**Finding: closed.** The original Milestone 2 ask was "decide and implement where the hotplug
event surfaces... likely a callback registered by whatever owns the home-blocks logic, not
xHCI code calling into `block_subsystem.c` directly." What's built is a flag-set-by-xHCI,
flag-consumed-by-`sk_repl_idle()` pattern — not literally a registered callback, but the
`bot_msc_detach_pending` field's own doc comment states the goal directly: *"keeps xhci.c
decoupled from block_subsystem.c"* — and that decoupling is real and working, confirmed live
on all three arches (attach: `blkio_usb_open_msc()` → `homeblocks_sig_check()` →
`blk_subsys_attach_device()`; detach: `blk_subsys_detach_device()`, symmetric shape).

**Confirmed 2026-08-27:** close this node as done. No separate design work remains on
`HOTPLUG` itself — the answer for `WIREBIND` (the node depending on it) is not "build a new
hotplug-detection mechanism," it's "reuse this one."

**Handoff note for `WIREBIND`'s own future scoping pass:** the existing attach point already
calls `homeblocks_sig_check()`, which already distinguishes a recognized home-blocks drive
(`HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK`) from blank/foreign/corrupt media (`HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK`/
`BAD_VERSION`/`BAD_CRC`/`READ_ERROR`). That result is the natural branch point for `WIREBIND`:
a recognized drive continues into cert-verify + `capsule_birth_baby()`; a blank/foreign one
stays plain read-only block storage, matching the reasoning already documented for the
`WRITE(10)` refuse-on-blank-media logic. Not built yet — `WIREBIND` still needs its own Q&A
pass — but it doesn't start from zero.

**Two new standing items that came with this, both explicitly deferred (not part of the
current iterative pass, recorded so they aren't lost):**
- **A full codebase audit pass**, using this same iterative Q&A workflow, to scavenge for more
  "same gap hiding in two places" opportunities the way `ACLKEY` turned out to be one gap
  wearing two names (Milestone 5's "key/lock shape" and D.4's "bumps and holes"), and the way
  `WRITE(10)` turned out to gate four separate-looking fronts at once. Not scoped, not
  started — a future pass of its own.
- **v2.0.0 release target**: once Tripod is functional end to end, every VM has its identity
  mechanism, and the codebase/documentation are clean per the above audit, tag a v2.0.0
  release. Stated as the destination this whole planning arc is walking toward, not an
  immediate next step.

### F.16 — The last four standalone nodes: `SSDSCOPE`, `ROUNDTRIP`, `POLYBLOCK`, `PROMPTBUG`

Closes out every node in §E's graph except `WRITE(10)` itself. Three of the four close by
cross-referencing decisions already made this session, not new tracing; `POLYBLOCK` needed the
user's own clarification first, since it had never been elaborated beyond one sentence.

**`SSDSCOPE` — closed.** "Does the system-resident store (Phase 8's block-fence) ever hold
anything about *regular* users, or is it purely Zuse/system bookkeeping?" This was already
answered, just not cross-referenced: D.3 states directly — *"the system has no requirement to
maintain any single identity itself — no user directory, no central registry of who exists.
Each thumbdrive is a fully self-contained, portable identity record."* This session's own later
scoping confirms it structurally rather than just by assertion: `CERTVERIFY`/`RUNCAP`/`MINT`
(§F.6-F.8) all put a user's cert, keypair, and personality source *on their own thumbdrive*,
never on Artemis's system-resident fence. `FIRSTTOUCH` (§F.11) does let a user's claim extend
onto system-resident devblocks, but that's anonymous per-block ownership (`blk_meta_t.owner_fp`,
a pubkey fingerprint) written directly on the claimed blocks themselves — not a lookup-by-name
directory entry anywhere. The system-resident fence holds exactly one identity record type:
Zuse's own (`zuse_cert_devblock_t`).

**`ROUNDTRIP` — closed.** "Does a user's session state round-trip across multiple attaches?"
Implied yes by D.3's detach description, now confirmed structurally rather than left implicit:
since a user's pool *is* their own thumbdrive by default (§F.6, decision 3) and `EJECT`
(§F.10) flushes working state back to wherever those blocks physically live before killing the
VM, the data simply never leaves the drive between attaches. Reattaching the same drive and
re-birthing via `WIREBIND`+`RUNCAP` naturally resumes from wherever the blocks were left — no
separate "session resume" mechanism needs building; the drive's own persistence *is* the
round-trip mechanism, a consequence of decisions already made rather than a new one.

**`POLYBLOCK` — closed, reframed as an existing principle, not a missing feature.** Clarified
directly by the user: the block abstraction at this level should have no idea what backs it —
"a re-usable, polymorphic definition of a storage device." Traced against `blk_get_buffer()`
(`block_subsystem.c:866-900`) before concluding anything: it already returns a uniform `uint8_t*`
regardless of whether the backing LBN resolves to RAM, a raw in-memory device
(`blk_subsys_add_raw_device()`), or a real disk-cache-backed device — callers (every FORTH
block word, `LOAD`, etc.) never know or care which. The one backend-specific behavior found
(`BLK_FMT_PROVISIONAL` write-refusal, disk-backed slots only) doesn't violate this — it's
encapsulated *within* the uniform interface (an ordinary failed `blk_get_buffer()` call), not
leaked as caller-visible backend-awareness. **This principle is already true of the live code**,
confirmed rather than assumed.

**`PROMPTBUG` — closed, and found to be less than originally described.** Traced for the
literal string before closing: no runtime code anywhere prints `"zuse)ok> "` today —
`SK_PROMPT_TEXT` (`repl.c:50`) is unconditionally `"ok> "`; there is no `zuse_session`-gated
prompt-text branch in the live REPL at all yet (only `emergency_console` gating exists,
`repl.c:412,459`). The typo lives in a **doc comment** describing not-yet-implemented intended
behavior (`repl.c:372`), not in running code. Closed as: whenever a Zuse-specific prompt is
actually implemented, use `"(Zuse)ok> "` (both parens, generalizing to any attached identity —
`"(CaptBob)ok> "`), matching the already-corrected form recorded in `D.4`. The comment itself
is a trivial one-line fix whenever code in this file is next touched — not applied here,
per standing instruction against unrequested code changes.

**Every node in the §E graph is now scoped or closed except `WRITE(10)` itself** — the one
remaining hard blocker gating real execution of nearly everything captured across this entire
`§F` pass.

### D.6 — Console-driven interactive mint onboarding (vision capture, 2026-08-27)

Surfaced live while scoping `MSGMIGRATE`'s message-target question (§F.15) — capture only, per
this arc's own "capture first, plan second" discipline; not designed in detail here.

**Stated directly:** the Console VM (real hardware ownership: serial + framebuffer + PS2
keyboard) is where blank-media minting actually happens interactively, not a bare programmatic
`MINT` call. Zuse's own thumbdrive becoming physically present is itself what starts
authentication (no separate manual step). For **blank** media specifically, the system pulls
up an interactive "user StarshipOS (LithosAnanke+StarForth) Mint" onboarding form on the
Console:

```
Full Name:
Address 1:
Address 2:
City:
State/Province:
Country:
Metadata: (hexdump of some encrypted metadata OR QR code later)
```

**Why this matters beyond `MSGMIGRATE` itself:** this directly informs two already-open
questions elsewhere rather than sitting alone —
- **`RUNCAP`'s deferred "default personality content" question (§F.6)**: this onboarding data
  is very likely *part of* what a freshly minted identity's personality/init source encodes,
  not a separate concern. Not confirmed as a final answer — flagged as the likely connection.
- **`MINT`'s own scope (§F.8)**: minting a new identity now has a real interactive-collection
  step in front of the cert/keypair/header-writing mechanics already scoped there. The Console
  becomes an active participant in `MINT`, not just Zuse triggering it standalone.

**Not designed here, explicitly deferred (per the user's own "later" on the metadata field):**
the "hexdump of some encrypted metadata OR QR code" field's actual mechanism, encoding, and
purpose; the exact validation/editing UX for the form itself (can a field be corrected before
submit? what happens on a blank/skipped field?); how collected form data actually reaches
`MINT`'s execution (addressed at the mechanism level only, in `MSGMIGRATE` below — the message
carries the values, the *encoding* of the metadata field itself is separate and unaddressed).

### F.15 — `MSGMIGRATE` (the last real design question)

Traced the actual Hermes mechanism before designing anything, rather than treating "message"
as an abstract placeholder. **Real finding: `MSG-DELIVER` (`capsules/hermes/init.4th:200-203`)
does `MSG-TO@ IDX>NAME VM-EXEC`** — a message's out-of-line payload (`PADDR`/`PLEN`) is
**arbitrary FORTH source text, executed on the destination VM via the ordinary interpreter**,
not a structured/typed RPC call. Migrating an interaction to Hermes needs no new dispatch
machinery at all — only a decision about what FORTH text goes where.

Also worth being explicit about, since it reframes why this migration is even worth doing:
every "VM" in this system is a Forth VM instance living inside **one kernel address space**,
not a separate OS process. There is no correctness reason `WIREBIND`/`BINDSTEP`/`CERTVERIFY`
*must* become messages — Hera's REPL can already call their C functions directly, today, once
built. The stated reason to migrate anyway is architectural discipline: routing through Hermes
gives uniform heat-tracking/`STADIUM-CELL` participation in Compudynamics and an audit trail
via `MSG-SEQ`, matching the standing "nothing is done until it's messaging" completion
criterion — not solving an isolation problem that doesn't exist here.

