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After a successful swarm boot, fill seedCapabilityInfo with stock kernelCapabilityWords when the pre-MBR capabilities RPC was skipped, failed, or lacked words, so peer system seed eligibility passes and localRAM can serve block 0. Add BARE_OS_PEER_SEED_SYNTHETIC_CAPABILITIES (opt-out) and BARE_OS_PEER_SEED_ADVERTISE_IMAGE_TIP_ID; document tip propagation in env appendix, users manual, and handbook. Extend peer seed tests.
Bare operating system — handbook
Bare OS is an experimental, P2P-first system image: a Merkle-addressed Hyperdrive you replicate from peers over Hyperswarm, plus a second drive for everything that should stay yours (home, identity, logs). This handbook is the narrative spine—written like a long-form technical article so you can read it cover to cover or jump to a chapter. It explains why the pieces exist, how they connect, and where to look when something breaks.
This project is experimental research software, not a production OS. It is licensed under Apache-2.0 (LICENSE).
On this page
- How this handbook fits the repo
- Who should read what
- Chapters
- Packages in one sentence each
- Root README
How this handbook fits the repo
Documentation home — Single map of every tree: user manual, this handbook, developer guide, reference, concepts (evergreen), glossary, FAQ, troubleshooting router, contributing to docs.
Preface — why Bare OS — Thesis, comparison to classic images, security limits, outlook, contributor paths.
This handbook (handbook/*.md) — Story, architecture, protocol, runtime, identity, POSIX surface, operations, and research directions.
User manual — Short operator-oriented path: clone, run seeder and booter, use the shell and identity features, find man and troubleshooting without reading cover to cover.
docs/reference/README.md — File-by-file inventory, environment variables, data-flow diagram.
docs/architecture/KERNEL_CONTRACT.md — Single-page contract: subsystems, boot steps, ctx semver, typed errors.
developer-guide/README.md — How to write run(ctx, argv) / start(ctx), extend /bin, and test under Pear.
Kernel extensions — Kernel feature bitmask, seed-channel RPC, and capability bits.
The ctx object is versioned for kernels and scripts that depend on booter behavior. Treat packages/bare-os-booter/CHANGELOG.md as the contract history (bareOsCtxApiVersion / BARE_OS_CTX_API_VERSION). TypeScript authors can use packages/bare-os-booter/lib/bare-os-ctx.d.ts.
Who should read what (three paths)
I want to run it. Start at the user manual or the root README.md, then Chapter 7 — Operations (install, npm test, seeder/booter, Pear). Skim Chapter 1 for vocabulary.
I want to change the image or /bin. Read Preface → Chapter 6 → the developer guide, especially extending coreutils and the ctx object.
I want the architecture and trust model. Read Preface → Chapter 2 — Blueprints → Chapter 3 — Protocol → Chapter 4 — Booter runtime → Chapter 5 — Identity.
Chapters
- Preface — Whitepaper-style thesis, documentation map, security limits, research directions, contributing.
- 01 — Introduction — Goals, vocabulary, Holepunch stack, clone-to-prompt story.
- 02 — Blueprints — Layered architecture, trust, boot-flow diagram.
- 03 — Protocol and disk — MBR, swarm, Protomux, SwarmDisk, failure matrix.
- 04 — The booter runtime —
ctx, VFS, shell, kernel, initd, cron, REPL, host bridges. - 05 — Identity, vault, HDMS — Guest vs user, account blob, vault, extra drives.
- 06 — Kernel and binaries —
/boot/init.js, coreutils pipeline,/binsummary. - 07 — Operations and development — CI, pretest, Pear channels, env vars, troubleshooting.
- 08 — Git on Bare OS — isomorphic-git, VFS adapter, HTTP modes.
- 09 — POSIX utilities, shell, VFS — XCU-style
/bin, shell, divergence from Issue 7. - 10 — Manual pages and online help —
man(1), JSON DB, handbook ingest,helpvsman. - 11 — Kernel program and research — Pear/Bare/holepunch context, capability words, non-goals.
- 12 — P2P stack vs POSIX boundaries — Hypercore replication, swarm, Protomux, and how they relate to the declared POSIX profile and non-goals.
Pear workflows, ctx.bare, drive bundles: developer-guide ch.11 and ch.12.
Packages in one sentence each
- bare-os-protocol — Shared topic string, MBR layout, Protomux message IDs, and kernel feature bits used by seeder and booter.
- bare-os-seeder — Stages
kernel/into a system Hyperdrive, publishes the MBR block and joins the swarm so booters can replicate the image. - bare-os-booter — Joins the swarm, opens system + personal drives, builds
ctx, runs/boot/init.js, shell, initd, cron, and delegated tools (git,curl,wget). - bare-os-coreutils — Sources and build for
/binutilities plus the mergedman.jsondatabase. - bare-os-bare-libs — Builds optional
/lib/barebundles merged intoctx.barewhen enabled.
The staged tree also includes kernel/README.md (what lands on the system drive) and scripts/README.md (repo automation). Pear release links and host env notes: PEAR-RUN.md.
Root README
The top-level README.md is the short runbook (clone, npm ci, seeder/booter commands). Use it when you only need copy-paste steps.
License: Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.