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
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