Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
70c259dad0
find and fix the real ACL-TTL measurement bug (zuse session never authenticated, ACL enforcement never active) Two mistakes corrected in sequence, both documented in full in FABRIC-2.md Section R: 1. HEARTBEAT-TICKS@ was swapped to read heartbeat_ticks() -- a newer, kernel-only ISR hardware-timer counter (src/starkernel/heartbeat.c, the M5 TIME-TRUST engine) -- based on a misreading of which counter "the one clock" law refers to. Reverted to vm->heartbeat.tick_count, Loop #7 "Adaptive Heartrate", the actual year-plus-old counter the whole physics runtime is built on. Removed the now-irrelevant HEARTBEAT-PERIOD-NS@ accessor added to diagnose the wrong counter's adaptive re-arm period. Three-arch QEMU re-acceptance: POST 1012/0/0 on amd64/aarch64/riscv64, HEARTBEAT-TICKS@ confirmed returning 77 (matching the original pre-heartbeat_ticks() acceptance) on all three. 2. The real bug, found after the revert: every "ACL enabled" measurement in this investigation (Section P's 18-cell campaign, Section Q's pilot) loaded ACL.4th and ran EXEC-DOE from the bare `ok>` prompt without ever authenticating a zuse session. repl.c:303 keeps emergency_console=1 until zuse_session=1; vm_core.c:755 skips the entire ACL check block (TTL decrement and acl_recheck()) whenever emergency_console is set. ACL was configured but never armed. capsules/zuse.4th's pre-existing self-pin bug means the documented automatic zuse activation doesn't work either (still flagged, not fixed) -- worked around by invoking the directly-registered ZUSE-AUTHENTICATE word explicitly. Validated pilot (amd64, seed 12345, 30 reps, same build, disabled vs. genuinely zuse-authenticated-enabled): +117 ticks, +0.0448% overhead. Disabled-arm determinism double-confirmed (261064 ticks, exact repeat on a fresh boot) -- the 117-tick difference is real signal, not noise. Reconciles with the original ACL-RWT campaign's own heartbeat-tick result (+0.0054%-0.0088%, same order of magnitude). Section P's wall-clock numbers and Section Q's "instrument blind" conclusion are both marked invalidated/corrected in place, not deleted. n=1 per arm, one architecture -- not yet a full campaign. Scoped as next step, not undertaken in this pass. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
LithosAnanke v1.5.4
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs the StarForth VM as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Status — M7.1 (Capsule System · Multi-VM Fleet)
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console (v1.5.1-FINAL) | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol · Mama FORTH vocabulary · Tripod multi-VM fleet (Hermes/Artemis) · Word-level ACL (Phases 1–7) | 🔄 In Progress |
| M8 | REPL — keyboard input, interactive Forth | Planned |
| M9 | Block storage — AHCI driver | Planned |
POST at boot: parity hash verified across amd64/aarch64/riscv64 · Mama capsule dictionary: 453 words
What's live in M7.1
- Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet (Hera the Mama VM, Artemis, two Hermes instances) births, runs, and re-births independently, verified booting live pre-REPL on all three architectures.
- Hermes — a 17-block inter-VM messaging/channel layer between fleet members, with async delivery and channel negotiation.
- Artemis — a Block Allocation Map (BAM) storage subsystem with Q48.16
block-heat tracking and cooldown/reclamation (
ART-COOL/ART-REAP). - Word-level ACL — every dictionary entry carries a TTL/allow/mode/pin
access-control record. Strict, TTL, and pinned modes; two console layers
(emergency
ok>and superuserzuse)ok>). Phases 1–7 complete (C infrastructure, FORTH policy layer,zusebootstrap superuser, Isabelle proof stubs, kernel parity); Phase 8 (Ed25519 PKI / thumbdrive challenge-response) is the only item remaining. Measured overhead once active on every check: +0.0054%–+0.0088%, CV = 0.000%, across a 3×3 Latin-square DoE campaign (architecture × seed × 30 replicates) — three orders of magnitude below the measurement floor. - VM Fleet Attractor physics — the L8 Jacquard mode selector now has a real per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning, replacing hardcoded compudynamics constants with a dynamically-inferred rate.
- Kconfig build configuration — every physics/heartbeat/pipelining/ kernel-only tuning knob (~40 total) is now a discoverable, optional Kconfig symbol shared with the hosted VM build. See Quick Start below.
Quick Start
# Build kernel (requires cross-compilation toolchain, or native gcc)
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64
# Run in QEMU with OVMF
make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu
# Other architectures
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=aarch64 qemu
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=riscv64 qemu
Artifacts: build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
For the hosted VM by itself (Linux, no cross-compiler needed, no bare-metal tooling): see
the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside that repo,
now it's its own project with its own master.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob (STARFORTH_ENABLE_VM, PARITY_MODE, the shared
physics/heartbeat family, etc.) is an optional Kconfig symbol — a plain
make -f Makefile.starkernel uses the same defaults it always has unless
you opt in:
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
| System Architecture | Full kernel + VM design |
| HAL Reference | Hardware abstraction layer interfaces |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol design |
| VM Fleet Attractor design log | Tripod/Hermes/Artemis physics + build-system history |
| Getting Started / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both build targets |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
| Roadmap | Milestone plan through self-hosting |
License
Starship License 1.0 (SL-1.0) — free for personal, research, and educational use. Commercial use requires a separate agreement. Attribution to R.A. James (Captain Bob) must be preserved in all distributions.
Patent pending. USPTO provisional filed December 2025 — physics-grounded self-adaptive runtime system. This license does not grant patent rights. Licensing inquiries: rajames440@gmail.com
Robert A. James (Captain Bob) · Systems Engineer · Hacking since 1973