**Decisions made 2026-08-27:**

1. **Real target: the Console VM**, not a self-addressed message to Hera. There is a real
   Console VM today (serial + framebuffer + PS2 keyboard) — this isn't waiting on D.2b's
   pentagon to become real, it already is. Corrects this pass's own first framing (a
   self-addressed-to-Hera fallback was floated and explicitly rejected in favor of this).
2. **The flow is two hops, not one:**
   - **Hop 1 (Hera → Console):** Hera's existing hardwired attach detection
     (`homeblocks_sig_check()`, unchanged — this is Milestone 2 hardware-driver work, not
     something that itself becomes a message; nothing exists to receive a message before
     detection happens) results in a message to the Console VM reporting the outcome —
     recognized identity, or blank/foreign media.
   - **Console-side behavior (not itself a message):** for a recognized identity, the Console
     proceeds toward the existing cert-verify/bind flow; for blank media, the Console runs the
     interactive mint-onboarding form (§D.6) using its own owned hardware (framebuffer/PS2).
   - **Hop 2 (Console → Hera):** once the Console has what it needs — either confirmation to
     proceed with a recognized identity, or the completed onboarding fields for a new one — it
     sends a message *back* to Hera to actually execute the privileged operation
     (`MINT`/`WIREBIND`/`BINDSTEP`), since Hera owns the VM registry these operations mutate.
3. **Payload shape: arguments encoded as literals directly in the payload text**, not a
   dedicated no-argument word reading global state. E.g. the Console's hop-2 message to Hera
   for a mint would look like a human-typed command line with the collected fields pushed as
   string literals ahead of the word call (`S" Robert James" S" 123 Main St" ... MINT`) — more
   flexible than a fixed no-argument word, at the cost of the Console needing to build that
   text safely (not addressed here — see deferred list).

**Not yet scoped (deferred within this node):** the exact literal-encoding/escaping mechanism
for building a multi-field FORTH command string safely on the Console side (a real concern —
untrusted-ish human-typed onboarding text landing in FORTH source text merits care, not
assumed away); the precise message `TYPE` values for each of the three migrated interactions
(this pass decided the mechanism and direction, not the constant catalog); whether
`CERTVERIFY`'s own re-verify-live behavior (`BINDSTEP`, §F.9) changes shape once it's Console-
mediated rather than a direct Hera-side check; how this reconciles with `PENTAGON`'s still-open
"which of the 10 edges are real today" question (`D.4`) — this node answers it for exactly the
Hera↔Console edge, not the other nine.



### F.17 — `WRITE(10)` implemented and verified (2026-08-28) — the graph's last hard blocker, closed

Implemented exactly as scoped in `F.1`, a direct mirror of the existing `READ(10)` machinery
with the data direction flipped: new `XHCI_XFER_BOT_DATA_OUT`/`XHCI_NEXT_ACTION_BOT_DATA_OUT`
states, `xhci_bot_send_write10()`/`xhci_bot_write_block()`/`xhci_bot_write_data_out()`
(`xhci.c`), new `SCSI_CMD_WRITE10` opcode and `BOT_CMD_WRITE10`/`BOT_TUR_CHAIN_WRITE10` enum
values (`xhci_driver.h`, kept as fully separate fields from the `bot_read10_*` ones rather than
renamed/reused, so the already-tested `READ10` path is never touched). `usb_blk_write()`
(`blkio_usb.c`) is real now, no longer the `BLKIO_ENOSUP` stub — `read_only` in `blkio_info()`
flips to `0`, per `F.1` decision 1, now that it's proven.

**Verified live, all three architectures, with a genuine cold-reboot round-trip** — not just a
same-session read, the real proof this class of change needs: `BLK-CONFIRM-FORMAT`'s BAM/reloc
zero-page writes and an explicit block-content write both completed via clean `WRITE10` cycles
(CSW PASS every time), then a full kernel rebuild + fresh boot read the written byte back
correctly — `amd64=65`, `aarch64=170`, `riscv64=201`, each at LBN 32734 on a disposable
`disk/usbwrite-test.img` attached via QEMU `usb-storage`, matching `F.1` decision 2's validation
plan exactly.

**One real methodology finding, not project-specific:** the disposable test drive must be
hotplugged via QMP *after* boot reaches `ok>`, never attached at QEMU launch — attaching before
`xhci_bringup()`'s controller reset means the port already reads as connected when the driver
starts, so no fresh Port Status Change event ever fires and hotplug detection looks broken even
though it isn't (already documented in `project_xhci_milestone_2d_polling`, re-confirmed here
the hard way on the first attempt).

**A real, serious, pre-existing bug found and reported (not fixed) during validation:**
`EMPTY-BUFFERS` (`empty_all_buffers()`, `block_words.c:148-158`) does not implement standard
Forth-79 semantics — it force-writes zero to *every* block on *every* attached device, rather
than discarding cache-slot assignments without writing. Calling it during testing (reasonably
assuming standard semantics) mass-zeroed blocks across the whole system, including
`disk/artemis.img` — ~3.3 million bytes, essentially its entire content region. Restored from
git, confirmed byte-identical to `HEAD`. Avoided for the rest of validation (detach/reattach via
QMP used instead to force a fresh device read, which is non-destructive).

**Consequence for the rest of the graph:** `W10` was the single hub gating `BMAPWRITE`
(already independently confirmed working, §F.12), `MINT`, and `DETACH`/`EJECT`'s flush step —
all three are now genuinely unblocked, not just scoped. Nothing about their own design changes;
they can now actually be built and tested rather than only designed. Real hardware (Milestone
8) remains untested — this verification is QEMU-only, per `F.1`'s own acknowledged scope.

### D.7 — Birth-by-message-only, universal to Zuse and user VMs (vision, 2026-08-28)

Stated directly, prompted by planning the freshly-minted-`zuse.img`-thumbdrive-to-`(Zuse)ok>`
flow: **"Hera gives birth only by request once messaging and storage are functional and
should display no coupling outside of messages. This will include 'user' VMs too."** A
sharper, universal restatement of the standing "nothing is done until it's messaging"
completion criterion (D.1) — not a new principle, but a concrete commitment that this
specific, next flow should go straight to the message-only shape rather than pass through
a hardwired interim first, since messaging (`Hermes`) and storage (`Artemis`) are both now
genuinely live.

**Concretely, for the mint-`zuse.img`-thumbdrive-to-`(Zuse)ok>` flow:**
1. Hera's own hardware polling (`sk_repl_idle()`/`xhci_poll_events()`) is unavoidable —
   she's the only VM whose C code has xHCI MMIO access. This stays.
2. But Hera must not *decide or act* on what she detects. Per direct instruction: **detection
   ownership moves to a running Artemis VM instance** — a real change from what `HOTPLUG`
   (closed) and `WIREBIND` (§F.5, still just a breadcrumb) already built/scoped, both of which
   currently have Hera deciding and acting directly. Hera's role narrows to relaying the raw
   hardware event; Artemis owns the identity-verification decision and the birth *request*.
3. Grounded, not assumed: block LBN space is one flat, global address space
   (`block_subsystem.c`'s `g.total_user_lbn`), not per-VM — any VM's dictionary can already
   read any LBN once told which one, no new C-level read plumbing needed for the
   identity-check content itself. The gap is coordination (when, which LBN), not capability.

**Real, load-bearing prerequisite surfaced by tracing, not assumed:** Artemis is not
persistently alive today. Every boot this session confirms she's birthed for her own 4.6
migration self-test, then explicitly killed (`KILL: Artemis dead`) before the REPL ever
reaches `ok>`. For any message to reach a running Artemis instance, she has to actually stay
born — a real, new requirement this direction depends on, not something `HOTPLUG`/`WIREBIND`
ever needed before. **CLOSED 2026-08-28**: `kernel_main.c`'s item 4.2/4.6 self-test blocks
(birth → exercise diagnostics → `KILL`) stripped to birth-only; verified live on all three
architectures — `BIRTH: Hermes live`/`BIRTH: Artemis live`, zero `KILL:` anywhere in any log,
and an interactive `USE` round-trip confirmed Hermes genuinely reachable post-boot. Found and
fixed a real regression along the way: Hermes's `CD-INIT` (arena init, and the thing that
loads `lib.4th` into her own dictionary) was only ever invoked by the removed self-test —
added an unconditional call at the end of her own `init.4th` so a real birth actually
initializes her. Also added `STARTUP-BANNER` (scaffolding — prints `(no identity)` until
`CERTVERIFY`/`MINT` exist to populate it from a thumbdrive's PKI fields), wired into each
Tripod leg's own `init.4th`.

**What this reshapes, not yet re-scoped:**
- `WIREBIND` (§F.5) was deliberately left a breadcrumb, not fully designed, specifically
  because "wire hotplug → `capsule_birth_baby()` directly" is exactly the hardwired coupling
  this principle now rules out — this direction is the real answer that breadcrumb was
  waiting for, not a contradiction of it.
- `MSGMIGRATE` (§F.15) scoped a two-hop Hera↔Console flow (Hera reports attach, Console
  requests the privileged operation). Artemis is a **new participant**, not a replacement —
  identity verification/storage (Artemis's role) and human-facing onboarding UX (Console's
  role, §D.6) are both real and distinct; the full flow likely needs both, reconciled together
  rather than re-litigated as either/or.
- Applies universally, per direct instruction — the same message-only shape governs ordinary
  user-VM birth too, not a Zuse-specific carve-out.

**Not yet scoped:** whether Artemis becoming persistent changes her own self-test's shape or
timing; the exact message types/payloads for Hera→Artemis (raw attach event) and
Artemis→Hera (birth request); how/whether Console fits into this specific flow versus the
already-scoped `MSGMIGRATE` two-hop; whether `CERTVERIFY` (§F.7) itself should now run as
Artemis-mediated logic rather than a bare function call. Capture only, per this arc's own
established discipline — design happens in its own pass.

### Phase C — distributed messaging capsule + idle-loop pump (CLOSED 2026-08-28)

Prerequisite for D.7's message-only flow: every VM needs its own real `MSG-SEND`/`CH-*`
vocabulary and arena, not just Hermes. Extracted the generic messaging vocabulary (arenas,
field accessors, `MSG-ALLOC`/`CH-ALLOC`, `MSG-SEND`/`MSG-DELIVER`/`MSG-TICK`, `CH-ADD-MBR`,
`MSG-BROADCAST`, ~30 words total) out of `capsules/hermes/init.4th` into a new shared
`capsules/common/messaging.4th` (blocks 5003–5037). Hermes and Artemis each `EXEC` it at
birth and get their own private `MSG-ARENA`/`CH-ARENA` copy (`CREATE` runs per-VM). Hermes
stays the one owner of the canonical `COMMON-CH`; Artemis subscribes into it via `VM-EXEC`
at her own birth (`2 COMMON-CH @ CH-ADD-MBR` run inside Hermes), and Hermes proactively
subscribes Hera (idx 0) herself since Hera always exists first and can't subscribe to a VM
that doesn't exist yet at her own boot.

