Atlas: the boot seed

Atlas is the first software in the AIEN chain: one small AArch64 binary (atlas.bin, 1,480 bytes) that checks the next boot stage against a pinned SHA-256 digest, hands control to it, and refuses and halts if the check fails. Milestone 1 is qualified in QEMU only. Native DGX Spark qualification is still pending.

Belongs to AIEN. The whole system is Sovereign Intelligence (SI). Start at sovereign-intelligence, the integration, release and install center, for the whole project. AienOS is only the operating-system layer. aien-dev/aienix is retired. Atlas is milestone M1 (ATLAS_BOOT) in the AIEN roadmap (doctrine/ROADMAP.md in aien-architecture). SI lists atlas under Silicon, firmware and boot. The boot artifacts and the GB10 hardware path continue in aien-dev/physics-mv. This repository holds only the seed and its evidence. See ADR 0045.

Status (2026-10-18): QEMU qualified, native run pending, quiet. The seed and its gate runner last changed on 2026-09-26. Since then: a relicense (2026-10-04) and the removal of the old Python scripts with a check that keeps Python out (2026-10-15). Run the gates with ./run_m1_gates.sh.

SILICON / UNAVOIDABLE FIRMWARE
              ↓
            ATLAS
       BOOTSTRAP SEED
              ↓
       NEXT BOOT STAGE
 (here: the 256-byte test payload
  physics-0.bin; the PHYSICS boot
  artifacts live in aien-dev/physics)

The Canonical Invariants

ATLAS AWAKENS.
AIEN PROPOSES.
OMEGA DEFINES.
FORGE REALIZES.
AEGIS VERIFIES.
HARDWARE ACTS.
EVIDENCE TEACHES.

These are the doctrine lines accepted in ADR 0014 (aien-dev/aien-architecture). The machine-realization role once called PHYSICS is now FORGE. The PHYSICS boot artifacts that Atlas hands off to stay in aien-dev/physics.

Lineage & Provenance Note

Formerly designated Alpha (alpha.bin) during the initial bootstrap draft.
Every prior architectural responsibility of ALPHA transfers to ATLAS unchanged:

• Root Canonical Executable: atlas.bin (formerly alpha.bin)
• Milestone Gate: ATLAS_BOOT (formerly ALPHA_BOOT)
• Audit Gate: ATLAS_AUDIT_PASS (formerly ALPHA_AUDIT_PASS)
• Machine Contract Entry: PHYSICS_ENTRY_ABI unchanged.
• The pre-rename Alpha artifacts are kept in history/alpha/ as a historical record only; no gate reads them.

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Canonical Artifacts & Evidence Files

• atlas.bin: Irreducible bootstrap seed binary (1,480 bytes).
• atlas.sha256: Cryptographic hash (f7802501b410a0c19eff7b8fca8865c9ba9c96bfa4f8065ca8f508b67748b9a5).
• atlas.manifest: Canonical manifest and provenance record.
• atlas.memory-map: Normative memory layout and disjoint stack/descriptor proof.
• atlas.control-flow: Textual control flow graph and failure traps.
• atlas.audit: 100% byte-reconciled machine instruction ledger (301 instructions, 69 rodata words, 0 discrepancy).
• atlas.decode: Disassembly dump with static target proof.
• machine_contract.json: Formal machine contract (CONTRACT-QEMU-VIRT-AARCH64-M1).
• qualification_receipt.json: Cryptographic qualification receipt for Milestone 1.

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Qualification Architecture (Dual Verification Seams)

Historical note (2026-10-15): the .py files named in this section were the original Milestone 1 scripts; they were removed from the tree under the no-Python rule and remain in git history. See HISTORICAL-PYTHON.md. The current gate runner is run_m1_gates.sh, which builds tools/m1tool.c with the host gcc, runs the NIST SHA-256 known-answer tests, then both seams (the QEMU seam needs qemu-system-aarch64). It leaves the committed qualification_receipt.json untouched unless --write-receipt is passed.

Seam 1: Independent Artifact-Audit Seam (m1tool audit-verify; originally seam1_artifact_audit.py)

Validates artifacts statically without requiring execution:

1. ATLAS_ARTIFACT_IDENTITY_PASS: atlas.bin matches atlas.sha256.
2. ATLAS_MACHINE_CONTRACT_PASS: Strictly satisfies contract size and SHA-256 algorithm constraints.
3. ATLAS_AUDIT_PASS: Mathematical word reconciliation ($301 \times 4 + 69 \times 4 = 1480$ bytes, 0 discrepancy) and static target proof (ldr x19, =0x40200000; br x19).
4. ATLAS_STACK_DESCRIPTOR_DISJOINT_PASS: Statically proves that the downward-growing scratchpad stack (SP <= 0x401FC000) is separated from the Machine Boot Descriptor (0x401FE000) by an 8 KiB guard gap, guaranteeing an empty intersection ($\text{Stack} \cap \text{Descriptor} = \emptyset$).

Seam 2: External Execution Seam (m1tool qemu-matrix; originally seam2_execution_harness.py)

Validates execution in bare-metal QEMU AArch64:

1. ATLAS_BOOT_QEMU_PASS: Emits ATLAS: AWAKEN and ATLAS: VERIFY.
2. ATLAS_HANDOFF_QEMU_PASS: Emits ATLAS: HANDOFF, after which the handed-off payload emits PHYSICS-0: AUTHORIZED.
3. ATLAS_CORRUPTION_REFUSAL_QEMU_PASS:
   • Exhaustive 256-single-byte mutation sweep: Mutates every byte offset $0 \dots 255$ in the 256-byte physics payload (^ 0x01). Every single offset triggers ATLAS: REFUSE and isolates Physics.
   • 12 adversarial structured mutation scenarios: Validates cookie corruptions, burst bit flips, early/mid/late instructions, text string mutations, all-zeros, and all-ones.
   • Total: 268/268 mutations refused into fail-closed quiescence.
4. ATLAS_FAIL_CLOSED_QEMU_PASS: Halts cleanly in wfe; b . with zero instruction overrun.

Note: QEMU qualification pass (ATLAS_BOOT_QEMU_PASS) is strictly decoupled from native hardware qualification (ATLAS_BOOT_NATIVE_PASS), which remains pending for physical DGX Spark execution.

Human-Directed Agentic Engineering

Development follows Human-Directed Agentic Engineering (HDAE): humans define goals, architecture, constraints, acceptance criteria, and stopping points; agents implement, execute checks, diagnose failures, and revise within those boundaries. Human review retains responsibility for claims, acceptance, and release decisions. This describes current development, not a retrospective claim about the historical qualification.

For the documented method and a systems-software case study, see Gregory M. Kurtzer, Ginux: Building an Independent Kernel That Runs Linux Userspace through Human-Directed Agentic Engineering (2026), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23682548.