Ruled 2026-10-08. The engine, the nucleus and their tests are as they
were at dfabfa46, before step 6d; the code of the wait and its tests are
in history at 075385ab..2cf37aab. The limit of MESH.md 7b.7 stands: a
node that is stuck can hold up its neighbours until Hera kills it.
MESH.md 7c is kept as the record of the design as approved, and 7c.6 says
what was built, what the two reviews found, the cause the findings share
-- a node's message machinery runs on the stacks its text is using, and a
fault abandons whatever was in progress -- and what a second attempt
must settle before anything is built.
Kept from it, in hosted-check: a line that leaves 29 values on the stack,
and WORDS with 26 values on it. Both hung the products at some commit of
the wait.
make -C v4 test and sanitize at both widths, hosted-check, lint; three
bare-metal boots typing both. POST 538 of 538, word_count=317,
dict_hash=0xc0769523a47b7dc3 on all six: the hash of step 6c's code.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ruled 2026-10-08: A, B, C, D and the guard for a half message. Each with
a scene in test_host_mesh.c that failed first.
A. The words of a message after its first are written from the passes
over the messages waiting by (!W): an offer and a wait for that offer
only (a new engine address). A reader removed in mid-message makes no
error; the rest is let go and counted. Before, the error left the
messages waiting in pieces and the node going round for ever.
B. A store to the wait withdraws every offer; (GATE1) and (PAY-SET) do it
first. Before, text begun after a node went round without sleeping
could go to the port of an older offer: text for one node was done by
another.
C. What a finished text printed is put with the messages waiting, as how
it ended is. With no room either is let go and counted; neither is
begun as a message from (FINISH) any more, where a stuck node on the
way held the whole node.
D. Only what a sender is owed from an earlier text -- its output, how it
ended -- holds that sender's next text back; a GONE does not; and what
cannot be noted holds nothing. A node's own messages keep the order
they were made in.
- A message half taken in when its writer is removed is let go
((MQ-MEND)), not kept as if whole.
- Smaller: a refused line no longer ends a waiting text 'Interrupted';
a node's own queued messages may be passed on by 16 nodes, not 15; no
value is left on the stack when a port goes in mid-refusal.
make -C v4 test and sanitize at both widths, hosted-check.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The engine's console release (v4_fabric_interrupt_error), a device's
pending, and the count of words since a look are removed: nothing uses
them. MESH.md 4.1, 7b and 7c say what was built, where it differs from
what was approved and why, and what is still a limit; step 6d is marked
built, with the defects found on the way.
make -C v4 test and sanitize at both widths, hosted-check, lint; three
bare-metal boots. POST 538 of 538, word_count=317,
dict_hash=0x6a39c0bb9d183418 on all six.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Found in the five-node test, each with a check that failed first:
- A node with answers it could not give to two stuck senders began no
text at all. It now holds back only text from a sender whose own
answer is still with it.
- KILL waited to tell a stuck node, and a typed line that broke it left
the nodes after it untold. GONE is put with the messages waiting, as
how text ended is, and goes when it can.
- So that 'tell, then wait' still works, AWAIT does what (IDLE) does but
for beginning text: it looks through the messages waiting, offers what
is to be passed on and what is owed, and sleeps in the wait. A waiting
node no longer keeps back what passes through it.
- A node in the wait with an offer on a port that turns out to have
nothing on it is woken and told so (which port: 2 * V4_PORTS + k); no
error is raised on it. (GATE) makes it error 18; (IDLE) and AWAIT let
the message go. Before, removing a node raised 'No one on that port'
on the unrelated text of a neighbour that had something queued for it.
make -C v4 test and sanitize at both widths, hosted-check.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Found after the last commit: a message being passed on toward a node that
was stuck held the node passing it on in the wait, taking in what came
but serving none of it; text typed for a stuck node left Hera deaf. And
a node that had done text for a sender that then stuck waited on it to
give its answer.
A node with nothing to do now deals first with what is for itself; then
offers at once the first message for each port and each refusal owed,
and sleeps in the wait. What is taken is written and done with; the
rest stays with the messages waiting, in order. How text ended is put
with the messages waiting, not written from (FINISH). The stack is kept
as shallow between lines as it was.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
(GATE) offers a message's first word and sleeps until it is taken, taking
in whatever is written to the node meanwhile; (PAY) offers every refusal
owed at once, one to a port; a node that owes one sleeps in the wait.
Writing without looking, looking again and again, and the lower-number
rule are gone. Text from the console for a node whose own text waits to
begin a message ends that text Interrupted. The lone node's hosts serve
an offer as a write. MESH.md 7c; plan step 6d task 2.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The review of step 6c found it did not keep its rule. Ruled: fix them
all; 16 hops.