**Hera does not get her own copy — a real, discovered constraint, not a design choice.**
First attempt loaded `common:messaging.4th` into Hera's own dictionary too, matching "every
VM that gets born must have all these caps." Live-tested and found broken: every
colon-definition that referenced a `STADIUM-*` primitive (`MSG-HEAT@/!`, `CH-HEAT@/!`,
`MSG-COOL-ALL`, `MSG-TICK` itself) was silently missing from Hera's dictionary after boot —
not a compile error, just absent. Root cause, traced via a live serial socket and isolated
word-by-word: `register_child_vm_words()`'s own doc comment
(`mama_forth_words.c`) explains that the eight `STADIUM-*` FORTH words are deliberately
**never** added to `register_mama_forth_words()`, specifically to keep Hera's own
`dict_hash` off item 4.1's baseline. This is a pre-existing, intentional constraint, not a
timing bug — moving the load later in boot (tried first, also failed) didn't help, because
the words are never registered for Hera at all, at any point. Reverted: Hera orchestrates via
`BIRTH`/`VM-EXEC`/`VM-CALL` directly instead (already proven live — `VM-CALL` querying
Hermes's `MSG-K` cross-VM works fine), and the idle-loop pump below explicitly skips her own
registry entry.

**Idle-loop pump** (`repl.c`'s existing `sk_repl_idle()`, ~1s cadence): added
`capsule_vm_registry_get_by_index()` (`capsule_birth.c`/`.h`) for registry enumeration by
birth-order position (no by-index accessor existed before — only by-`vm_id` and by-name).
Each idle beat, Hera walks every live registry entry except her own and `VM-EXEC`s
`MSG-TICK` into it — "fully distributed, Hera pumps each VM's drain," the design confirmed
before Phase A/B began.

Verified clean (zero `UNKNOWN WORD`/`VM-EXEC: ERROR` after birth, `MSG-STATUS` answering
correctly on both Hermes and Artemis) on all three architectures. Commit `21bca31`.

**Still open, unblocked by this:** `WIREBIND`/`BINDSTEP` rebuilt against real messages
instead of direct calls; `common/msg.4th`'s `HERMES-ACK`/`HERMES-NACK` wrappers are now
obsolete (every VM has its own local `MSG-ACK-LAST`/`MSG-NACK-LAST` — no `VM-EXEC`
indirection needed) but the file itself was left in place, unloaded, rather than deleted
unprompted; `capsules/MANIFEST.md`'s "immutable ABI" claim for block 4055 is now stale.

### F.18 — `RUNCAP` built + verified (the §F.6 prerequisite `MINT` was blocked on)

Implementing `RUNCAP` against §F.6's own trace ("hand that straight to the existing,
unmodified `capsule_birth_baby()`") surfaced two real gaps that trace missed, both closed
before any code shipped:

**Gap 1 — `capsule_birth_baby()`'s signature check is not actually parameterized the way
§F.6 assumed.** It calls `capsule_verify_signature(descs, names, capsule_get_signatures(),
arena, dir->desc_count, idx)` — `descs`/`arena`/`dir` are caller-supplied (fine for a
heap-built directory), but `capsule_get_signatures()` unconditionally returns the
**compile-time-baked global array**, indexed against the *build-time* `capsule_descriptors[]`,
not anything the caller controls. For a RUNCAP-built directory `idx` is always 0, so the
check would compare RUNCAP's own arena bytes against whatever real capsule happens to sit at
slot 0 of the baked array — guaranteed to fail, not a security check. Put to Captain Bob
directly (three options: explicit bypass flag / a signed placeholder slot / defer); decided:
**explicit `skip_pki_sig` flag**, 0 for every existing call site, 1 only for RUNCAP — "easy to
change our minds later," and confirmed real enforcement for user-originated content lives
downstream in the VM's own ACL (`VMIdentity`/`acl_caps`, §F.2), not in this signature check,
which was never meaningful for non-build-time content in the first place. `capsule_birth_baby()`
itself is otherwise unchanged; all 4 existing call sites (`mama_forth_words.c`) pass `0`.

**Gap 2 — `capsule_birth_baby()` never sets the registry entry's own `.name`.**
`vm_registry_alloc()` zero-initializes it, and nothing inside `capsule_birth_baby()` ever
fills it in — every existing caller (`mama_word_birth`, `CONNECT-HERMES`/`-ARTEMIS`) does this
itself afterward via `capsule_vm_registry_set_name()`. Found live, not by inspection: a
RUNCAP-born VM's own registry name stayed empty, which Phase C's idle-loop pump then read as
a zero-length string and refused every tick ("VM name too long or empty") — traced via a live
serial-socket session, not guessed. `capsule_runcap_birth()` now calls
`capsule_vm_registry_set_name()` itself, matching the existing pattern.

**A third, non-blocking discovery while building the live test fixture:** `capsule_exec_payload()`
(`capsule_loader.c`) requires a `"Block NNNN\n"` header on every chunk of IDENTITY content —
without one, `is_block_header()` never matches, the whole payload is treated as
"pre-block/unrecognised" and silently skipped line-by-line, never executed (birth still
reports success — there's simply nothing to run). Not a bug, but load-bearing context for
whoever authors `MINT`'s default personality content (§F.6/§F.8's still-deferred question):
that content needs the same header convention every hand-authored `.4th` capsule already uses,
not bare FORTH text.

**Verified end-to-end, live in QEMU, not just build-clean:** a standalone host-side generator
(mirroring the `CERTVERIFY` host-test precedent, §F.7) wrote a real `homeblocks_sig_t` +
synthetic identity-source content directly into a disposable thumbdrive image's raw devblocks
— no capsule build, no `mkcapsule`, nothing baked in at compile time. Hotplugged via QMP,
recognized as a home-blocks drive, then a diagnostic `RUNCAP-TEST` word (Mama-only,
temporary — not the real call site, that's still `WIREBIND`) called `capsule_runcap_birth()`
against it: a genuinely new VM (`RunCapTest2`) was born, and `VM-EXEC`ing a word defined only
in that thumbdrive's own source printed `424242` — proof the content was actually read,
compiled, and executed, not just accepted. Clean 3-architecture regression boot (no RUNCAP
drive attached) confirms no side effects on normal boot. Commit `e1e8392`.

**Still open:** the real call site is `WIREBIND` (§F.5), still unbuilt — `RUNCAP-TEST` is
diagnostic-only and should not survive into that flow. A RUNCAP-born VM has no
`common:messaging.4th` vocabulary unless its own minted personality content loads it (matches
§F.6/§F.8's already-deferred "default personality content" question, not a new gap — observed
live as the idle pump's expected `MSG-TICK` refusal for `RunCapTest`/`RunCapTest2`, harmless
since these are test-only VMs never present during a normal boot). `MINT` (§F.8) is now
genuinely unblocked.

### F.19 — `MINT` built + verified: the full Tripod identity vision works end to end

With `CERTVERIFY` (§F.7/§B), `RUNCAP` (§F.6/§F.18), and Zuse's own on-device keypair
(Phase 8, `zuse_cert_devblock.h`) all real, `MINT` closed the last gap: nothing could
*produce* a drive RUNCAP/CERTVERIFY could consume. Same discipline as §F.18 — build against
the real code, verify live, don't trust the scoping pass's own assumptions without checking.

**New DER capability: `x509_build_user_cert()`** (`x509_ed25519.h/.c`) — the encode-side
counterpart to the three existing decode functions. A minimal DER TLV writer (short-form
length only; every field here stays well under the 128-byte threshold except the two outer
`SEQUENCE` wrappers, hand-encoded with one long-form length byte). `issuer`/`validity`/
`subject` are each an empty `SEQUENCE` — valid, zero-length TLVs the decode side already only
ever skips by length, never reads the content of; `version` is omitted entirely (implicit v1,
matching the decoder's own optional-version handling). **Host-tested round-trip before
trusting it in the kernel** (same precedent as `CERTVERIFY`'s own host test, §F.7): built two
certs (one with an ordinary serial, one with a high-bit-set serial forcing the DER
zero-pad-integer rule), decoded both back with the real `x509_extract_ed25519_pubkey()`/
`x509_extract_serial()`/`x509_verify_signature()` — pubkey and serial round-trip exactly,
signature verifies against the real issuer, correctly rejects the subject's own key and a
corrupted signature. 10/10 assertions pass. Cert size: 155 bytes, comfortably one devblock.

**Fixed devblock layout, decided rather than left open:** devblock 1 = `homeblocks_sig_t`
(unchanged, §F.13); devblock 2 = the DER cert (`cert_offset`/`cert_devblocks=1`); devblock 3 =
new `user_identity_seed_t` (magic/version/seed\[32\]/pubkey\[32\]/crc, same convention as
`zuse_cert_devblock_t` — a dedicated type, not a reuse, per this project's own "give
real-shaped data its own header" rule); devblock 4 = the default personality source.
`metadata_devblocks=5` (0..4 reserved; devblock 0 stays the block-subsystem's own generic
header, untouched). `homeblocks_sig_t` is written *last*, deliberately, so a crash partway
through minting never leaves a drive that reads as a complete, valid home-blocks drive with
content actually missing behind it.

**Real keypair, real entropy, real signer** (§F.8 decisions 1/3/4, unchanged from scoping):
`virtio_rng_get_bytes()` + `ed25519_keygen()` for the identity's own seed/pubkey; a second,
independent `virtio_rng_get_bytes()` draw for `drive_uuid` (never derived from the identity
seed); the cert signed with the *caller's* `zuse_cert_seed` (in practice always Hera's own VM
struct, where Zuse's on-device key lives) via `ed25519_sign()`.

**Default personality is real, working code, not a stub** — a small FORTH capsule defining and
immediately calling `WELCOME`, which prints a real banner. `§F.6`/`§F.8`'s "default
personality content: mint-time-fixed vs. user-editable" question stays genuinely open — this
doesn't answer it, but whatever mints today has to actually *do* something once RUNCAP births
it, matching this project's "no stubs" discipline even where the surrounding design question
is deliberately deferred. Needs the same `"Block NNNN\n"` header §F.18 found `capsule_exec_
payload()` requires — baked in directly, not left for a future pass to discover the hard way
again.

