Item 1 off the SESSION-23 list. T48 proved the lever by hand on the exemplar, T50 located the same
blocker in every sibling; this builds the tool, measures the population, applies it fleet-wide, and
gates it. It BANKS NOTHING — it removes the blocker. The sweep is the next task.
MEASURED BEFORE BUILDING (R35). The blocker census over all 132 still-stubbed siblings is perfectly
uniform: 132/132 carry it, 3 contested symbols each, EXACTLY ONE file-scope decl statement per
(TU, sym), ZERO file-scope references below the decl (so the deletion is always safe), 660
block-scope re-declarations needed.
THE TOOL: tools/scope_tu_externs.py — the TU-side complement of scope_data_externs.py (§8d). §8d
fixes the incoming DRAFT and has a give-up branch that DROPS the draft's own decl when the TU already
declares the symbol at file scope. Right when the types agree; fatal when the byte-true draft needs a
different one — which is exactly how 132 byte-true siblings gate-failed wearing a codegen wall's
costume. This moves the TU's OWN file-scope decl down into every later function that references the
symbol and lacks its own block-scope decl, then deletes the file-scope line.
FILE(u8 D_x) ... then BLOCK(u16 *D_x) below it -> conflicting types (the 132 failures)
(no file-scope decl) ... BLOCK(u8) ... BLOCK(u16 *) -> builds; each fn owns its own view
- contested set DERIVED, never hand-listed (R33): the remapped draft's block-scope D_ externs
intersected with the TU's file-scope decls above the splice point; --family does it per sibling
- built on cdecl.split_statements/_mask (R33), not a 7th regex: depth-0 spans (a fn definition
flushes at its closing '}' — a column-0 test is NOT a file-scope test, m2c emits goto labels at
column 0 inside bodies) + length-preserving comment/string masking. That masking is what kills the
comment-scanning false-positive class still open as item 3.
- REFUSES LOUDLY, never skips silently (R32): >1 file-scope decl above the splice point; a
file-scope statement below the decl referencing the symbol; an unlocatable body brace
- coverage asserted as a DELTA (R32): file-scope -1, block-scope +len(consumers). An absolute
"a block-scope decl exists" check would have passed VACUOUSLY — these TUs already carry ~18
legitimate block-scope decls of the same symbols
VERIFIED IN TWO STEPS (T48's structure — why a 132-file edit was safe to make):
1. the move ALONE on ov_SC01_000 -> make build -> 9052dc0e BYTE-IDENTICAL, then reverted
2. fleet-wide -> R22 clean-fleet (make clean && extract-all && check-all) -> 140 passed, 0 failed
of 140; make tools-health OK (corpus 0 PHANTOM + 0 TRUNCATED, cdecl, audit-binaries,
report/lint/dedup 1886/0). Metrics UNCHANGED at 85.5% instr / 76.1% distinct / 90.62% fn-count
— the correct result for a declaration-only change.
The diff is uniform to the line: all 132 files +11/-3. A second --family run reports 132
nothing-to-do, 0 refused (idempotent).
Deliberately NOT done: wiring this as an automatic jtbl_family_bank stage. That waits until the
sweep measures the payoff — folding an unproven pre-pass into the gate is the same unmeasured
premise this phase keeps catching.
Also preserves .run/near6/g5260_a.c (the T48 raw crack body, allowlisted) — the sweep may need it
for --raw.
cookbook §103 + SETUP tool-inventory row (R21).
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.