Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
ad9b9d0c7b
Re-scoped on request. capsules/hermes/init.4th's MSG-ALLOC already
admits every message onto Stadium with SB-DELIVER, and MSG-FREE-NODE
(called from both MSG-ACK-LAST and heat-driven MSG-REAP) already
evicts it -- "behaviour=DELIVER (stub)" has been printing on boot logs
since at least 2026-08-05. The earlier "zero consumer, needs
substantial Hermes lifecycle mapping work" framing was wrong,
carried over unverified from FABRIC.md's old "open, not resolved" note
about which Hermes event maps to DELIVER vs. EXPIRE -- item 4.2
already answered that in code without the prose catching up. Same
documentation-drift class as the stale ONTOLOGY.md words note and the
earlier glibc misattribution.
Checked whether the dispatch body needed a real payload action the way
MIGRATE did: MSG-DELIVER (the FORTH word) already runs the actual
delivery (VM-EXEC of the payload) before eviction, decoupled from
Stadium reap -- so by dispatch time delivery is already done, same
shape as COOL, which needs no extra action beyond stadium_evict()'s
own universal reservoir credit.
Fix: stadium_dispatch()'s DELIVER case now prints the departing
message's real identity (DELIVER msg_idx=N, same shape as MIGRATE's
lbn= print) instead of a misleading (stub) label. COOL is in the
identical situation (real for both words and VMs) but left as-is --
out of scope for this pass, noted in stadium.c's own comment.
Also confirmed EXPIRE (ACL) is genuinely unscoped, not stale docs like
DELIVER turned out to be -- zero Stadium involvement anywhere in
ACL.4th/acl_recheck()/the ACL design doc. Stays open pending real
design decisions.
Verified live via a forced MSG-SEND/MSG-DELIVER-ALL/MSG-ACK-LAST
sequence from Hermes's own REPL context ("USE" now works after the
previous fix): "Stadium: dispatch cell=73653 behaviour=DELIVER
msg_idx=1". Clean zero-warning compile and clean boot with
conservation intact on all three architectures.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CXjAPTEKrgY2Mrk25KoLDn
LithosAnanke v1.5.4
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