ITISYOU_OS

SYSTEM / PUBLIC ENGINEERING RECORD

ITISYOU OS

Building an operating system from the kernel upward.

A long-term research and engineering project exploring what a personal operating system could look like if designed today around explicit privilege boundaries, strong kernel/user isolation, recoverable and auditable system changes, reproducible builds, and local-first intelligence — where AI can reason about the system but never holds unrestricted kernel authority.

Current milestone — V1.0 — Experimental Personal OS (VM-verified) EXPERIMENTAL
System layer model
  1. L5 AI layer intelligence, never authority — shipped in v1.0.0: a pinned model in Ring 3, an agent that only proposes IN DEVELOPMENT
  2. L4 Privileged services / capability engine capability handles enforced at every syscall, /sbin/init supervising services from its config, signed packages (V0.7–V0.10); V0.11, shipped in v1.0.0, adds kernel-checked proposals and console-only approval on top VERIFIED
  3. L3 Userspace ring 3, per-process isolation, preemptive scheduling, a process tree, a Ring 3 shell, desktop apps with focus, network and TCP syscalls (V0.6–V0.10) VERIFIED
  4. L2 Kernel Rust no_std, x86_64, ring 0; always-on background slices; PCI, USB, audio, NVMe, e1000, ACPI + I/O APIC (V0.6–V0.10) VERIFIED
  5. L1 Bootloader rust-osdev crate, BIOS & UEFI stages VERIFIED
  6. L0 Firmware SeaBIOS / OVMF-UEFI, inside QEMU ENVIRONMENT

Verified layers are machine-checked in QEMU and released. The AI layer is V0.11 work, verified on the development branch and shipped in v1.0.0. See /architecture.

Physical-Hardware Warning

ITISYOU OS is an experimental, pre-alpha research kernel. It is developed and verified exclusively inside QEMU with project-generated disposable disk images. Do not install it on physical hardware, point it at a real disk, or expect it to preserve data. There are no production builds.

What we’re building now

Milestone “V1.0 — Experimental Personal OS (VM-verified)”

Current Build

VERIFIED
VERSION
v1.0.0
MATURITY
experimental
MILESTONE
V1.0 — Experimental Personal OS (VM-verified)
ARCH
x86_64
ENVIRONMENT
QEMU (BIOS + UEFI/OVMF)
COMMIT
—
LAST VERIFIED
2026-09-14T10:05:36Z
TRUTH SOURCE
status/current.json

Fields marked “—” have no verification evidence yet and are reported as absent rather than estimated.

  • Boot path (BIOS + UEFI via bootloader crate)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / boot

  • Serial console & structured boot stages

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / serial

  • CPU identification

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / cpu

  • Physical memory manager

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / memory-physical

  • Virtual memory / paging (kernel + user W^X)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / memory-virtual

  • Kernel heap allocator

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / heap

  • GDT/IDT, exceptions, PIT timer (via I/O APIC)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / interrupts

  • Preemptive process scheduler

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / scheduler

  • Timer-driven Ring 3 preemption

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / preemption

  • VFS & embedded initramfs

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / vfs

  • Interactive serial shell

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / shell

  • ELF64 loader (strict validation, W^X)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / elf-loader

  • Ring 3 execution & privilege isolation

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / ring3

  • Syscall ABI (write/exit/yield/getpid/spawn/wait/msg/gui)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / syscalls

  • Process lifecycle & crash containment

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / process

  • Per-process page tables & concurrency

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / process-isolation

  • IPC message channels

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / ipc

  • PCI enumeration

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / pci

  • Block-device abstraction (read + write)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / block

  • NVMe driver (read + write + flush)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / nvme

  • ITFS persistent filesystem

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / filesystem

  • Framebuffer graphics (back buffer, font, primitives)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / graphics

  • Window compositor (per-window buffers, ownership isolation)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / compositor

  • GUI syscalls (validated Ring 3 window rendering)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / gui-syscalls