**One new decision, not left "reasonable by analogy" any longer:** `MINT` refuses to write
onto a drive that already reads as `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK` (`MINT_ERR_ALREADY_MINTED`) — mirrors
`WRITE(10)`'s own refuse-on-non-blank posture, now decided rather than deferred.

**No name argument, deliberately deviating from F.8's own original `S" name" MINT` sketch:**
this design never binds a VM name at mint time at all — the drive holds an anonymous,
self-contained identity; a name is assigned later, at RUNCAP birth, which is a `WIREBIND`
decision, not `MINT`'s. `MINT ( -- ok? )` takes nothing and operates on whatever
`sk_repl_get_attached_blk_dev()` (new accessor, `repl.h/.c`, mirrors §F.18's home-blocks-only
one but doesn't gate on recognition — a blank drive by definition never sets that one)
currently reports.

**Verified end-to-end, live in QEMU — the full mint-to-birth flow working for the first time:**
a genuinely blank test image, hotplugged and confirmed "not recognized (blank or foreign
media)"; `MINT` ran and reported success; `RUNCAP-TEST` on the same drive then birthed a real
VM from its own freshly-minted content; `VM-EXEC`ing `WELCOME` printed the default personality
banner. Every layer built this session — `CERTVERIFY`'s DER decoder, `RUNCAP`'s capsule
construction, `MINT`'s DER encoder and keypair generation — composed correctly on the first
real end-to-end attempt. Clean 3-architecture regression boot (no test drive attached)
confirms no side effects. Commit `f6e2737`.

**One real workflow gap found, deliberately not fixed in this pass:** a freshly-minted drive
is not recognized by `RUNCAP` until physically detached and reattached — the home-blocks sig
cache (§F.18's `g_homeblocks_dev`/`sig`) only refreshes at USB attach time, and `MINT` (which
just wrote a valid sig it knows is now correct) doesn't update that cache itself. Worked around
for this verification via a QMP detach/reattach; a real user plugging in a blank drive, minting
it, and expecting it to work without unplugging would hit this. Flagged for whoever builds the
real Console onboarding flow (§D.6) — that flow controls the actual mint UX and is the right
place to decide whether `MINT` should refresh the cache itself or the onboarding flow should
prompt for a reattach.

**Still open:** `WIREBIND`/`BINDSTEP` (§F.5/§F.9) — the real call sites for both `RUNCAP` and
`MINT`; `RUNCAP-TEST` and `MINT`'s own bare console word remain diagnostic scaffolding, not
meant to survive into that flow unchanged. With `CERTVERIFY`, `RUNCAP`, and `MINT` all real and
composing, `WIREBIND` is now the last piece standing between this arc and D.7's original
message-only birth vision.

### F.20 — general-purpose console vision + MINT profile fields (2026-08-28)

New direction, stated directly: get rid of the emergency CLI entirely (today's unauthenticated
`ok>` bypass) in favor of a general-purpose console that attaches to *any* VM an identity has
ACL access to — Tripod legs included, not just user-spawned VMs — via **two** complementary
mechanisms, not alternatives: `BINDSTEP`'s already-scoped ACL-gated `USE` redirect (cheap,
direct, the admin/debug path) *and* a genuinely new console-VM + user-VM pair, talking over the
real messaging layer (Phase C) rather than direct dispatch — the actual next step toward the
message-passing-OS vision, since every line becomes a message instead of a C-level redirect.
Zuse stays "no different than any other VM" except her ACLs (`VM_IDENTITY_CAP_ALL`); ACLs are
inherited (mechanism not yet designed — real open item once the console-VM pair is scoped).

**Real gap surfaced immediately, not assumed away:** removing the emergency CLI removes the
*only* currently-unauthenticated path into a session — but Zuse's own identity today comes from
an unauthenticated first-boot self-mint (`kernel_main.c`'s `virtio_rng` → `ed25519_keygen` →
`vm_zuse_cert_install()` → `zuse_cert_devblock_t` block-fence write). Decided: **Zuse becomes
thumbdrive-resident too, minted through this same `MINT` flow, not system-resident via the
block-fence.** The block-fence flow's own retirement is scoped, not yet built — that's the
next concrete step once the console-VM pair work reaches it.

**Immediate, concrete, scoped ask actioned first:** `MINT` needed to carry a real human profile
— full name, username, email, phone (email/phone nullable) — before minting real test
identities makes sense. Extended `user_identity_seed_t` to v2 with fixed `full_name`/
`username`/`email`/`phone` fields (plenty of unused pad space already there — 4016 bytes).
**Deliberately NOT encoded into the DER cert's Subject field** — that would mean a real X.509
`RDNSequence` (`commonName`/`emailAddress` OIDs, `PrintableString`/`UTF8String` tagging), well
past `x509_ed25519.h`'s own stated "deliberately not a general ASN.1/X.509 [builder]" scope.
This data isn't security-relevant the way pubkey/serial are (the only two fields `CERTVERIFY`/
`BINDSTEP` actually check) — it travels alongside the keypair in the plain identity record
instead. `capsule_mint_identity()` and the `MINT` word both grew to take it (`MINT`'s stack
signature is now 4 string pairs, `( fname-c fname-u uname-c uname-u email-c email-u phone-c
phone-u -- ok? )`).

**Apollo test rig:** three disk fixtures for this next phase of live testing — `disk/zuse.img`
(pre-existing from Phase 8 kickoff, blank, exactly the intended Zuse-thumbdrive target),
`disk/user1.img` (new, 64MB, a regular-user thumbdrive), `disk/apollo-ssd.img` (new, 30MB,
matching Artemis's own size convention, deliberately separate from the actively-used
`disk/artemis.img` so this phase starts from a clean slate).

**Verified live in QEMU:** minted two real identities with real data — Zuse (`full_name`
"Konrad Suse", `username` "Zuse", `zuse@pantheon.org`, `+18885555555`) onto `disk/zuse.img`,
and a regular user (`full_name` "Captain Bob", `username` "CaptBob",
`capt.bob@pantheon.org`, `+18885555556`) onto `disk/user1.img`. Both minted only one at a time
(the single-USB-device constraint §F.8 already noted). Read the raw devblock bytes back off
both images directly afterward and confirmed every field byte-exact at its correct struct
offset (record starts at devblock 3 = byte 12288; `full_name` at +72, `username` at +136,
`email` at +168, `phone` at +232). Clean 3-architecture regression boot confirms no side
effects. Commit `6fd8792`.

**Not yet done, deliberately:** `disk/zuse.img`/`disk/user1.img` now hold real, live-minted
keypairs — not committed alongside the code this pass, pending a decision on whether these
become tracked fixtures or stay local-only. The bigger swap this section opened (Zuse's
first-boot mint routed through `MINT` onto a thumbdrive, block-fence flow retired, emergency
CLI removed) is scoped in direction but not yet traced against the actual boot-sequence code
the way `RUNCAP`/`MINT` themselves were before being built (§F.18/§F.19's own discipline) —
that trace-first pass is the next step, not this one.

**Update:** `disk/zuse.img`/`disk/user1.img` committed after this section closed, per direct
instruction. The bigger swap traced and built in §F.21, same pass.

### F.21 — emergency CLI retired; Zuse goes thumbdrive-resident; ACL.4th activated

The trace §F.20 asked for, done before touching code (same discipline as §F.18/§F.19):
`vm->emergency_console` is not a boot-time flag, it's recomputed on *every* REPL iteration
(`repl.c`, both `sk_repl_step` and `sk_repl_run`): `is_hera && !zuse_session → 1`, and when
set it skips ACL enforcement entirely at both the colon-word dispatch point and the outer
EXECUTE path (`vm_core.c`). A real finding this trace surfaced: `capsules/init.4th` had
`ACL.4th`'s own load commented out all session — ACL enforcement was **inactive**, bypass or
no bypass, the whole time, because the policy engine that would ever deny anything had never
loaded. Removing the bypass alone would have changed nothing observable.

**Design, confirmed with Captain Bob before building:** system-resident storage keeps only
Zuse's *public* key, never her seed — the fence remembers "a root identity exists" and what
its pubkey is; the private key lives exclusively on her own minted thumbdrive. New
`zuse_genesis_marker_t` (magic/version/`zuse_pubkey[32]`/crc) takes over the fence's
devblock 0 slot `zuse_cert_devblock_t` used to occupy; that type is kept in the repo, header
marked superseded, no longer written by any path.

**Genesis can't use regular `MINT`** — there's no existing Zuse to sign a cert with yet.
`capsule_mint_identity()` grows a genesis mode: `issuer_vm=NULL` skips the cert build/write
entirely (`cert_offset`/`cert_devblocks` stay 0) and skips the `zuse_cert_installed` check.
Two new optional out-params, `out_pubkey`/`out_seed`, let the caller (genesis's only caller)
install the cert immediately after minting — the seed otherwise never leaves the thumbdrive.

**A real boot-ordering constraint, not assumed away:** `virtio_rng_init()` already precedes
the old Zuse block, and `xhci_bringup()` already precedes `sk_repl_run()` — no reorder was
actually needed. What matters instead: USB attach detection only ever happens inside
`sk_repl_idle()`'s own polling, which doesn't exist yet at kernel_main.c's old one-shot mint
point. So the genesis/attach logic can't be a boot-time step at all, regardless of ordering —
it has to live in the idle loop. New `capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()` (`capsule_zuse_boot.c`),
called from `sk_repl_idle()` on every fresh attach: no-ops if Zuse already has a cert this
boot; no marker + `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK` → genesis-mint, write the marker; marker present +
`HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK` + matching pubkey → read the drive's own `user_identity_seed_t`, install
the cert. Either path ends the same way: `vm_zuse_cert_install()` then
`vm_interpret(mama_vm, "ACL-ZUSE-BOOT")` — re-running the *existing* self-activation word
rather than adding new C-side auth logic (`ACL-PIN` only blocks redefinition, not
re-execution, so calling the same policy word again later is the correct, already-designed
way to activate `zuse_session` once a cert exists later than boot).

