Space

Space is a component-based operating system built on a five-layer architecture:

       .in          ← native language
       ↑
 Inauguration       ← compiler — the real OS contract
       ↑
      SCI           ← component image format (replaces ELF)
       ↑
    Space           ← operating system, component runtime
       ↑
 Nanokernel         ← hardware enforcement layer

The native model is component + capability + object + execution graph — not process + file + syscall + user. There is no POSIX in the kernel. Linux, Darwin, and Windows compatibility are .in microservices that translate legacy concepts into Space primitives.

Status

The nanokernel root, written in .in and compiled by Inauguration, boots to x86_64 long mode under QEMU and verifies the boot-critical subsystems on every boot.

Subsystem status is tracked in architecture.md.

Benchmarks

Measured on macOS ARM64 (M3), Inauguration v0.7.1.

Metric	Value
Boot image size	259,316 B (trampoline 4,096 + kernel 254,964)
Kernel compile (cold)	~50 ms
Kernel compile (warm, cached)	~30 ms
Boot to interactive shell (QEMU TCG, Apple Silicon)	~4 s
Boot to interactive shell (QEMU + KVM, x86_64)	~40 ms

The kernel is ~1,300 lines of .in across 15+ files, lowered to x86_64 machine code and linked into a single bootable binary.

Performance notes

• Most of the cold compile wall time is in process startup; the actual parse + lower + link is a few milliseconds. in daemon start in the Inauguration repo removes that startup cost for repeated builds.
• The warm path is already cached by source hash, so repeated edits of the same file are fast.
• Next low-hanging fruit: reduce the number of separate files merged into the kernel root, and avoid re-allocating the string table across cache hits.

Target architectures

Arch	Compiler status	Kernel status
x86_64	Native lowering, boot image, ELF object	Boots verified subsystems
ARM64	Native lowering, boot image, ELF object	Boots verified subsystems
RISC-V	Planned	—

Build and run

Requirements: clang, nasm, qemu-system-x86_64, and Inauguration checked out at ../inauguration.

bash scripts/check-qemu-boot.sh      # full boot verification
bash scripts/build-multicomponent.sh # SCI component loading demo
bash scripts/check-sci-contract.sh   # metadata validation
bash scripts/check-network.sh        # e1000 ARP/UDP test

Browser demo (Alpenglow-style v86 shell): see docs/v86-website.md and website/.

Repository layout

kernel/
  kernel-root.in          nanokernel root component
  domain.in               memory domain subsystem
  channel.in              cross-domain channel fabric
  net.in                  e1000 NIC driver
  pci.in                  PCI bus enumeration
  guest-service.in        SCI guest component example
boot/
  multiboot.asm           x86_64 CPU bring-up (32-bit → long mode)
scripts/
  check-qemu-boot.sh      full boot verification
  build-multicomponent.sh SCI loading demo
  check-sci-contract.sh   metadata validation
  check-network.sh        network driver test

Relationship to Inauguration

Per AGENTS.md, Space owns the OS contracts, examples, SCI profile, and boot plan. Inauguration owns the generic compiler capabilities:

• freestanding target support (x86_64-unknown-none)
• SCI-compatible component metadata emission
• native x86_64 lowering, instruction encoding, boot image assembly
• Core IR optimization
• multi-frontend support (.in, Rust, Go, V, Tree-sitter polyglot)

Inauguration does not depend on this repository. Space does not add Space-branded targets to Inauguration.

License

Mozilla Public License 2.0