REFERENCE // SPECIFICATIONS
Specifications
Specs here are normative. For project doctrine and direction, see /doctrine/.
The substrate underneath ostk. Kernel doctrine, trust model, audit format, application layer.
These are the canonical public specifications. If you’re going to trust your codebase to a kernel, this is what you should read first.
STABLE shipped, normative, public DRAFT in flight, public, not frozen HORIZON direction, no public spec yet
Kernel
Kernel Specification /docs/architecture/#the-unix-substrate
STABLE Operator-facing architecture: replaceable model and harness edges, owned local substrate, verb-specific controls, lifecycle boundaries, and the primitives that compose them.
Five Laws /docs/architecture/#the-five-foundational-laws
STABLE Five operating principles: a familiar project surface, durable state beyond one process, inspectable filesystem coordination, scoped optimistic concurrency, and observable infrastructure.
POSIX Kernel Spec /docs/spec/posix-kernel/
STABLE RFC-style specification of the POSIX-shaped invariants the ostk kernel enforces today: bounded waits, owned state, dead-owner reaping, namespace isolation, the signal table, anchor exclusivity, handle generations.
Trust + Identity
Trust Model /docs/security/#identity-derived-trust-tiers
STABLE How verified identity evidence resolves a T0–T3 default posture, how capability pins compose, and how each kernel-mediated execution surface enforces and audits its part of the policy.
HUMANFILE /docs/configuration/#humanfile
STABLE Operator identity document. Tells the OS who you are, what models to use, and how to calibrate.
.primefile /docs/configuration/#primefile
STABLE Project identity and lineage evidence created by ostk init. Boot verifies the supported Ed25519/DSSE path first while retaining legacy signature compatibility.
ENTITYFILE /docs/configuration/#entityfile
STABLE Project governance declarations for identity, trust anchors, and structural policy; effective permissions still come from the active verifier, tier, pins, and execution surface.
Coordination + Audit
Coordination Primitives /docs/coordination-primitives/
STABLE How tracked generations, kernel-mediated CAS edits, recorded-base recovery, digest signals, and durable nudges help agents share a codebase while surfacing conflicts.
Observation Substrate
HORIZON A live, read-only projection of the kernel’s audit ring onto a VFS namespace — subscriber dispatch, projection lattice, and stable paths the rest of the system queries without polling.
Sovereign Substrate
HORIZON The federation layer that lets builders, registrars, and operators verify each other across hosts without a single trust issuer in the middle. No single third party can stop the operator from shipping.
Application Layer
Agentfile /docs/agentfile/
STABLE A local recipe for a repeatable worker: model, task, limits, tools, and optional isolation. Validation, signing, and supervision depend on the supported launch workflow.
Tack Grammar /docs/tack-grammar/
STABLE The operator intent language for the TUI tack bar. Compressed input syntax that resolves through the kernel. What, not how.
Application v1
HORIZON Design trajectory for a content-addressed application directory with a manifest, supervisor tree, and policy declaration. Not yet a shipped, acceptance-tested cross-machine install workflow.
Source of truth for kernel internals lives in the os-tack/ostk.ai repository. Specs are versioned alongside the kernel; any drift between this index and a release tag is reconciled at release time.