rajamesandClaude Opus 5.5
8d9c91b2bc
The identity gate on the v4 boot (plan 2026-10-26-engine-step4-identity-gate,
task G2; ENGINE.md 2, ruled 2026-10-20). As v3, by the kernel with no v3 VM:
after POST and the block chain, Zuse's public key from the genesis marker,
every xHCI controller brought up, the heartbeat started; then headless until
her drive is attached and checked (capsule_zuse_boot_check, G1). A drive that
arrives is given to the block subsystem by the kernel (Artemis is the
kernel's); her session is kept in the kernel for Hera, never in a node's
memory. The prompt is v3's, [zuse@Hera] ok>; pulling her drive ends the
session and the system goes headless; putting it back brings the prompt.
A blank pair stays headless: genesis writes Artemis's disk, Phase 5 (D2).
kernel/Makefile: ARTDISK and ZUSEDISK default to the minted pair,
disk/zuse-scratch/ (D4); .claude/CLAUDE.md's acceptance says so.
Fixed with it, at Captain Bob's word:
- kernel/Makefile: the ROM-and-map rule is a grouped target (&:). As two
targets of one plain rule its recipe ran twice at once under -j and the
copies met ("cp: cannot create regular file ... File exists"): 3 of 20
parallel builds failed, now 0 of 20.
- The v4 boot drops the logger to --log-level after POST, as v3 does
(sk_log_level_after_post, shared by both paths); INFO lines after POST,
3 before, 0 now.
Accepted: three clean qemu boots as built to [zuse@Hera] ok>, POST 538/538,
dict_hash 0xfec8c47cfc6f437f on all three (unchanged), 0 INFO after POST;
the hot-plug session (attach, line, detach, headless, re-attach) on amd64,
aarch64 and riscv64; headless with no drive; make -C v4 test test-32
sanitize hosted-check EXIT 0; make -C v4 test-32 0 failures.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
LithosAnanke v2.1.0
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs StarForth as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Products
StarForth v4 moves the engine onto a 32-instruction core derived from Chuck Moore's F18
(docs/v4.0.0/). With it, this repository carries three products, not one:
| Product | What it is |
|---|---|
| Hosted StarForth F18 | The v4 engine as a native Linux build, for amd64, arm64 and riscv64. |
| FPGA StarForth F18 | A 32-bit build of the same engine loaded into the FPGA: the gateway to the rest, the foundation everything else is built up from. |
| StarshipOS | The bare-metal product: LithosAnanke running StarForth. |
FORTH-79 is recomposed on the F18 engine and stored as a capsule; the StarshipOS-specific
vocabulary gets the same treatment. v3 remains the reference system until v4 meets its
acceptance criteria (docs/v4.0.0/JUSTIFICATION.md §16). Both run on bare metal now: every
board image carries v4 and v3, boots v4 as built, and one word in its boot configuration
chooses (see below).
Status
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth · Mama FORTH vocabulary · the Tripod fleet · kernel-Hermes · word-level ACL | ✅ Live |
| M8 | Keyboard input to the REPL — PS/2, virtio and USB keyboards (a full keyboard: Caps/Num Lock, keypad) | ✅ In QEMU, all three ISAs |
| M9 | Block storage — Artemis's disk on virtio-blk; identity thumbdrives on USB mass storage | ✅ In QEMU · real disks: no driver yet (boards/BRINGUP.md A4) |
| Bare metal | a generic PC (amd64; first on the bench: a Beelink SER5), Raspberry Pi 5 (aarch64), Milk-V Mars (riscv64); Zynq-7020 (ARMv7) not yet ported | Images build; first boots on the bench — boards/BRINGUP.md |
v4 is the default build, and v3 is being retired: every kernel boots v4 unless its boot
arguments say system=v3. POST at boot, on all three ISAs: v4 — 538 tests,
PARITY:V4_SYSTEM word_count=317 dict_hash=0xe5a57f3eb72ff94a; v3 — 1052 tests,
PARITY:M7.1a word_count=526 hash=0x82f4ae7cb2e2d424.
