Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
e33eb36361
Core mechanism for §XXXIII's main concurrency block, built and live-verified on amd64. Two new primitives: - WORKER-BIRTH ( capsule-c capsule-u name-c name-u -- ok? ): births a named, VM-EXEC-addressable VM from an arbitrary (p) capsule with no identity involved. Corrects the ratified design's own assumption that the main block would use UNATTENDED-BIRTH -- that requires a committed capsule per identity, impractical for dozens of trial VMs. The concurrency block never needed identity at all. - VM-ERROR? ( c-addr u -- flag ): reads a named VM's error state from Hera, mirroring VM-HEAT's silent/always-returns-a-value contract. Needed to check a VM-EXEC-driven trial VM's own fault state after the fact -- nothing existing let Hera do this. Real bug found and fixed in both WORKER-BIRTH and UNATTENDED-BIRTH: capsule_birth_baby() never calls vm_physics_init() either (same shape as the registry-name gap found building UNATTENDED-BIRTH) -- without it a born VM is never in the VM Fleet Attractor physics list, so VM-HEAT returns 0 forever regardless of work done. Fixed by adding vm_physics_init() alongside the existing registry-name call in both words. Traced (not guessed) why heat still read 0 after one VM-EXEC touch even post-fix: vm_physics_touch()'s transfer logic only fires from a VM's *second* touch onward -- the first touch just records a baseline tick. Verified live across three sequential touches: heat 0 -> 7039 -> 11333. This is a real design requirement for the DoE's heat/CV response variable (each trial must touch a worker at least twice), not a bug to route around. Also found live: all 10 existing workload-N.4th capsules self-execute their full workload at load/birth time (a bare top-level call to their own RUN-* word at file end) -- missed on an earlier, too-shallow 8-line survey of each file. WORKER-BIRTH alone already runs a worker's first pass as a side effect of birth. Verified live on amd64: two concurrent workers (fib + matrix-mul) birthed, run, measured (heat + error state), and killed cleanly; VM-HEAT/VM-ERROR? both confirmed silent-0 on an unknown name. Clean 3-arch qemu boot on the real committed change. Still open: the run-matrix/shuffle/CSV driver capsule itself, the WIREBIND-automation path for the fixed arm, and the per-VM touch-count budget's exact value. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BWpNjdwPtFLuVLaAq44L9K
LithosAnanke v2.0.1
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs the StarForth VM as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Status — M7.1 (Capsule System · Multi-VM Fleet)
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console (v1.5.1-FINAL) | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol · Mama FORTH vocabulary · Tripod multi-VM fleet (Hermes/Artemis) · Word-level ACL (Phases 1–7) | 🔄 In Progress |
| M8 | REPL — keyboard input, interactive Forth | Planned |
| M9 | Block storage — AHCI driver | Planned |
POST at boot: parity hash verified across amd64/aarch64/riscv64 · Mama capsule dictionary: 453 words
What's live in M7.1
- Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet (Hera the Mama VM, Artemis, two Hermes instances) births, runs, and re-births independently, verified booting live pre-REPL on all three architectures.
- Hermes — a 17-block inter-VM messaging/channel layer between fleet members, with async delivery and channel negotiation.
- Artemis — a Block Allocation Map (BAM) storage subsystem with Q48.16
block-heat tracking and cooldown/reclamation (
ART-COOL/ART-REAP). - Word-level ACL — every dictionary entry carries a TTL/allow/mode/pin
access-control record. Strict, TTL, and pinned modes; two console layers
(emergency
ok>and superuserzuse)ok>). Phases 1–7 complete (C infrastructure, FORTH policy layer,zusebootstrap superuser, Isabelle proof stubs, kernel parity); Phase 8 (Ed25519 PKI / thumbdrive challenge-response) is the only item remaining. Measured overhead once active on every check: +0.0054%–+0.0088%, CV = 0.000%, across a 3×3 Latin-square DoE campaign (architecture × seed × 30 replicates) — three orders of magnitude below the measurement floor. - VM Fleet Attractor physics — the L8 Jacquard mode selector now has a real per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning, replacing hardcoded compudynamics constants with a dynamically-inferred rate.
- Kconfig build configuration — every physics/heartbeat/pipelining/ kernel-only tuning knob (~40 total) is now a discoverable, optional Kconfig symbol shared with the hosted VM build. See Quick Start below.
Quick Start
# Build kernel (requires cross-compilation toolchain, or native gcc)
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64
# Run in QEMU with OVMF
make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu
# Other architectures
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=aarch64 qemu
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=riscv64 qemu
Artifacts: build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
For the hosted VM by itself (Linux, no cross-compiler needed, no bare-metal tooling): see
the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside that repo,
now it's its own project with its own master.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob (STARFORTH_ENABLE_VM, PARITY_MODE, the shared
physics/heartbeat family, etc.) is an optional Kconfig symbol — a plain
make -f Makefile.starkernel uses the same defaults it always has unless
you opt in:
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
| System Architecture | Full kernel + VM design |
| HAL Reference | Hardware abstraction layer interfaces |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol design |
| VM Fleet Attractor design log | Tripod/Hermes/Artemis physics + build-system history |
| Getting Started / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both build targets |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
| Roadmap | Milestone plan through self-hosting |
License
Starship License 1.0 (SL-1.0) — free for personal, research, and educational use. Commercial use requires a separate agreement. Attribution to R.A. James (Captain Bob) must be preserved in all distributions.
Patent pending. USPTO provisional filed December 2025 — physics-grounded self-adaptive runtime system. This license does not grant patent rights. Licensing inquiries: rajames440@gmail.com
Robert A. James (Captain Bob) · Systems Engineer · Hacking since 1973