  • PS/2 keyboard input (IRQ1)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / input-keyboard

  • PS/2 mouse input (IRQ12)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / input-mouse

  • Interactive desktop (live keyboard + mouse)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / desktop

  • Device/driver model (probe/bind, device table)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / device-model

  • PCI BAR sizing + capability walking (MSI/MSI-X/PCIe/PM)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / pci-caps

  • USB UHCI host controller (control transfers, enumeration)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / usb-uhci

  • USB HID keyboard input (interrupt endpoint)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / usb-hid

  • Unified input events (PS/2 + USB HID)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / input-unified

  • AC97 audio output (PCM DMA, samples verified)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / audio-ac97

  • Userspace device access syscall (least authority)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / devinfo-syscall

  • Capability model (default deny, no amplification)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / capabilities

  • Filesystem sandbox (traversal-proof path prefixes)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / fs-sandbox

  • Service supervisor (ordering, restart policy, diagnostics)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / services

  • Application manifests + platform launch (least privilege)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / app-model

  • ITPKG packages (SHA-256 integrity + Ed25519 authenticity)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / packages

  • Atomic updates + rollback + reboot-proven recovery

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / updates

  • Audit/provenance trail, hash-chained and persistent

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / audit

  • IPv4 networking: e1000, ARP, ICMP, UDP, DNS

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / net-stack

  • Capability-scoped Ring 3 UDP sockets

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / net-sockets

  • TCP streams from Ring 3 (retransmission, verified against the host TCP stack)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / net-tcp

  • DHCP client (lease applied, verified against QEMU)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / net-dhcp

  • Capability-scoped userspace filesystem writes (atomic)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / fs-write

  • SMEP/SMAP/UMIP, W^X, stack guard, pointer validation

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / hardening

  • USB xHCI host controller (enumeration + HID)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / usb-xhci

  • Local APIC + I/O APIC line routing (8259 PIC retired) + MSI-X

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / irq-apic

  • Second block-device backend (AHCI/virtio)

    PLANNED

    MODULE / storage-second-driver

  • QEMU boot/regression harness (serial + monitor + audio/USB)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / test-harness

  • Ed25519 package signatures + trusted-key verification

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / pkg-signing

  • ACPI discovery (RSDP/XSDT/MADT/FADT, validated)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / acpi

  • ACPI S5 soft power-off

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / power-s5

  • IPv6 foundations (NDP, SLAAC, ICMPv6)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / net-ipv6

  • Signing-key hierarchy (offline root, scoped certificates, signed revocation)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / pkg-keys

  • Reproducible, checksummed public boot images

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / release-artifact

  • Program arguments for Ring 3 programs (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / proc-args

  • ITFS space reclamation, no format change (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / fs-reclaim

  • Guard pages for kernel task stacks (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / task-stack-guards

  • Always-on co-scheduling at audited safe points (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / always-on-sched

  • Process tree: parent-only wait, wait_nohang, sleep, orphans, ps/kill (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / process-tree

  • /sbin/init as pid 1 from /etc/init.conf, restarted by the kernel (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / userspace-init

  • Kernel service table fed by kernel-checked supervisor reports (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / svc-report

  • Ring 3 shell with the console’s input (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / ring3-shell

  • Ring 3 desktop apps with click-to-focus and routed input (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / desktop-apps

  • Kernel copies refuse user memory the program cannot write (V0.10)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / user-copy-hardening

  • Audit trail and package store kernel-owned, echoes escaped, a stored trail that verifies across boots (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / audit-integrity

  • Approved read-only system view, console-granted only (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / sys-view

  • Pinned diagnostic model, trained at build time from synthetic scenarios (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / diag-model

  • Ring 3 inference service (inferd) outside the kernel (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / inference-service

  • Diagnostic agent with runbooks and no authority to act (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / diag-agent

  • Kernel-checked proposals; approve and deny only at the console (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / proposals

  • Approved actions executed, verified and rolled back by the kernel (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / verified-actions