**A real, previously-dormant bug, found the moment `ACL.4th` actually loaded for the first
time:** `zuse.4th`'s `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` tried `['] ACL-ZUSE-BOOT ACL-PIN` from *inside its own
still-compiling definition* — the word isn't findable via `['] ` at that point (mid-compile),
so the whole colon-definition silently failed to compile, every boot, for as long as
`ACL.4th` has existed in this repo — just never noticed because nothing ever loaded it.
Fixed: pin *after* the definition closes (`: ACL-ZUSE-BOOT ... ;` then, separately, `[']
ACL-ZUSE-BOOT ACL-PIN`) — it only ever needs to run once anyway, and pinning doesn't block
the re-invocation genesis/attach depends on.

**The bypass itself, removed:** the `emergency_console = is_hera ? ... : 0` assignment
deleted from both `repl.c` call sites. Every word run from Hera's own bare prompt now goes
through ordinary ACL enforcement. `emergency_console` the *field* still exists and is still
set, briefly, by the genuine C-level VM fault handler (`EMERGENCY_CONSOLE_ENABLED`) — a
distinct, narrower mechanism this REPL no longer touches.

**Verified end-to-end, live, not just build-clean:** added `ZUSE-SESSION?` (read-only
diagnostic, matches `ZUSE-PUBKEY@`'s own precedent) to check the chain directly rather than
by inference. Fresh boot, no thumbdrive attached: `ZUSE-SESSION?` reads `0`. Attach a
genuinely blank drive via QMP: genesis mint fires automatically, no typing, console confirms
it; `ZUSE-SESSION?` then reads `-1` (true) — the complete chain (genesis mint → cert install
→ `ACL-ZUSE-BOOT` re-run → `ZUSE-AUTHENTICATE` → `zuse_session=1`) verified working, not
assumed. Clean 3-architecture regression: Hermes/Artemis both birth live, zero ACL denials,
zero `UNKNOWN WORD` beyond the deliberate POST self-test cases (`NOSUCH`/`NONEXISTENT`/
`__acl_deny_test__`) — the first time this whole session `ACL.4th` has actually been
enforcing anything, and nothing broke. Commit `cc9521d`.

**Still open, deliberately not chased in this pass:** the fence marker write itself still
fails ("fence marker write FAILED (not persistent)") — the same pre-existing, already-flagged
anomaly this session has seen with the old block-fence write path too (§ various), now
manifesting through the new marker write instead. Doesn't block same-boot activation (that
reads the freshly-generated data in memory, not the fence), but means the "already minted"
marker doesn't actually survive a reboot in this QEMU test environment yet — the
attach-authenticate path (marker present, matching drive reattached later) is designed and
built but not yet live-verified across a real reboot, blocked on this separate write-path
issue. A second, unrelated, general finding while testing: `LOG-INFO"` output from *any*
FORTH-defined colon-word body (tested standalone, unrelated to Zuse) doesn't appear on the
console at all in this build — `(do-log-info)` compiles and runs without error, just prints
nothing visible. Not chased; didn't block verification since `ZUSE-SESSION?` gave a direct
answer instead of needing the log line. With this closed, the console-VM + user-VM pair
(§F.20's own opening vision) is unblocked.

### F.22 — console-VM + user-VM pair: real async message relay

§F.20's opening vision picked up: a general-purpose console attaching to any VM with ACL
access (`BINDSTEP`, §F.9 — unchanged, stays the cheap direct/admin path) *and* a genuinely
new console-VM + user-VM pair talking over real messages, the actual next step toward
"message-passing OS." Two shapes were on the table — synchronous `VM-EXEC` relay (low
latency, still built on the same primitive real messages use) vs. fully async `MSG-SEND`/
`MSG-DELIVER` (architecturally purer, costs the idle-pump's cadence per round trip). **Chosen:
Option B, fully async** — confirmed directly: messaging is a general capability every VM
already has for its own reasons, not something that should get a console-specific shortcut
bolted on beside it.

**Traced before building** (`vm_interpret()`, `vm.c`/`vm_core.c`): it's pure C, per-line, no
per-VM hook for "redirect this whole line elsewhere" — a console that turns keystrokes into
messages can't be a new vocabulary alone, it needs an actual new C-level REPL mode. Tracing
`MSG-SEND`/`MSG-DELIVER` (Phase C) also confirmed the addressing model already works for this:
whichever VM calls `MSG-SEND` both stores the message *and* later delivers it (via its own
`MSG-TICK`), and `VM-EXEC` copies the string bytes across the VM boundary at delivery time —
so a console VM messaging its paired user VM is exactly the same shape every other message in
this system already uses, no new plumbing needed.

**Built:** new `CONSOLE-CMD-EVENT` message type (`common:messaging.4th`). New
`sk_repl_dispatch_line()` (`repl.c`), replacing the direct `vm_interpret()` call in both
`sk_repl_step`/`sk_repl_run`: if the active VM's own name has a live `"<name>~user"`
counterpart registered, the raw line is wrapped as an `S"`-embedded `CONSOLE-CMD-EVENT
MSG-SEND` and interpreted on the console VM instead of run directly — delivery happens later,
on that console's own next `MSG-TICK` (Hera's idle pump), via `VM-EXEC` into the paired user
VM, identically to every other message. Falls back to direct interpretation with no pairing,
or if the line contains a `"` (can't be safely `S"`-embedded yet — a known v1 limitation,
warned about explicitly rather than silently mishandled, not chased further this pass).

New `capsule_console_birth()` (`capsule_console.h/.c`): a bare VM whose only content is
loading `common:messaging.4th` — parallel in shape to `RUNCAP`'s user-VM birth but with fixed
embedded source instead of a devblock read (no identity, no thumbdrive involved on the
console side at all). New `PAIR-TEST` diagnostic word (matches `RUNCAP-TEST`'s own precedent
exactly): births both halves and registers the `"<name>~user"` mapping. Not the real pairing
call site — that's the eventual attach/onboarding flow — exists to exercise the relay live
before that flow exists.

**A real, serious bug found and fixed live, not assumed away:** `console_set_vm_name()`
stored the caller's raw pointer, never copied it. `mama_word_use()` (`USE`) passes a
`VMRegistryEntry` field living on its own stack frame — once `USE` returns, that pointer
dangles, corrupting the console tag on every subsequent line. Observed directly as garbled
`"[[]"` / binary-looking prefixes instead of `"[CaptBob]"` — not a theoretical concern, this
broke the very relay mechanism being tested, since `sk_repl_dispatch_line()` reads the same
name to find the pairing. Fixed at the source: `console_set_vm_name()` now copies into
internal storage. That fix surfaced a **second, related** bug: every `console_get_vm_name()`-
based save/restore call site in `mama_forth_words.c` (`BIRTH`, `VM-STEP`, `VM-EXEC`,
`CONNECT-HERMES`, `CONNECT-ARTEMIS`) saved only a pointer into that same single internal
buffer — an intervening `console_set_vm_name()` call silently corrupted the saved value
before the restore ever ran. New `console_save_vm_name()` copies into caller-owned storage;
every save/restore site updated to use it.

**Verified end-to-end, live, not just build-clean:** typed `WELCOME` at a paired console
VM — it did not execute directly (no `UNKNOWN WORD`), printed `ok` immediately (queued,
genuinely async), and on the *next* idle tick `"[CaptBob~user] Minted identity -- default
personality"` appeared on its own — real delivery and execution in the paired user VM through
the actual `MSG-SEND`/`MSG-DELIVER` pipeline, not a shortcut standing in for it. Console tags
confirmed clean (no garbling) across all three architectures' full regression boot; Hermes/
Artemis both birth live, zero unexpected ACL denials or `UNKNOWN WORD`. Commit `b0f1271`.

**Still open:** the real pairing call site (`PAIR-TEST` is diagnostic scaffolding only, not
meant to survive into a real attach flow); the `"` character in a relayed line (falls back to
direct interpretation with a warning, not fixed this pass); the idle-pump's ~1s cadence is
the console's own round-trip latency for every command now — acceptable for v1 per the
async-over-synchronous decision, but a real UX question for later if it proves too slow in
practice; whether a console VM should get a default subscription to `COMMON-CH` (skipped in
v1 — direct 1:1 console↔user traffic doesn't need it, and it would require resolving an index
in Hermes's own routing table for a VM that doesn't have one yet).

### F.23 — `WIREBIND`: the real attach call site, no manual steps

Every phase closure from §F.18 through §F.22 pointed at the same gap: `RUNCAP-TEST` and
`PAIR-TEST` were diagnostic scaffolding, exercising `CERTVERIFY`/`RUNCAP`/the console pair by
hand, not a real attach flow. `WIREBIND` (§F.5, originally a breadcrumb) closes it — and
turned out to be assembly, not new design: every hard decision it needed was already made in
earlier scoping (§F.9's ACL-comparison rules, §F.7's cert trust model), and `CERTVERIFY`'s own
orchestration already existed (`vm_identity_from_cert()`, Phase A/B — verify-signature +
check-serial + extract-owner-pubkey in one call) — it had just never been wired to a live
attach.

**The flow** (`capsule_wirebind_try_attach()`, called from `sk_repl_idle()` alongside
`capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()`, same `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK` hook): `sig->cert_offset == 0`
means this is Zuse's own genesis-mode drive (no cert region, §F.21) — that's already the other
function's job, skip. Otherwise, with Zuse already authenticated this boot (nothing to verify
a regular cert against otherwise — a real precondition, not an oversight), read the cert
devblock(s) and call `vm_identity_from_cert()` against `mama_vm`'s own `zuse_cert_pubkey` and
the drive's `drive_uuid`. On success: read the drive's own `user_identity_seed_t` for its
`username`, birth a console VM + `RUNCAP`-born user VM pair (idempotent — no-ops if that
username is already live this session), install the verified `VMIdentity` onto the user VM,
register the `"<username>~user"` pairing `sk_repl_dispatch_line()` (§F.22) looks for.
Deliberately does **not** auto-`USE` the new console — that stays an explicit, `BINDSTEP`-gated
step (§F.9), not something a bare attach should trigger silently.

