Drew T
ad57c16e61
THE BANK: the T14 PLUMBING census showed func_8014CF04 blocking THREE drafts at once. Conforming its
decl axis banked func_8014CF04 + func_8015D1B8 (func_80135260 is a genuine DIFF, agreeing with its
independent SESSION-21 diagnosis). R22 clean-fleet 140/140; report fail-closed green (dedup 1886/0,
0 NON_MATCHING). fn-count 317,896 -> 317,898; distinct 66,110 -> 66,111.
BUT THE AXIS WAS A 1,748-FILE T2 WRITE SET (the --check per-form counts read "1"), and R22 came back
139/140 -- TWICE -- on a change the per-binary gate called BYTE-IDENTICAL. Three defects (§98):
1. THE REGEX CROSSED NEWLINES. `[^;]*` matches '\n', so a match starting at a DEFINITION line ran
past the `{` to the first `;`, swallowing `s32 func_8014CF04(...) {` PLUS the register pin on the
next line and replacing both with a prototype -> undefined reference. Fixed to `[^;{\n]*`: a
definition is now unmatchable by construction.
2. IT REWROTE INSIDE COMMENTS (H5, 3 lines). Now scans cdecl._mask() and rewrites by SPAN (R33 --
that length-preserving primitive already existed for exactly this).
3. THE REAL CAUSE -- IT ASSUMED ONE SIGNATURE FITS THE FLEET. ov_SC07_006 carries its own banked
definition with a DIFFERENT byte-true signature ((s32,s32,void*) vs (s32,void*,void*)), under a
decl marked "per-overlay-local decl (byte-true sig); do NOT re-macroize". That is the Phase-16
loose-typing wall inside a tool that structurally assumes it away. NEW RULE: a TU that DEFINES the
function owns its own declarations; a fleet axis is meaningful only for CONSUMING TUs. This grows
more common as banking proceeds -- every overlay that banks a function becomes an exception.
Then the R32 completion assertion cried wolf on its own by-design skip ("HALF-AXIS -- DO NOT BUILD"
for a complete rewrite): an assertion must be exact about its DOMAIN, not just its condition. Scoped
to consuming TUs -> 1,747 sites, 1 excluded by design. Also hardened to PLAN -> VALIDATE -> WRITE;
the refusal path had aborted mid-write while claiming nothing was modified, creating the very
half-axis §85 calls a guaranteed break.
META (R22's premise, re-earned): after fixing defect 1 I EXPECTED R22 to pass; it failed again for an
unrelated reason, and an individual `make build` of the failing binary SUCCEEDED by reusing objects
the clean run rebuilds. An incremental pass does not refute a clean-tree failure.
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.