Follow-up probing narrowed Finding 3's behavior (inconsistent stall point run-to-run: sometimes reaches iters=1000/delta=951 before stopping, sometimes never gets past iters=0 even after a 400-second bounded wait) but didn't pin the mechanism. Tested the strongest available hypothesis: single-threaded TCG scheduling starvation from an -O2-tightened spin loop, based on a real precedent -- calibrate_apic_timer() (apic.c) already calls arch_relax() every iteration of its own spin-wait; calibrate_tsc_with_pmtimer() never had it. Added the same call, matching that precedent exactly. Result: no change, same exact stall point on a fresh 60-second bounded wait. Reverted. Stopping here per this document's own §25.0 rule 5 -- root-causing further needs either deeper TCG/QEMU internals knowledge or a different diagnostic approach (host-side instrumentation) than another guess-and-check pass. Makefile.starkernel and timer.c both back to committed -O0 state, confirmed booting clean. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
capsules/
FORTH personality files loaded by the VM at boot. A capsule is an immutable, content-addressed payload; its XXHash64 hash is its identity. Any mutation changes the hash and the birth protocol rejects the image.
Key files
| File | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
init.4th |
(m) MAMA_INIT |
Default Mama VM personality — loaded at LBN 2048 |
ACL.4th |
user | Word-level ACL system; self-activating at boot |
zuse.4th |
user | Bootstrap superuser; loaded by ACL.4th |
doe.4th |
user | DoE workload words (EXEC-DOE) — opt-in |
init-0.4th … init-9.4th |
(p) |
Numbered personality variants |
init-l8-*.4th |
(p) |
L8 Jacquard mode variants (stable/volatile/diverse/temporal/transition/omni) |
hermes/init.4th |
(p) |
Hermes baby VM personality |
artemis/init.4th |
(p) |
Artemis baby VM personality |
Block namespace
Block ranges are shared across all loaded capsules — collisions cause silent word-definition overwrites.
| Range | Owner |
|---|---|
| 2048–2099 | init.4th |
| 2100–2199 | doe.4th |
| 3000–3999 | workload capsules |
| 4000+ | user-defined (ACL.4th, zuse.4th, …) |
Each block is limited to 1024 bytes. Verify with wc -c before committing.
See also
experiments/bare_metal/README.md— DoE protocols and block namespace rulesdocs/03-architecture/word-acl/DESIGN.md— ACL system designtools/mkcapsule.c— assembles capsules intocapsule_generated.c- Project root