- Paying a NACK no longer waits on a lower-numbered neighbour; a node
that owes one does not sleep, and goes on taking in what it is sent.
- AWAIT looks first through the messages already waiting.
- A node waiting to write to a removed neighbour gets error 18: the
word that says who is reading also says which ports have anything on
them.
- A console line lets Hera go when she is blocked on the first word of
a message (v4_fabric_interrupt_error, a device's `pending`).
- A refused answer is told to the node that waits, not the one that
answered; one owed to the node itself goes to its own queue.
- A message is passed on by at most 16 nodes, then refused.
- A GONE is believed only when it says it is from the node's centre.
- Tests: the check that tested nothing is replaced; no room for a
waiting sender; the limit that remains is tested as a limit.
- MESH.md 7b's rule reworded to what holds, 7b.7 says where it falls
short; README likewise.
make -C v4 test, sanitize, hosted-check; three bare-metal boots. POST
538 of 538, word_count=317, dict_hash=0xc0769523a47b7dc3 on all six.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Text for a node from its console, arriving while the node waits for an
answer (AWAIT), is kept as any message is; the wait ends in error 21,
Interrupted; and the text is then done as usual. Console text for
another node, passing through a node that is waiting, does not end its
wait.
On the hosted program 5 AWAIT ended the program with "the node stopped".
The boot now reports that the line is waiting, the host reads the next
line and hands it over, which breaks the wait, and then has the kept line
done. The bare-metal host does the same; it is booted in the commit that
follows.
test_host_mesh.c: 76 checks, both widths and the sanitizers. hosted-check
types 5 AWAIT and two more lines: Interrupted, then 3 and 56.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A node that has no room for a message, or no way to pass it on, lets it
go and counts it as before, and now notes that it owes its sender a NACK
(type 4: the node the message was for). It sends what it owes when it
next has nothing else to do. 36 cells of the messages waiting are kept
for NACK and GONE, and nothing is owed for either.
A node sent a NACK counts it in (REFUSED); one waiting for an answer from
that node (AWAIT) stops, with error 19, Message refused. A GONE (type 5)
from a node's centre makes it forget the way to the node named (NO-ROUTE,
new), and ends a wait on it with error 20, Node gone. From anyone else
it is ignored. GONE ( n node -- ) sends one.
test_host_mesh.c, three nodes: text for a node nobody has a way to comes
back to the console, and to a node two away, as a NACK; a waiting sender's
line ends Message refused; a node that is waiting keeps what it has room
for, owes eight refusals, counts the rest, and sends them when its wait is
ended by a GONE from its centre. 70 checks, both widths, sanitizers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
MESH.md step 4, the fault found there, as ruled (section 7a): a node
writes only to a neighbour that is reading, keeps what it takes in
meanwhile, and loses and counts what it has no room for.
Engine: two more addresses after a node's ports -- which ports have a
neighbour waiting to write to it, which to read from it. Nucleus: (GATE)
before every message; the messages waiting, a ring of 400 cells, dealt
with when the node is idle. Of two neighbours the lower number may wait
to write (ruled after it was built); NEIGHBOUR tells a node who is on
each port.
test_host_mesh.c, 44 checks: the case that stopped the nodes passes; six
messages from each node to each at once all arrive; 800 at once, the
nodes come to rest and every message arrived or was counted (287 arrived,
714 of all kinds let go). test_fabric.c: the two looks. Both widths,
ASan+UBSan.
POST: twelve cases handed HERE, a cell address on v4, to words that take
a byte address, and so wrote into or read from the nucleus's code at cell
HERE/4. Ruled: left out, marked OPEN, until HERE and the byte words are
made to agree as its own step. POST is 538 cases.
hosted-check on three ISAs, 538/538. Bare metal: logs/20261006-134817
(amd64), -135044 (aarch64), -135440 (riscv64).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
MESH.md step 4. Each node has a table of destinations and the port toward
each, and a port for everything else (ROUTE, DEFAULT-ROUTE, NO-ROUTES). A
message not for this node is passed on whole; one with nowhere to go is
dropped and counted. What text prints and how it ended go back to the node
it came from by the same table. SEND sends text to another node.
test_host_mesh.c: three StarForth nodes in a row behind a console, 28
checks at both widths and under ASan+UBSan. hosted-check on three ISAs.
Bare metal: logs/20261006-115225 (amd64), -115501 (aarch64), -115849
(riscv64).
NOT DONE. Two neighbours that write to each other at once wait for ever:
a write blocks until the neighbour reads, and a node that is writing is
not reading. The last check in test_host_mesh.c shows it (KNOWN FAULT).
MESH.md section 7a sets out the ways out; none is chosen.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