**Verified end-to-end, live, including a genuine negative case — not just the happy path:**
attached `disk/user1.img` (its cert signed by a *different*, earlier-session Zuse instance —
Zuse's own keypair is freshly random every genesis mint) and got `"WIREBIND: cert verification
FAILED -- drive refused"` — real proof the check actually verifies against the *live* session's
own root, not a rubber stamp. Minted a fresh identity with *this* boot's own Zuse
(`S" Sam Sample" S" SamS" ... MINT`), reattached, and got `"WIREBIND: SamS attached and ready
-- USE it to begin"` printed with **zero manual commands** — no `PAIR-TEST`, no `RUNCAP-TEST`.
Followed by a clean `USE SamS` and a working async `WELCOME` relay end to end, identical in
shape to §F.22's own manual-pairing proof. Clean 3-architecture regression: Hermes/Artemis
both birth live, no unexpected ACL denials or `UNKNOWN WORD`. Commit `6fc0ee3`.

**Still open:** `BINDSTEP` itself (§F.9) — `USE` is still unguarded; `WIREBIND` installs a real
`VMIdentity` onto the user VM but nothing re-verifies it on `USE` yet, so the ACL-gated
re-attach check that closes this whole identity arc is the one piece left. The fence-marker
persistence gap (§F.21) still means Zuse can't re-authenticate across a real reboot in this
QEMU environment — worked around for this verification the same way, via a fresh genesis mint
within the same boot session, not fixed here.

### F.24 — `BINDSTEP` + the fence-persistence root cause: identity arc closed

Two items, closed together, both directly instructed: the fence-marker persistence gap
(§F.21/§F.23's own "still open") and `BINDSTEP` (§F.9's own decisions, never wired to a real
call site). Neither turned out to need new design — both were assembly and one real bug hunt.

**Fence-persistence root cause, traced rather than reformatted blind:** `meta_fence_blocks`
(the field `blk_meta_zone_write()`'s own bounds check gates on) was carved out of what used to
be unused padding in `blk_volume_meta_t` — the code's own comment already documented this
exact risk. `disk/artemis.img` was formatted before that field existed, so the on-disk bytes
at that offset have always read back as `0`, and `blk_format_or_load_disk()`'s existing-volume
path (`magic`/`version` match) never recomputes it — only a *fresh* format does. Every "fence
write FAILED" message this entire session, the old `zuse_cert_devblock_t` flow and the new
`zuse_genesis_marker_t` alike, traces to this one thing, not a timing bug or a QEMU quirk.
**Why an in-place patch was refused even though it's tempting:** setting `meta_fence_blocks`
alone without redoing the rest of the geometry risks the fence region overlapping data already
allocated near the top of the volume under the *old*, un-fenced layout — a real, if low-
probability, corruption risk for a one-field edit that looks harmless. The only provably safe
fix is a genuine reformat, confirmed explicitly before doing it (discards accumulated
persistent test state — regenerated fresh at next boot regardless, not real data). Verified:
fence write now succeeds with no failure suffix, and the full cycle — mint once, reboot,
reattach, re-authenticate — works for the first time this whole session: `"Zuse: identity
confirmed from attached thumbdrive"`, `ZUSE-SESSION?` goes `0` → `-1` with **no re-minting**.

**`BINDSTEP`:** `capsule_wirebind_verify_cert()` extracted out of `capsule_wirebind_try_attach()`
into a shared function so `WIREBIND` (the original attach) and `BINDSTEP` (every `USE` of an
identity-locked VM) check the exact same thing the exact same way — one code path, not two
that could quietly drift apart. `mama_word_use()` (`USE`) now re-verifies live, not cached
(§F.9 decision 1), whenever the target has `VMIdentity.installed=1`: reads whatever drive is
*currently* attached, re-verifies its cert, compares owner pubkey against the target's own
installed identity, refuses on any mismatch or no drive attached. A target with `installed=0`
(Hera, Hermes, Artemis, any bare console VM) stays freely targetable — unchanged, per §F.9
decision 2.

**Two related bugs found and fixed live while testing `BINDSTEP`, not assumed away:** `USE`
was Mama-only — a console-paired session (§F.22) had no way back to Hera at all, any attempt
to call `USE` from inside a console VM hit a plain `UNKNOWN WORD`. Corrected directly:
`USE` isn't console-specific, it should work VM-to-VM universally, the same way `VM-EXEC`
already does — now registered in `register_child_vm_words()` too. That alone wasn't
sufficient: the console relay (`sk_repl_dispatch_line()`, §F.22) would have captured a bare
`USE` call and sent it to the paired user VM as a message instead of running it. Fixed with a
small suffix-match guard (`sk_repl_line_calls_use()`) — real FORTH syntax always puts `USE`
last, so a trailing-token check reliably recognizes it without needing a full tokenizer; it
now always runs directly, never relayed.

**Verified live, the full matrix, not just the happy path:** `USE` on an unlocked VM works
unconditionally; `USE` escaping a console back to Hera now works; `USE` on an identity-locked
VM succeeds while its own drive is attached and is refused once detached — exact text: `"USE:
FinT~user refused -- no matching identity currently attached"`. Clean 3-architecture
regression, including confirming the reformatted `disk/artemis.img` loads correctly as an
already-recognized volume (`"Artemis: LithosAnanke disk -- resuming"`) on aarch64 and riscv64
too, not just the amd64 boot it was reformatted under. Commit `09d78c9`.

**The whole identity/messaging arc opened at §F.20 is closed, end to end, for the first time:**
`CERTVERIFY` → `RUNCAP` → `MINT` → the console/user pair → `WIREBIND` → `BINDSTEP` →
persistence across a real reboot. Every phase closure from §F.18 onward flagged the next gap;
none remain flagged as "still open" in this chain.

### F.25 — `make qemu` boots with Zuse attached by default: a real xHCI driver gap, not a config gap

Directive: a plain `make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu` (all three arches) should always attach
both the Artemis disk (already default via `ARTDISK`) and Zuse's own thumbdrive, landing
already authenticated into the Zuse identity, unless told otherwise. Traced before touching
anything: attaching `-device usb-storage` on the QEMU command line at *launch* (rather than
hot-plugging post-boot via QMP, this session's established workaround since Milestone 2)
looked like it should just work now that §F.21–§F.24 closed the whole attach/authenticate
chain. It didn't, and the reason is a real gap in the xHCI driver, confirmed by reading
`xhci_poll_events()` (`src/starkernel/usb/xhci.c`) directly: it is *purely*
event-ring-driven, reacting only to `XHCI_TRB_TYPE_PORT_STATUS_CHANGE_EVT` events, with no
code anywhere that proactively checks `PORTSC.CCS` across ports at `xhci_bringup()` time. A
device already connected before the controller resets never generates a "change" event —
nothing changed from the controller's perspective once it starts looking — so it stays
invisible forever, not just late.

**Fix, not workaround:** extracted the existing "device connected" handling (Enable Slot
kickoff, single-outstanding-connect discipline) out of `xhci_poll_events()`'s
`PORT_STATUS_CHANGE_EVT` case into a shared `xhci_handle_port_connected()`. Added
`xhci_scan_ports_for_already_connected()`, called once from `xhci_bringup()` right after the
controller starts running and `g_xhci_dev` is latched: scans tracked ports directly for
`PORTSC.CCS`, and drives the first connected one found through the exact same Enable Slot path
a real hotplug event would — same single-device-at-a-time scope this driver already commits to
elsewhere. This is the technically correct fix (a real USB host controller driver enumerates
already-connected ports at bring-up, it doesn't rely solely on later hotplug events), not a
QEMU-side or Makefile-side scripted delay. Verified live: `"xhci: device already connected at
bring-up"` fires, followed by the full enable-slot → address-device → configure → BOT
enumeration sequence, all before the REPL ever prints its first `ok>` — no post-boot QMP step
needed.

**Makefile wiring, and a real bug found in the first attempt:** added `ZUSEDISK ?=
disk/zuse.img`, attached unconditionally on the `xhci0` bus each arch's `qemu` target already
creates (`ZUSEDISK=` empties it for a bare boot). First attempt inlined
`$(if $(ZUSEDISK),-drive if=none,id=zusedrv,...,-device usb-storage,...,)` directly at each
call site — GNU make's `$(if)` splits its own arguments on every *top-level* comma, and the
drive/device spec is comma-heavy, so the flags silently truncated to just `-drive if=none`
with everything past the next comma dropped. Confirmed live via `ps aux` showing the broken
qemu command line — no error, just a quietly wrong one. Fixed by precomputing a
`ZUSEDISK_QEMU_ARGS` variable with a plain `ifneq` instead of inlining `$(if)`.

**A real consequence of the §F.24 `disk/artemis.img` reformat, not a new bug:** with the xHCI
fix and Makefile wiring both correct, the boot still didn't reach Zuse authentication.
`capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()` (`src/starkernel/capsule/capsule_zuse_boot.c:70-71`) only
takes the genesis-mint path when the Artemis fence has *no* genesis marker **and** the
attached drive reads `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK`. `disk/zuse.img` still carried the real identity
minted (§F.20, Apollo test rig) against the *old*, pre-reformat `artemis.img` — so it read
`HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_OK`, not blank, while the reformatted `artemis.img` had no marker to confirm
it against. Neither branch fired; the code correctly, silently declined to act on a mismatched
pair rather than guessing. Confirmed with the user and reformatted `disk/zuse.img` too (same
category of destructive action as the `disk/artemis.img` reformat — explicit confirmation
obtained first), so a fresh genesis-mint can run against the current fence on next boot.

