LithosAnanake/docs/README.md

StarForth / LithosAnanke documentation — the map

Start here. This page says where each kind of document lives and which one to believe. Reorganised 2026-10-14 (the docs triage): one place for current reference, one archive for everything kept as record, and every superseded or abandoned document labelled as such in its own header.

• INDEX.md — every document in the repository, with its status.
• DEAD-AND-REVISED.md — the ideas that were abandoned, and the claims that were revised, each with the date and where the decision is recorded.
• DELETE-CANDIDATES.md — duplicates proposed for deletion, awaiting a ruling.

What to believe

For	Authoritative	Where
How to work in this repo, and current status	.claude/CLAUDE.md	repo root
What was decided, and why; work as it happened	the FABRIC record	fabric/ — FABRIC-3.md is the living one
StarForth v4 (the F18-derived engine)	the v4 design	v4.0.0/ and ../v4/README.md
Roadmap and release-versioning policy	ROADMAP.md	reference/
Getting onto the boards	the bring-up checklist	../boards/BRINGUP.md
A word, a primitive, a term	the dictionaries and the ontology	reference/
What the code does	the code, and its folder's README.md	../kernel/, ../v3/, ../v4/

Where two documents disagree, the one higher in this table wins, and code wins over all.

Layout

• fabric/ — the design and work record, numbered in order. FABRIC-3.md (bare-metal boot and everything since) is open; the others are closed:
  • FABRIC-0, -1 and -2 are history;
  • FABRIC-3.5 and -3.6 are the Tripod/kernel reshuffle, still authoritative for what they ruled;
  • FABRIC-3.7 (elevation) is closed as not needed;
  • FABRIC-4 holds ideas caught early, not yet scoped.
• v4.0.0/ — StarForth v4: justification, engine, decomposition, nucleus, mesh, parity with v3. plans/ holds the step plans, all executed.
• reference/ — current reference material:
  • ROADMAP.md (roadmap and the ratified versioning policy);
  • M7.1.md (init capsules and birth);
  • word-acl/ (the word-level ACL design);
  • kernel-args/ (the boot command line);
  • hosted-acceptance-test/;
  • DICTIONARY.md and STARFORTH_PRIMITIVES.md (the words);
  • ONTOLOGY.md (the lexicon);
  • L8_ADAPTIVE_CONFIG_TABLE.md.
• working/ — living material and the source for formal/:
  • architecture/ (design notes and HOWTOs);
  • experiments/ (DoE designs and campaign data);
  • papers/ (academic sources, the system narrative, proposals);
  • hardware/, specifications/ and scratch/;
  • archive/, which has four parts:
    • historical/: finished work, kept as record;
    • superseded/: replaced, and each file's header names what replaced it;
    • dead/: abandoned or never adopted;
    • the older legacy/, quality/, operations/, research/ and session-logs/.
• formal/ — the press-ready LaTeX tier (three volumes, books, standalone reports). Governed by formal/CLAUDE.md.
• book/ — the LithosAnanke and StarForth book build.
• pptx/ — slide decks for different audiences.
• patent/ — provisional patent material. Legal hold: ask Captain Bob before touching anything here (also formal/patent/, formal/scraps/legal/, working/legal/).
• lithosananke/hal/ — the last of the old lithosananke/ folder: duplicates of the dead HAL contract, listed in DELETE-CANDIDATES.md.

Adding a document

• Draft in working/; promote to formal/ when it is ready to be cited (formal/CLAUDE.md). Reference material that describes the system as it is goes in reference/.
• When a document is overtaken, do not delete it: git mv it into working/archive/superseded/ or dead/ with a header saying why and what replaces it, and add a line to DEAD-AND-REVISED.md.
• Rules for documentation work: CLAUDE.md.