What's live
- The Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet: Hera (the Mama VM, the governor), Artemis (block storage: a Block Allocation Map with Q48.16 block heat, cooldown and reclamation) and Hestia, birthed, run and re-birthed independently on all three architectures.
- kernel-Hermes — messaging moved into the kernel (the Hermes VM is gone,
docs/fabric/FABRIC-3.5.md): every VM takes its own messages on its own turn, under a cooperative switcher that every VM takes part in. - Identities on thumbdrives — Zuse, the superuser, and every user is a minted USB thumbdrive (Ed25519, Zuse-signed); plugging one in births that user's VMs, pulling it out ends them. There is only the drive: no password, no PIN.
- 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>). Measured overhead of the live ACL-TTL mechanism: +0.0603%, CV 0.000%, architecture-independent (docs/fabric/FABRIC-1.md§T). - Logs that persist — every VM's log records go to a ring on Artemis's disk (
LOG-FLUSH,LOG-SHOW). - The physics-driven runtime — seven feedback loops and the L8 Jacquard mode selector, with a per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning (VM Fleet Attractor).
- Kconfig build configuration — about 40 physics, heartbeat, pipelining and kernel-only knobs, shared with the hosted build.
Quick Start
# One boot image per physical target (output: build/boards/<board>/)
make boot_image TARGET=PC # any x86-64 UEFI PC -- GPT/ESP, BOOTX64.EFI
make boot_image TARGET=RASPI # Raspberry Pi 5 -- FAT, config.txt + kernel_2712.img + DTB
make boot_image TARGET=MILKV # Milk-V Mars -- GPT/ESP, BOOTRISCV64.EFI (U-Boot bootefi)
make boards # list boards (the Zynq-7020 has no ARMv7 port yet)
# Each image carries v4 and v3. As built it boots v4; to boot v3, change the one word
# system=v4 -> system=v3
# in starforth.cfg on the PC's stick or the Mars's card, or cmdline.txt on the Pi 5's card.
# The same TARGET drives all, docs and clean (make help)
make # every board with a kernel port + hosted v3 + the book
make docs # build/docs/LithosAnanke.pdf (LaTeX master: docs/book/main.tex)
make clean TARGET=RASPI # that board's outputs and build/aarch64/kernel
# The kernel in QEMU (OVMF / AAVMF / EDK2), one architecture at a time -- boots v4
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=amd64 clean qemu
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=aarch64 clean qemu
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=riscv64 clean qemu
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=amd64 KERNEL_ARGS=system=v3 clean qemu # v3, while it remains
# The Pi 5's native boot path, rehearsed on QEMU's virt machine at EL2
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=aarch64 RPI5_NATIVE_BASE=0x40080000 rpi5-rehearsal
Artifacts: build/<arch>/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/<arch>/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
Tree: kernel/ (LithosAnanke: Makefile, src/, include/starkernel/, linker/),
v3/ (StarForth v3 engine and hosted build), v4/ (StarForth v4, see docs/v4.0.0/),
boards/<board>/ (board.mk + boot files), capsules/ (the FORTH capsules). Every makefile
runs from the repo root; the root Makefile forwards any other goal to v3/Makefile.
For the hosted v3 VM by itself, see the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside it, and is now its own project.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob is an optional Kconfig symbol; a plain make -f kernel/Makefile uses
the defaults unless you opt in:
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f kernel/Makefile ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
Start at docs/README.md — the map: where each kind of document lives and which to believe. Among them:
| The FABRIC record | Every design decision and the work as it happened (FABRIC-3.md is the living one) |
| StarForth v4 | The F18-derived engine |
| Board bring-up | Getting onto a PC, the Pi 5 and the Mars |
| Roadmap and versioning | Milestone plan and release-versioning policy |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol |
| Word-level ACL | The access-control design |
| HAL, as built | Hardware abstraction layer |
| Developer guide / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both builds |
| Dead ideas and revised claims | What is no longer true, and since when |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
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