Drew T
feb32ed23e
(1) --fix-def-sig POSTURE: AUDITED CLEAN. `action="store_true"` (defaults False), one
consumer via getattr(a,"fix_def_sig",False), and NO caller anywhere passes it — checked
tools/, .run/ scripts, docs recipes and the Makefile. The flag help already carries the
SS119 warning.
BUT the audit surfaced a live hazard the earlier pass missed: docs/decision-log.md
still recommended "--fix-def-sig should likely be default-on for the h_seq path".
That was byte-REFUTED by T84/SS119 — the flag is a REPAIR, not a default; on 0x80161c98
it imposed a signedness-wrong `s32 a1` over the true `u32`, turned a byte-correct draft
into a 1-instruction DIFF (slti vs sltiu), and held 137 members at 0 until DROPPED.
Struck through in place with a superseding note rather than deleted, so the original
reasoning stays legible (R31) — but a forward-looking "should be default-on" sitting in
a doc a fresh session reads FOR DIRECTION is a hazard, not a historical note.
(2) GRINDER WARM-START: tools/permuter_ils.py has sat beside grinder.py since Phase 24 and
was never wired in, so every grind was a COLD search that burned its whole time box
re-descending ground the previous run had already covered. grinder.py now runs `--cycles`
(default 4) timeboxed permutes, each warm-restarted from the previous cycle's best byte
waypoint, stopping early on no gain. `--cycles 1` reproduces the old cold behaviour exactly,
so it is opt-out. --permute-secs is now documented as the PER-CYCLE box.
JUSTIFIED BY MEASUREMENT, not by the task list: the lane looked dead (Phase-22 audit: 7
all-time banks, all Phase 21, 0 since), so I checked for live fuel before building. The
backlog holds 665 open near-misses in the permuter-tractable band (close 1-20), 157 of them
close 1-4, including func_8016BA68 at close=1 with reach=134.
HONEST LIMIT: this is a WIRING change whose yield is UNPROVEN. The Phase-24 evidence for ILS
is one function (func_80148094, 72 -> 36 over ~8 restarts); I have not run it on this
backlog. A winner remains a CANDIDATE — the whole-binary byte-gate is still the sole arbiter
(G3/P9), and an intermediate waypoint is only ever re-seeded, never banked.
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.