Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
1839a2b0c3
Root cause of the remaining "identity attach doesn't complete when Zuse never attaches this boot" issue: capsule_wirebind_verify_cert() gated on mama_vm->zuse_cert_installed, which is only ever set when Zuse's own drive attaches and authenticates this specific boot (capsule_zuse_boot_try_attach() -> install_and_activate() -> vm_zuse_cert_install()). Without her, any other identity's WIREBIND cert verification silently refused -- correctly, by the old design, but that design conflated two genuinely different things: "can mint new identities" (needs Zuse's live private seed, a real privileged operation) and "can verify an existing identity's cert" (needs nothing but her already-public key). That public key was already being persisted independently of her live session: zuse_genesis_marker_t (zuse_genesis_marker.h) stores it in the kernel's own top-of-device metadata fence (Artemis's resident storage), written once at genesis, specifically *not* alongside her private seed (which stays only on her own removable thumbdrive) -- the type's own doc comment says as much. It just wasn't being loaded for anything but confirming which drive is genuinely hers. Fix: a new capsule_zuse_boot_load_root_pubkey() (capsule_zuse_boot.c) reads that marker and populates two new VM fields, zuse_root_pubkey_known / zuse_root_pubkey (vm.h) -- deliberately separate from zuse_cert_installed/zuse_cert_seed/zuse_cert_pubkey, which stay untouched and still gate MINT exactly as before. Called once from kernel_main.c as soon as Artemis's own storage attaches, unconditionally, independent of whether Zuse's own drive is ever attached this boot. capsule_wirebind_verify_cert()/capsule_wirebind_try_attach() now check zuse_root_pubkey_known instead of zuse_cert_installed. One identity's attach must not depend on another identity's live presence -- each identity stands on its own once the fleet's root of trust has been established once, ever. Verified live, amd64: identity 00 (disk/thumbdrives/00-thumb-ident.img) now attaches and completes WIREBIND in 19 seconds with Zuse's own drive never attached this boot at all (previously: unbounded, many real minutes or effectively never, before today's other fixes; still slow/ stuck after those, stuck specifically on this silent refusal). Zuse's own attach flow re-verified unaffected (regression check, amd64). Three-arch clean qemu acceptance (amd64/aarch64/riscv64) passed with this change included. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014Ec88YKxxhZGG1RNnune78
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