**The apparent "hang" chased down, not assumed:** the post-reformat genesis-mint boot appeared
to sit silent for 9+ minutes at 100% CPU with no new log output — killed once on the
assumption it had hung, per Captain Bob's direct pushback ("i know this machine, it's never
that slow") that the slow-TCG explanation didn't hold up. Root-caused properly instead of
re-guessing, via temporary `console_println`/`log_message` probes at every step
(`capsule_mint_identity()`, `capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()`, `blk_meta_zone_read()`, and a
`heartbeat_ticks()`-instrumented `xhci_bot_wait_for_idle()`), each reverted immediately after
capturing what was needed (`feedback_revert_probes_after_capture.md`). Two real, independent
findings came out of it, neither a driver bug:

1. **`capsule_mint_identity()` ran a fully redundant second `homeblocks_sig_check()`** on the
   same USB drive `sk_repl_idle()` had *just* checked moments earlier, doubling the wait for no
   reason. Fixed with a new `drive_known_blank` parameter (`capsule_mint.h`/`capsule_mint.c`):
   `capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()` passes `1` (it already confirmed `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK`
   before ever calling in); the manual `MINT` word (`mama_forth_words.c`) passes `0` since it
   has no pre-check to rely on and still needs the safety refusal.
2. **Dozens of orphaned `tail -f logs/.../qemu-*.log` processes** (`Makefile.starkernel`'s own
   qemu recipe backgrounds one per run and only reaps it via `kill $TAILPID` on a *normal*
   qemu exit) had accumulated going back to **2026-08-27**, one per every `kill -9` this
   session's own iterative testing had used to stop a run early. `pkill -f "tail -n \+1 -f
   logs/"` cleared ~60 of them. Timing before/after, same exact code path, same boot: **~200s
   to reach the sig-check result with the leaked processes present, 26s clean.** That is the
   dominant real-world cost this whole investigation kept tripping over — not a kernel bug.

**Residual, understood, not a code defect:** even on a freshly cleaned host, run-to-run timing
still varies (one clean run: 26s; a later one under load: 190s+, no error, still progressing).
Traced to ordinary desktop contention on the dev machine itself — CLion (188+ accumulated CPU-
minutes), its Rider.Backend, and the desktop shell were all live and competing for host CPU
during the slower runs (`uptime` load average 1.3–1.6 at those moments). TCG needs steady host
CPU time to advance guest virtual time at the intended rate; when the host scheduler starves
QEMU in bursts, the guest's own polling/BOT-command pacing visibly stalls with no corresponding
guest-side bug. Not something kernel code can or should compensate for.

**Where this leaves the original directive:** the xHCI initial-port-scan fix, the `ZUSEDISK`
Makefile wiring, the redundant-check fix, and the leaked-process cleanup are all real, correct,
and independently verified in isolation (each confirmed via its own live boot evidence above).
A full clean end-to-end run — genesis-mint completing (`MINT_OK`) and landing in an
authenticated `zuse)ok>` session — was in progress but not yet observed to completion when the
session was paused to resume from a terminal; `disk/zuse.img` and `disk/artemis.img` may
therefore be mid-genesis-mint rather than either cleanly blank or cleanly minted (mint writes
its `homeblocks_sig_t` block *last*, specifically so an interrupted mint still reads back as
blank rather than a corrupt partial identity — the next boot's own sig-check settles this
safely either way, no manual disk surgery needed). Next session: rerun the full three-arch
acceptance (`clean qemu` each) with the host otherwise idle, confirm `MINT_OK` and
`"Zuse: genesis minted onto attached thumbdrive"`, then decide on committing.

### F.26 — the "hang" wasn't a hang: a mismatched marker/drive pair, root-caused live (2026-08-28)

Resuming §F.25: what looked like a genuine infinite loop (QEMU pegged at 100% CPU, zero new
serial output for 60+ seconds) was chased down with temporary bracketing `console_println`/
`log_message` probes at every step of the attach path (`capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()` →
`capsule_mint_identity()` → `blk_subsys_attach_device()` → `blk_format_or_load_disk()`),
reverted immediately after capture per standing convention
(`feedback_revert_probes_after_capture.md`). Two real findings, neither a code defect:

1. **`log_message(LOG_INFO, ...)` calls are silently swallowed once the REPL starts.**
   `kernel_main.c`'s own `log_set_level(repl_level)` defaults to `LOG_WARN` when no explicit
   `--log-*` kernel arg is given, and `LOG_INFO > LOG_WARN` fails the level check in
   `log_message()` — so every `LOG_INFO`-level probe placed in `block_subsystem.c` (a vendored,
   non-kernel-only file, so `console.h` isn't available there) printed nothing, giving a false
   "never reached" reading for code that was actually running fine. Confirmed by temporarily
   promoting the same probes to `LOG_ERROR` (unfiltered) — the exact same call sites all fired
   immediately, in order, no code changes needed. A real investigative trap, not a bug: don't
   trust `LOG_INFO`-level silence as "not reached" once the REPL is up.
2. **The actual root cause: `capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach()` found `have_marker=1`** (a
   `zuse_genesis_marker_t` already on Artemis's top-of-device fence, left over from before
   §F.25's mid-session reformat) **but the freshly-reformatted `disk/zuse.img` read back
   `HOMEBLOCKS_SIG_BLANK`** — a mismatched pair. Per the function's own documented design
   (§F.21: "Only act if THIS attach is that drive"), it correctly, silently declined rather
   than guessing, and returned immediately. With no re-mint and no re-authentication ever
   happening, the boot settled into the REPL's ordinary busy-poll idle loop (no `HLT`, polls
   `console_getc()` every iteration) with nothing left to log — indistinguishable from a true
   hang by CPU usage or serial silence alone, especially under slow TCG with no periodic
   heartbeat print. Traced end-to-end by bracketing probes through `blk_subsys_attach_device()`
   confirming the *entire* attach path, including its own final (also `LOG_INFO`, also
   filtered) summary `log_message()` call, completes and returns cleanly every time — the
   system was never stuck in kernel code at all, just correctly idling at an unauthenticated
   `ok>`.

**Fix:** zeroed both `disk/artemis.img` (30 MiB) and `disk/zuse.img` (64 MiB) at their existing
sizes (`dd if=/dev/zero` + `truncate` to the exact original byte count) — a genuine reformat,
explicitly confirmed with the user first (same destructive-action category as §F.24's), giving
a matched blank pair with no stale marker and no stale volume header. Not a code change.

**Verified, full three-architecture acceptance, one clean run each:**
- amd64: fresh genesis-mint — `"Zuse: genesis minted onto attached thumbdrive"`
- aarch64: reload path — `"Zuse: identity confirmed from attached thumbdrive"` (shares the
  same now-minted disk images written by the amd64 run — correct, expected cross-arch behavior,
  not a separate mint per architecture)
- riscv64: reload path — `"Zuse: identity confirmed from attached thumbdrive"`, same as aarch64

**Design question raised and answered, no code change needed:** why not trigger a cold reboot
right after `MINT` instead of activating live in the same boot? Two decisive reasons: every
`qemu` target in `Makefile.starkernel` passes `-no-reboot` unconditionally, so a triggered
reboot would terminate QEMU rather than cycle the kernel; and a real reboot re-runs the entire
Tripod fleet birth sequence from scratch, a real cost under TCG. More fundamentally, there is
no duplicate logic to reconcile: both the fresh-genesis branch and the reload branch already
call the exact same `install_and_activate()` (`capsule_zuse_boot.c:98` and `:113`) — they only
differ in *where* the seed/pubkey come from (freshly generated vs. read back off disk), which
is an inherent, appropriate difference, not drift risk. The live-activation path is also not
optional overhead: it's the same mechanism a live (non-cold-boot) thumbdrive attach needs, so
reboot-then-reload would still need it built, just as an additional path rather than the only
one.

**Confirmed going forward:** genesis-mint is a one-time event tied to the persistent disk image
files, not the kernel binary — `make clean`/`make -f Makefile.starkernel` never touches
`disk/*.img` (grepped, confirmed: every `ARTDISK`/`ZUSEDISK` reference in the Makefile is a
`-drive` attach flag, nothing writes to or resets either file). Rebuilding the kernel any
number of times against the same, now-matched disk-image pair will keep taking the fast reload
branch, not re-mint, exactly as seen on aarch64/riscv64 above.

Where this leaves the original F.25 directive: fully closed. `make qemu` (any arch, default
invocation) now reliably attaches both disks, lands in an authenticated Zuse session, and
reruns cleanly. Commit follows.

### F.27 — first real second identity minted: a genuine `MSG-TICK` gap found and fixed (2026-08-28)

With Zuse's own genesis flow closed, minted the **first real second identity** end to end —
a fresh `disk/captain-bob.img`, hot-attached via QMP (`blockdev-add` + `device_add
usb-storage,bus=xhci0.0`, same precedent as §W's own hotplug testing) alongside Zuse's already-
authenticated session, `MINT`ed with a real human profile ("Captain Bob"/`bob`), detach/
reattach to refresh the sig cache (the known §F.19 gap, worked around the same way), recognized,
`WIREBIND`-attached (`"WIREBIND: bob attached and ready -- USE it to begin"`), and switched into
live with `USE` — full first-token verification (`WELCOME` printed `"Minted identity -- default
personality"` from inside the `bob` session itself).

**A real, previously-undiscovered bug found live, not assumed away:** the instant `WIREBIND`
made the freshly-born `bob~user` VM live, Hera's own per-idle-tick `MSG-TICK` distributed-
messaging pump (repl.c's Phase C loop, "distributed messaging capsule + idle-loop pump")
began erroring on it every tick, forever —
`UNKNOWN WORD: 'MSG-TICK'` / `VM-EXEC: ERROR in bob~user`. Root cause: `MINT`'s default
personality content (`capsule_mint.c`'s `MINT_DEFAULT_PERSONALITY`) only ever defined `WELCOME`
— unlike `capsule_console.c`'s own `CONSOLE_IDENTITY_SRC`, it never loaded
`common:messaging.4th`, so the RUNCAP-born identity VM had no `MSG-TICK` word for the pump to
find. Not specific to this one identity — every identity minted before this fix would hit the
same infinite error-spam the moment it went live.

**Fix:** `MINT_DEFAULT_PERSONALITY` now loads `common:messaging.4th` and calls `MSG-CD-INIT`
first, exactly mirroring `capsule_console.c`'s own pattern, before defining/calling `WELCOME`.
Verified live: re-minted the same drive after the fix (bleached first) — `WIREBIND` succeeded,
zero `MSG-TICK`/`UNKNOWN WORD` errors over 18+ seconds of idle-loop cycling (several multiples
of the pump's own cadence), `USE bob` and `WELCOME` both still work correctly. Full
three-architecture regression clean (amd64 fresh Zuse reload + the fix compiled in; aarch64/
riscv64 clean Zuse reload, unaffected — the fix only touches content written at `MINT` time, no
change to the boot path itself).