  • Ring 3 output cannot drive the operator’s terminal (V0.11)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / output-escaping

  • IPC authority scoped to named channels (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / ipc-scoping

  • Ring 3 syscall fuzzer — no sequence crashes or hangs the kernel (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / sysfuzz

  • Every untrusted-byte decoder mutation-fuzzed (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / decoder-fuzz

  • Every CPU exception from Ring 3 contained; user FPU off (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / cpu-containment

  • Long use leaks nothing in the kernels own accounting (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / soak-leak

  • Whole-attack-surface adversarial review, findings verified and fixed (V1.0)

    VERIFIED

    MODULE / attack-surface-review

Statuses are read from status/current.json at build time. “Implemented” and “Verified” are not interchangeable; anything not marked Verified should be assumed incomplete.

Boot sequence

Boot-Stage Contract B000 → B150 kernel-core::stage · serial markers

Each stage emits one machine-parseable serial marker — [ITISYOU:B0xx] description — asserted in order by the QEMU harness. Stage statuses below are the live module statuses, not a boot capture.

  1. B000 firmware/loader handoff observed VERIFIED
  2. B010 kernel entry reached in 64-bit mode VERIFIED
  3. B020 early serial console ready VERIFIED
  4. B030 CPU baseline established VERIFIED
  5. B040 boot memory map validated VERIFIED
  6. B050 physical memory manager ready VERIFIED
  7. B060 virtual memory abstraction ready VERIFIED
  8. B070 kernel heap ready VERIFIED
  9. B080 descriptor/exception layer ready VERIFIED
  10. B090 interrupt controller/timer ready VERIFIED
  11. B100 scheduler initialized VERIFIED
  12. B110 VFS/initramfs initialized VERIFIED
  13. B120 input path initialized VERIFIED
  14. B130 shell/init task running VERIFIED
  15. B140 userspace transition ready VERIFIED
  16. B150 V0.1 boot acceptance reached VERIFIED
  17. B160 device layer / storage ready VERIFIED

Why build another OS?

Linux is a mature, broad, production-proven kernel ecosystem — ITISYOU OS does not claim to be better than it, and is not a Linux distribution. It contains no Linux kernel code at runtime.

Instead, this project documents specific research hypotheses to test for a constrained personal-computing target: what changes when explicit authority boundaries, verification evidence, and recoverability are design inputs from the first boot stage rather than retrofits.

  • Explicit authority

    Privilege and authority boundaries are declared, inspectable, and narrow — never ambient.

  • Evidence over claims

    A subsystem is “done” only when an automated QEMU run proves it. The website reads that evidence, not marketing intent.

  • Recoverable by design

    System changes should be auditable, verifiable, and reversible — recovery is architecture, not an afterthought.

  • Local-first intelligence

    Future AI assistance runs against local state under a policy engine. It advises; it does not rule.

SECURITY PRINCIPLE 01

AI has intelligence,
not authority.

The AI/agent layer reasons about the system and proposes actions; it never executes privileged kernel operations directly. The principle came before any AI component, because it constrains how every kernel interface is designed.

Released images before v1.0.0 contain no AI component. v1.0.0 ships the AI-native layer: the first agent runs this pipeline for two actions — it reads an approved view and files a proposal, the kernel checks it against its own facts, only the console approves, and the kernel executes, verifies and rolls back. See the security model.

The verification loop

  1. STEP_01 Specification requirement + gate defined first
  2. STEP_02 Implementation Rust no_std, unsafe documented
  3. STEP_03 Compile pinned nightly, reproducible
  4. STEP_04 QEMU Boot BIOS + UEFI matrix
  5. STEP_05 Verification markers, selftests, JSON evidence

A hang, panic, or missing marker can never pass. Absence of output is never success.

Roadmap

Sequenced by dependency, not calendar — no dates.

