Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
f223a31cec
Scoping Phase C (the MINT word) surfaced a real blocker: "mint one Zuse, ever" needs the cert to survive reboots, but the qemu target copied a fresh, pristine OVMF_VARS.fd on every invocation -- a UEFI-NVRAM-based cert would never persist under this project's own normal test workflow. Digging further, aarch64 had no persistent NVRAM store at all (single -bios arg, no split VARS pflash like amd64/riscv64). Fixed rather than switching storage substrates: amd64/riscv64 now only copy the VARS template if the destination doesn't already exist, so `clean` (which deletes the whole build tree) is the bleach step and a bare `make qemu` preserves NVRAM -- matching the existing "always clean before qemu" acceptance convention exactly. aarch64 restructured to split CODE(ro)/VARS(rw) pflash drives matching the other two, with a graceful fallback to the old -bios mode on hosts without split firmware. Also resolves two design questions before any cert code: Zuse doesn't need Milestone 6's CA (that's the capsule-signing chain, a separate trust domain -- Zuse is a self-sovereign instance-local root of trust), and flags that this session's own earlier vm_zuse_cert_install() storage (16 bytes) is too small for a real Ed25519 keypair. Verified: all three architectures boot clean to ok> with the new pflash arrangement, Stadium conservation intact, no panics or guest errors. Infrastructure-only -- no cert code yet. Documented in FABRIC-3.md. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01U14ET9CWAtbQMbYqomKgXd
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