---

## G. v2.0.0 / v2.5.0 RELEASE plan — recommendation and punch lists (2026-08-28)

**Context.** This is the continuation section of record for the release decision. Opening it
as its own lettered section (§G) so it stands apart from the carried-forward item review
(§A), the design-scope sections (§B–§E), and the built-and-verified backlog (§F). Everything
before this section describes work already committed to `origin/master` (`5689c39` and
earlier). This section records the **versioning split** (v2.0.0 = QEMU, v2.5.0 = real
hardware), the **release-gate recommendation**, and the **punch lists to completion** for
each.

**The versioning split, decided 2026-08-28 — now standing policy, see
`docs/lithosananke/ROADMAP.md` "Release Versioning Policy" for the authoritative form.**
v2.0.0 is the **QEMU release** — the point
where the QEMU-only story is complete and defensible on its own terms. v2.5.0 is the
**real-hardware release** — the point where the same story transfers to bare metal on a real
board. This is one instance of a general policy: **`X.0.0` = QEMU release, `X.5.0` =
hardware bare-metal release, even major numbers are LTS.** The rationale for the split is
practical, not arbitrary: v2.0.0
is the natural, honest cut for what exists *today and is fully verifiable today* (three-arch
QEMU), and v2.5.0 bundles the real-hardware-only work (per-arch RNG drivers, real-board boot
validation) that cannot be green-lit or verified until the boards physically exist (the
author expects to have money for the SBCs — RasPi 6, Milk-V — within about a month of the
v2.0.0 cut). Nothing
is deferred that QEMU alone could already prove out; only what genuinely needs real silicon.

Everything about the state being shipped by v2.0.0 is unchanged by this versioning: the
current tree is a complete, deterministic, three-architecture OS that boots UEFI under QEMU
(M0–M9 core milestones complete, M7.1 Capsules live, M9 Block I/O live, terminal/REPL I/O
wired, real virtio-blk persistence proven, a working first-boot Zuse mint via the block
fence).

---

### v2.0.0 (QEMU) — release gates

The v2.0.0 punch list is the set of items that must be green on QEMU (all three of
amd64/aarch64/riscv64) before the QEMU story is complete. Each item states its own exit
criterion so closure is unambiguous and independently verifiable, per this project's
standing discipline.

#### G.1 [v2.0.0] Stall/short-packet recovery for xHCI (scoped §F.14 — **BUILT 2026-08-29**)

Implemented per §F.14 exactly as designed: new `STALL_ERROR` completion code handling, xHCI
Reset Endpoint + Set TR Dequeue Pointer commands, `CLEAR_FEATURE(ENDPOINT_HALT)`, escalating
to a full Bulk-Only Mass Storage Reset, and a recovery counter (`XHCI_BOT_STALL_MAX_RECOVERIES
= 2`) mirroring `bot_tur_retries`.

The code is a purely additive recovery path gated off the *non-success* transfer-event branch
(`xhci.c` transfer-event gate + `xhci_handle_bulk_stall()`, the two new command-completion
states `XHCI_CONN_AWAIT_RESET_ENDPOINT`/`AWAIT_SET_TR_DEQUEUE`, the two new transfer purposes
`XHCI_XFER_CLEAR_HALT`/`XHCI_XFER_BOT_RESET`, and the two new deferred `next_action` values
`XHCI_NEXT_ACTION_CLEAR_HALT`/`XHCI_NEXT_ACTION_BOT_RESET`). The normal (non-stall) path is
byte-for-byte unchanged — the only touched shared line was the single `"control transfer
failed"` gate, now with an else-branch for the recoverable-STALL case.

- **Built clean on all three archs** — `make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH={amd64,aarch64,riscv64} all`.
- **QEMU amd64 boot regression:** clean enumeration + BOT attach (READ CAPACITY10 → READ10 →
  home-blocks) completing with **zero stalls and zero failures**; normal-path xHCI trace
  identical to the pre-change baseline. Repeated across fresh boots (all attach=SUCCESS).
- **Exit criterion — partial, honest:** the recovery path itself is not exercised live because
  QEMU's `qemu-xhci` model does not produce a `STALL_ERROR` for the injected bad transfers this
  driver can stage (no real hardware stall behavior). The design (§F.14) is reviewed and the
  code paths are structured and reviewed; **live `STALL_ERROR` → recover → retry verification
  is deferred to hardware (v2.5.0/Artemis bare-metal)**, where a real bad transfer can be
  staged. This is the last QEMU-verifiable storage-integrity gap and the recovery logic is in
  place; the one thing QEMU cannot prove is the live stall injection itself.
- **Note (pre-existing, NOT G.1):** during verification an intermittent boot-time attach race
  was observed (the `sk_repl_idle()` `bot_msc_attach_pending` handoff occasionally does not
  progress on a cold QEMU boot, independent of source, with baseline `HEAD` exhibiting it too).
  Unrelated to G.1; tracked for a separate follow-up.

#### G.2 [v2.0.0] Real-hardware RNG driver plumbing, QEMU-verifiable slice (rest of it lands at v2.5.0)

The full real per-arch RNG driver (`rng_get_bytes()` backing off virtio-rng to RDRAND /
Zkr / peripheral-RNG) is a v2.5.0 item because it cannot be verified on hardware that does
not exist yet. What *is* a v2.0.0 gate is the *shape* of the driver — the unified
`rng_get_bytes()` entry point, the probe-and-refuse-loudly contract (never silently
degrading to a deterministic seed — the exact failure Phase A existed to avoid), and the
QEMU path staying on virtio-rng unchanged — all taken up **before** v2.0.0 so the 
single entropy entry point is stable and the v2.5.0 work is purely per-arch backends, not a
redesign of the call path.

- **Exit criterion (v2.0.0 slice):** `rng_get_bytes()` exists as the single entropy entry
  point, virtio-rng is its sole active backend on all three QEMU arches, the code refuses
  loudly (boot-time message, safe fallback to this-boot-only cert) if no backend is present,
  and the pre-existing Zuse mint/cert behavior is unchanged on all three arches. The
  per-arch backends themselves are parked, explicitly, for v2.5.0.
- **Exit criterion (v2.5.0 completion, for reference):** on each real board `rng_get_bytes()`
  returns genuinely non-deterministic bytes (two boots differ) and the Zuse mint path seeded
  from it produces a valid distinct cert per boot when bleached.

#### G.3 [v2.0.0] NVRAM persistence decision — **DECIDED 2026-08-28: permanently de-scoped**

The NVRAM `SetVariable` crash is root-caused (this kernel's VMM never maps the flash-window
region OVMF's variable service needs; also the exposed-seed design defect) and, since the
Zuse cert now lives on the block fence on Artemis, functionally superseded. **DECIDED
(Captain Bob, 2026-08-28): de-scope NVRAM-backed identity permanently.** The block fence on
Artemis is the substrate of record for Zuse's cert. The alternative — scoping the real VMM
memory-map work to make OVMF's flash window writable — is not being scheduled: it is large,
unscoped VMM work with no live consumer now that the fence carries the cert, and the NVRAM
approach carried a real exposed-seed security defect regardless of the crash.

- **Exit criterion (MET):** a dated decision recorded in this section (de-scope), and the
  ROADMAP/backlog updated to match. Decision required, not necessarily work — **closed,
  no work required beyond this record.**

---

### v2.5.0 (real hardware) — release gates

These are the real-hardware-only items. None can be verified until the boards exist (RasPi 6,
Milk-V; SER5 either in hand or not — see G.5). They are the entire v2.5.0 gate and are listed
together so the v2.5.0 scope is explicit and closed.

#### G.4 [v2.5.0] Per-arch RNG backends behind `rng_get_bytes()` (the G.2 body)

The real RNG driver backends, completed behind the v2.0.0-formed entry point. The existing
VM-UUID finding already maps the primitives: amd64/SER5 RDRAND, riscv64/Milk-V Zkr (RNDR),
aarch64/RasPi peripheral RNG. On QEMU all three arches stay on virtio-rng; nothing changes
there.

- **Exit criterion:** on each real board (`rng_get_bytes()` falling back through the real
  primitive) returns genuinely non-deterministic bytes (two boots differ), the Zuse mint
  path seeded from it produces a valid distinct cert per boot when bleached, and QEMU
  behavior is unchanged.

#### G.5 [v2.5.0] Real-machine boot validation (SER5 / RasPi 6 / Milk-V)

Flash `starkernel.iso` to real media and boot each real board in hand, confirming the same
acceptance story QEMU keeps green: POST `1012/0/0` + `ok>`, block-fence Zuse load true to the
already-minted Artemis image, and the G.4 RNG backend working live. The board pool is
SER5 (if still in hand), RasPi 6 (aarch64), Milk-V (riscv64) — the goal is at least one
board per architecture, but each board that boots is a separate, recorded data point.
This is the genuine transfer proof that the zero-degradation QEMU claim holds on real
silicon — the thing v2.0.0 cannot honestly claim.

- **Exit criterion:** each board in hand cold-boots to `ok>` with Arena conservation
  (43691/21845/65536), Zuse cert loads from the fence (or mints fresh on bleached media),
  and its G.4 RNG backend returns non-deterministic bytes live. v2.5.0 does not close on any
  board's G.4/G.x item being build-only.

---

### Post-release tracking (not gating either milestone)

Beyond the v2.0.0/v2.5.0 gates, the carried-forward open items (§A) and open design questions
(§D) remain genuinely open. Not release-gating; tracked here so nothing silently ages and so
the punch lists above explicitly delimit what is excluded from each milestone:

- Block-map on-drive format field edit (scoped §F.4) and associated §F.6/§F.11 allocation.
- CA-signed-cert verification path + DER signature extraction (scoped §F.7) and
  `CERTVERIFY`/`BINDSTEP` consumers (§F.8/§F.9).
- Migration state machine design (§A item, §B Stadium unification reframe).
- Console umbrella closure (§A 4.3) and `(user)` prompt segment (§A 4.4s) once 4.3's blocker
  clears.
- `DETACH`/unclean-removal wiring into `sk_repl_idle()` (scoped §F.10).
- Dirty-event granularity (1.11, blocked on 4.3) and the §17.4 framebuffer heat/decay design.
- Re-run the DoE on the new substrate (§A 5.1).
- First-touch allocation first-call-free.