Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
e2abc56306
Formal successor to §XII's ad hoc exerciser campaign, requested as a genuine randomized full-factorial design matching this project's own DoE methodology (capsules/doe.4th's Fisher-Yates shuffle), and written entirely in FORTH per explicit request -- not host-orchestrated shell scripting. experiments/std79-doe/std79-doe.fth: builds a 27-cell (9 identity x 3 replicate) run matrix, Fisher-Yates shuffles it with a fixed seed (matching doe.4th's own default), then dispatches each of the 24 exerciser test cases directly into the target identity's own live VM via VM-EXEC -- no console USE redirection, no per-trial host interaction. The zuse case runs as directly-compiled native code (RUN-TEST-NATIVE) rather than VM-EXEC targeting "Hera" herself: VM-EXEC's own vm_state_push/pop only saves rsp/exit_colon/ecw_nesting, not input_buffer/input_pos, so a self-targeting call while this capsule's own vm_interpret call is still mid-line would risk exactly the class of bug the idle-tick reentrancy guards exist for. amd64: all 27 trials ran with all 9 identities simultaneously live in one boot -- clean, zero mismatches. aarch64: hit a real, uninvestigated bug attaching all 9 simultaneously -- the 6th live VM's birth stalled for 90+ minutes at 100%+ CPU with a Stadium COOL-dispatch counter already at 335,000+ cycles, versus tens of thousands at the same checkpoint for earlier identities. Not root-caused here (flagged in FABRIC-3.md for later); worked around by splitting into 3 boots of 3 simultaneously-live identities each, every boot sharing the same seed so the master 27-slot shuffle is identical, filtered per boot by a new ACTIVE-LO/ACTIVE-HI range (EXEC-STD79-DOE's signature: seed lo hi -- ). run_id is always the slot's true position in the master shuffle, so trial order stays comparable across boots -- standard DoE blocking. riscv64: same 3-boot pattern, clean. Grand total: 81/81 trials correct, 0 mismatches, across all three architectures, all nine identities, all three replicates. Also flagged (FABRIC-3.md §XIV, not fixed): attaching several WIREBIND identities near-simultaneously (whether via rapid hotplug or all present from boot) causes the kernel to silently detect only some of them -- confirmed at the host/QMP level that every device was genuinely present. Worked around throughout this campaign by attaching one identity at a time with confirmed waits; real hardware hotplug could hit the same gap, so it's a genuine robustness concern, not just a test-harness inconvenience. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EXieurDfDSsDFdnSyusuWo
LithosAnanke v2.0.1
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs the StarForth VM as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Status — M7.1 (Capsule System · Multi-VM Fleet)
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console (v1.5.1-FINAL) | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol · Mama FORTH vocabulary · Tripod multi-VM fleet (Hermes/Artemis) · Word-level ACL (Phases 1–7) | 🔄 In Progress |
| M8 | REPL — keyboard input, interactive Forth | Planned |
| M9 | Block storage — AHCI driver | Planned |
POST at boot: parity hash verified across amd64/aarch64/riscv64 · Mama capsule dictionary: 453 words
What's live in M7.1
- Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet (Hera the Mama VM, Artemis, two Hermes instances) births, runs, and re-births independently, verified booting live pre-REPL on all three architectures.
- Hermes — a 17-block inter-VM messaging/channel layer between fleet members, with async delivery and channel negotiation.
- Artemis — a Block Allocation Map (BAM) storage subsystem with Q48.16
block-heat tracking and cooldown/reclamation (
ART-COOL/ART-REAP). - Word-level ACL — every dictionary entry carries a TTL/allow/mode/pin
access-control record. Strict, TTL, and pinned modes; two console layers
(emergency
ok>and superuserzuse)ok>). Phases 1–7 complete (C infrastructure, FORTH policy layer,zusebootstrap superuser, Isabelle proof stubs, kernel parity); Phase 8 (Ed25519 PKI / thumbdrive challenge-response) is the only item remaining. Measured overhead once active on every check: +0.0054%–+0.0088%, CV = 0.000%, across a 3×3 Latin-square DoE campaign (architecture × seed × 30 replicates) — three orders of magnitude below the measurement floor. - VM Fleet Attractor physics — the L8 Jacquard mode selector now has a real per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning, replacing hardcoded compudynamics constants with a dynamically-inferred rate.
- Kconfig build configuration — every physics/heartbeat/pipelining/ kernel-only tuning knob (~40 total) is now a discoverable, optional Kconfig symbol shared with the hosted VM build. See Quick Start below.
Quick Start
# Build kernel (requires cross-compilation toolchain, or native gcc)
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64
# Run in QEMU with OVMF
make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu
# Other architectures
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=aarch64 qemu
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=riscv64 qemu
Artifacts: build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
For the hosted VM by itself (Linux, no cross-compiler needed, no bare-metal tooling): see
the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside that repo,
now it's its own project with its own master.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob (STARFORTH_ENABLE_VM, PARITY_MODE, the shared
physics/heartbeat family, etc.) is an optional Kconfig symbol — a plain
make -f Makefile.starkernel uses the same defaults it always has unless
you opt in:
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
| System Architecture | Full kernel + VM design |
| HAL Reference | Hardware abstraction layer interfaces |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol design |
| VM Fleet Attractor design log | Tripod/Hermes/Artemis physics + build-system history |
| Getting Started / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both build targets |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
| Roadmap | Milestone plan through self-hosting |
License
Starship License 1.0 (SL-1.0) — free for personal, research, and educational use. Commercial use requires a separate agreement. Attribution to R.A. James (Captain Bob) must be preserved in all distributions.
Patent pending. USPTO provisional filed December 2025 — physics-grounded self-adaptive runtime system. This license does not grant patent rights. Licensing inquiries: rajames440@gmail.com
Robert A. James (Captain Bob) · Systems Engineer · Hacking since 1973