Drew T
72fa482027
THE GAP. Every gate in this project substitutes a draft in place of an
INCLUDE_ASM line. A §265 verbatim __asm__ body has none, so:
gate_main.substitute() resolves each entry through the STUB map; a verbatim
function is reported "resolved to NO stub" and dropped
gate_stage/harvest_verify same splice, same gap
splat stops emitting <fn>.s once a function is not a stub
So all 147 were undecompilable AND ungateable -- not for want of information,
but because the information was in a form nothing consumes.
The fix is not a parallel gate (R33 -- one implementation). It is to put the
function back into the form every existing tool already understands: replace the
__asm__ block with INCLUDE_ASM. That is also the HONEST representation --
INCLUDE_ASM pastes the very same assembly the block transcribes, so the bytes
are identical either way, but a stub counts as OUTSTANDING WORK in progress.py
while a verbatim body counted as banked. The conversion moves a function from
"silently done" to "visibly to do".
Two refusals rather than guesses (R43), because both failure modes are silent
and destructive:
* the block is located by brace/paren MATCHING via asm_in_c.asm_blocks, never
regex-sliced -- these blocks are full of braces and parens inside string
literals and an approximate cut corrupts a file that currently builds;
* the asm subdir for the new INCLUDE_ASM is copied from a sibling stub IN THE
SAME FILE. Subsegs are per-file, so a neighbouring file's spelling names a
different subseg -- a stub with the wrong subdir compiles happily and
includes ANOTHER FUNCTION'S ASSEMBLY. With no sibling to copy, it refuses.
--gate rebuilds and asserts the SHA is unchanged, restoring the file if not:
byte-neutrality here is a claim, and this tool exists to enable a byte gate, so
it declines to be the one link that goes unchecked.
Dry-run verified on main:func_80047E58 -> src/800b.c, 9-line block, subdir
correctly derived as asm/nonmatchings/800b. The --gate proof is deferred only
because another agent is mid-build on main right now.
BFM-decomp
A matching decompilation of Brave Fencer Musashi (PlayStation, SLUS-00726, USA 1998) — the first public decompilation effort for this game.
What "matching" means
The goal is C source code that, compiled with the original-era toolchain (PsyQ 4.x / GCC 2.7.2-family + ASPSX via maspsx), produces a byte-for-byte identical SLUS_007.26 and, eventually, byte-identical overlay binaries. SHA1 checksums are the ground truth; "functionally equivalent" does not count.
No ROM content
This repository contains no game assets, no disassembly output, and no ROM-derived data — only source code, build configuration, symbol names/addresses, hashes, and documentation. To build or contribute you must provide your own dump of the game disc (4-track BIN/CUE, redump layout). See .gitignore for the firewall.
Project status
Latest (Phase 19, 2026-06-20): the project builds 136 binaries byte-identical from a clean tree (the EXE + the resident engine + all 134 location overlays);
make check-all→ 136/136. Fleet byte-identical-from-source is 58.0% (function-instance-weighted; see the PhaseEnds for the byte-weighted ~30% figure and what it includes). Shared engine functions are matched once inov_SC01_077and propagated ×134 viatools/dedup_propagate.py. (The narrative below is Phase-11/12-era; a full refresh is part of the public-flip prep.)
Gen1 (foundation) complete — the matching pipeline is proven end-to-end. make extract && make build && make check rebuilds SLUS_007.26 byte-for-byte identical (SHA1 143dbb89…) from C + assembly, reproducibly across many sessions.
- Compiler pinned by evidence:
gcc-2.7.2-psx -O2 -G0 -mips1 -mcpu=3000+maspsx --aspsx-version=2.56 --expand-div. - 52 functions hand-matched to byte-identical machine code — including the LZSS streaming decompressor — with a decomp-permuter + matching-cookbook "flywheel" to accelerate the next.
- 959 PsyQ SDK functions linked byte-identical (libcd, libgs, libgte, libspu/libsnd, libgpu, libc2, libmcrd, libapi/libcard, libetc) straight from the real PsyQ 4.0 libraries instead of re-decompiling them — bringing byte-identical-from-source coverage of the EXE to ~50%.
- File-loader / overlay system reverse-engineered, with the resident engine blob + location overlays' load addresses proven byte-identical against a live PCSX-Redux RAM dump.
About half the EXE is still INCLUDE_ASM stubs (correct bytes, not yet C), and the bulk of the game lives in compressed overlays inside the .CD archives — Gen2 (overlays & engine at scale) is underway:
- The build toolchain is binary-agnostic (one parameterized pipeline builds any binary), and the always-resident engine blob rebuilds byte-for-byte from source (SHA1
8e17e02f…) — the second binary reconstructed exactly, after the EXE — and is now 86% hand-matched C (123 / 146 functions, up from 0): its scripting turned out to be compiled-MIPS state/mode dispatch, not a bytecode VM, and the save-file + sound (SQV) formats are documented. The harvest used a reusable swarm-of-agents + bit-for-bit byte-gate method (a wrong match can't be accepted) —tools/harvest_verify.py+tools/match_one.py, which carry straight into the overlay phase. - A cross-binary deduplication pipeline is live: a Ghidra-free signer fingerprints all 134 location overlays, and the report finds ~9,000 byte-identical function groups shared across binaries (~28 MB of collapsible code) — a single engine function is byte-identical in all 134 overlays. This is "one match unlocks many": each engine match will be auto-credited across the overlay fleet.
Current phase and detailed progress live in phase-ends/ (newest PhaseEnd_*.md = current state); methodology, rules, and the full roadmap are in PROJECT_CONTEXT.md; environment setup in docs/SETUP.md.
This project is developed primarily by Claude Code driving Ghidra through an MCP server; see CLAUDE.md.
License
Private repository for now. AGPL-3.0 is planned at public release, modeled on sotn-decomp. tools/brave-CUE/ is CUE's BRAVE extractor (GPL, source included) and retains its own license.