Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
cc6c8c43f3
ABORT is documented and tested in this codebase as standard FORTH-79 behavior -- system_words_test.c:63: "Should clear stacks and return to QUIT" -- meaning it should unwind all the way back to the outermost interpreter loop, abandoning whatever's left of the current line/block. The implementation only unwound one level: every place that checked vm->abort_requested cleared it the instant it saw it, so it never survived to propagate past the first nested frame. This surfaced via Artemis's ART-HALT-UNRECOG (capsules/artemis/init.4th): on an unrecognized disk it correctly printed "ARTEMIS HALT: unrecognized disk content" and called ABORT, but WELCOME (the next line in the same block) ran anyway, and Artemis announced ready to Hermes and joined the fleet normally -- contradicting .claude/ARTEMIS.md's "Refuse to mount... do not overwrite it" requirement. Root cause is general, not Artemis-specific, and present identically in both the hosted and kernel VM cores. Fixed at every level execution can nest through, verified by exhaustively grepping every !vm->error-gated continuation loop and adding the parallel !vm->abort_requested check: - execute_colon_word (src/vm.c, src/starkernel/vm/vm_core.c): stop clearing the flag on return -- every colon-word call is a recursive call to this same function, so leaving it set lets every enclosing frame's own check also unwind. - vm_interpret (src/vm.c, src/starkernel/vm/vm_core.c): stop parsing further words in the current input string once the flag is set. - exec_block_with_retry (src/starkernel/capsule/capsule_loader.c): capsule birth's line-by-line block executor -- stop processing further lines in the current block, but return 0 (not -1), so capsule_exec_payload still loads later blocks in the same capsule payload. Returning -1 here would have silently broken word definitions in blocks that come after the aborting one for reasons unrelated to why it aborted (concretely, Artemis's ART-PING/LOAD-DOE in blocks 4851/4852, which follow the entry block 4133). - THRU and --> (src/word_source/block_words.c): stop processing further blocks/lines in their own loops. - DODOES (src/word_source/defining_words.c): the CREATE...DOES> runtime has its own hand-rolled execution loop, separate from execute_colon_word -- same bug class, same fix. Also guarded the post-loop "if (vm->rsp < base_rsp) vm->rsp = base_rsp" clamp so it doesn't fire on an abort exit -- ABORT's own reset_vm_state() already set rsp; restoring it to base_rsp would have partially undone that. - Both REPL loops (src/repl.c, src/starkernel/repl.c x2 call sites): clear the flag after each line, mirroring the existing vm->error pattern, so a mid-line abort doesn't silently freeze subsequent interactive input. Verified directly: ": AB-TEST 1 2 3 ABORT 999 . ; AB-TEST 42 . CR 777 . CR" -- 999 never prints (stops mid-colon-word), 42 never prints (stops the rest of the same line), 777 prints fine (next line unaffected). Artemis: WELCOME/"Artemis ready" no longer fires after the halt message. No regression: all three architectures still show PASS: persist-read, PASS: E2E msg flow, and matching dict_hash on the normal (non-aborted) boot path; hosted test suite 965 passed / 0 failed. Known follow-up, not fixed here (see memory for details): Artemis still announces ready to Hermes via a separate call path (CD-INIT, block 4141) that never went through capsule_exec_payload's block chain in the first place, and the disk file still picks up incidental writes even on a correctly-halted boot -- likely generic block-subsystem housekeeping, not traced yet. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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