  1. V0.1 Kernel Foundation VERIFIED
  2. V0.2 Userspace Foundation VERIFIED
  3. V0.3 Process Isolation + Storage Foundation VERIFIED
  4. V0.4 Preemptive Multitasking + Persistent Storage VERIFIED
  5. V0.5 Graphics + Input + Basic Desktop/Compositor VERIFIED
  6. V0.6 Hardware Expansion VERIFIED
  7. V0.7 System Platform VERIFIED
  8. V0.8 Networking, Authenticity & Hardening VERIFIED
  9. V0.9 Transport, Interrupt Cutover & Trust VERIFIED
  10. V0.10 Userspace System VERIFIED
  11. V0.11 AI-Native System Layer VERIFIED
  12. V1.0 Experimental Personal OS VERIFIED
  13. Post-1.0 Daily-Driver Research CONCEPT

Development story

Decisions, failures, root causes, fixes — logged as they happen.

2026-09-14 10:00 Session 5 — V1.0 IMPLEMENTED

ITISYOU OS V1.0 — released, locally verified (GitHub CI pending)

V1.0 declared against the acceptance criteria written in advance (docs/V1_ACCEPTANCE.md), and published as reproducible, checksummed UEFI and BIOS boot images for virtual machines — the V0.11 AI-native layer folded in (it was never tagged on its own). V1.0 itself is reliability and security: IPC authority scoped to the channels a grant names (ADR-0025); a seeded Ring 3 syscall fuzzer (300,000 random syscalls across no-capabilities, the console default set, and the agent set — no crash or hang) that found a wait(0) that slept forever; a decoder mutation fuzzer over 48 untrusted-byte parsers (a million inputs each) that found real overflow panics; long-use leak accounting that found a page-table frame leaked on every store operation since V0.4; contained CPU exceptions with the user FPU off; and a whole-attack-surface adversarial review.

release-boot-test.ps1 OK — itisyou-os 1.0.0, init pid 1, pinned model, two-boot NVMe persistence, ping · two full-clean builds → identical digests · fault-contain-{bios,uefi} · sysfuzz-{none,default,agent}-bios · gui-quota-bios · cap-exhaust-bios · pkg-store-hostile-bios · docs/V1_SECURITY_REVIEW.md (37 findings) · check-consistency OK version=1.0.0 verification=verified · SHA256SUMS.txt on /download

2026-09-14 02:30 Session 5 — V0.11 IN DEVELOPMENT

The V0.11 adversarial review: two ways v0.10.0 still let a program forge kernel evidence

Before the release, six independent reviewers read everything V0.11 changed, each trying to break it, and every finding went to a second reviewer told to refute it. Nine findings survived. Two are defects in v0.10.0: a program could still print a genuine kernel marker line by splitting the prefix across the kernel’s 256-byte output chunks — the rewrite looked at one chunk at a time (OUT11-002) — and ps printed the path string a program passed to spawn, so a line break and a marker in a component that .. later removed made the kernel print a forged line itself (SEC11-002). The kernel now keeps a tail that could start a marker for the next chunk and records the canonical path of the file it loaded. Both are disclosed for v0.10.0, which stays as released.

line-atomic-bios · 250 dots + [ITISYOU:SVC] spoofed-split → [RING3-U:SVC] spoofed-split · ps path=/bin/spin-forever · control: the tail not kept → [ITISYOU:SVC] spoofed-split on the wire · ai-retry-bios · rollback_kill_refused … reason=not_an_instance under a compromised init · audit-tamper-save trail_checked status=TAMPERED reason=chain · ai-propose-bios --require-order · requirements OUT11-002, SEC11-002, AUDIT11-003

Long-term research direction

The trajectory runs from kernel foundation through userspace, storage, networking, graphics and hardware expansion toward an experimental personal OS with an AI-native system layer — local inference outside the kernel, policy-controlled actions with preview and approval, provenance and audit for everything.

Every milestone must pass its verification gates before it is claimed. Modern hardware assumptions are preferred over universal legacy compatibility from day one.

Source & documentation

The source repository is private. It has been made public only briefly, so that GitHub CI could run for releases, and the owner decides when it opens. Published releases, their checksums and the engineering evidence are on this site.