Ruled 2026-10-07. BLOCK, BUFFER, UPDATE, SAVE-BUFFERS and EMPTY-BUFFERS are each one kernel request on port 0, by block number only. The node has a window of four slots in its memory, as a v3 VM has; the kernel copies blocks into it, keeps the record of which block is in which slot, and decides when a block is written (v4/system/blocks.c). The node keeps no record and gives the kernel no address, so a request cannot overwrite the node's code. When a block is written stays FORTH-79's: UPDATE marks it. When the chain of devices changes the slots are let go, as in v3. The window is 512 cells more than the two buffers were; the dictionary space ends that much lower, at 13824. MESH.md 8.5 had said, from the review, that a v3 VM's BLOCK is the kernel's buffer. It is not, and the section now says what was reported, what v3 does, and what was ruled. make -C v4 test, sanitize and hosted-check pass; amd64, aarch64 and riscv64 boot, POST 538 of 538, the same hashes on all six: logs/20261007-092835, -093112, -093456. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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 |
workload-0.4th … workload-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