Drew T
7c1640888f
BANKED: func_8016AE5C (85 ins ×138). R22 clean-fleet 140/140.
⚠️ I BROKE 138 OF 140 BINARIES AND R22 CAUGHT IT — the per-binary gate could not.
Conforming func_8015B950's decl from `(void)` to its byte-true `(s32 arg0)` across 926 sites gated
BYTE-IDENTICAL on ov_SC01_077 and broke 138 other binaries with Error 33. §63/§85 exactly: a T2
write set is provable only by R22, and the binary the gate authorises is not the binary that breaks.
MECHANISM: conforming a decl to a signature that TAKES parameters makes every existing 0-ARG CALL
SITE a hard `too few arguments` error once a prototype is in scope. Not a declaration-only change.
PROCESS NOTE (mine): a first R22 reported 138 failures, an individual rebuild of a "failing" binary
said BYTE-IDENTICAL, and I nearly filed it as a flake. The second clean R22 reproduced it exactly —
the individual build passed only by reusing objects the clean run rebuilds. An incremental pass does
not refute a clean-tree failure; that is R22's whole premise, pointed at me. Reverted to a known-good
baseline (a stray jr_isolate region file was also in the tree) and redid the one good bank cleanly.
NEW tools/conform_decls.py — because applying this axis by hand three times in one session is how a
half-axis happens. Derives the byte-true signature from the DRAFT's definition (§58b), rewrites EVERY
site, asserts completion (R32). Encodes both preconditions: the §85 return axis (refuse if any caller
consumes the return) and a NEW arity precondition (refuse if 0-arg call sites exist, naming the cost).
The guard immediately gave a better diagnosis than my hand-fix had: func_8015B950's 0-arg call is in
ONE place — src/shared/engine_core.h, a DEFINE macro body — expanded into all 926 TUs. That fix is a
SINGLE cast, not 926 edits. Named as the next step rather than run on tired context.
Also lands cookbook §91 (the --like role trap) from the previous step.
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.