Zero — Platform Documentation

The canonical bundle: what Zero is, how it works, where it runs, why it is fundable, and the questions people will ask. Written for three readers at once — the next engineer, the next agent (human or model), and the next investor. Two anchors sit above this folder and are not duplicated here: [../VISION.md](../VISION.md) (the *why*) and [../roadmap/consolidation.md](../roadmap/consolidation.md) (the settled track map, built-vs-planned per track). This folder is the *outward-facing* layer built on top of them. Where the two ever disagree, the roadmap wins — it is closest to the code.

The one line

Zero is the OS for the AI age: a ~2,400-line shapeless substrate that does one thing — execute versioned action-files — and assembles itself on demand from stores into whatever the moment requires, on any device from a boot-up OS to an app, with behavior shipped as capabilities (not releases) and authored, versioned, and evolved by models under deterministic verification.

How to read this folder

The two altitudes (read this before the pitch)

Zero is horizontal, so the story is told at two altitudes at once:

• North-star — the ceiling. *The OS for the AI age.* Software today is

hand-built, frozen at ship time, and siloed per device. Zero is the first substrate that is authored, versioned, and evolved by models and delivered as capabilities from stores on one tiny universal floor. The ceiling is every piece of software that currently has to be written by hand.

• Beachhead — the first check. Edge & device fleets. One install becomes

any business surface — office, storefront, order desk, scanner, payment terminal, living-room assistant — decided at runtime by who is asking, where, and what they came to do. Re-provision a device by changing a *capability profile*, not by shipping an app. This is where the most is already built and where you can name a buyer and run a demo today.

Investors fund the wedge and price the north-star. We carry both, and we are honest about the seam between them — that honesty is the doc's spine.

The design law everything rests on

The engine is the only universal floor. Everything else is a thing in the store.

Resist every temptation to make the engine special-case a feature that belongs in the store, or bake a capability the profile should choose. The leverage *is* the restraint. See [../VISION.md](../VISION.md), "The three laws."

Seed documents (the deeper layer beneath this index)

Alongside the numbered set above sit the seed documents — the *why* and the design

invariants, written for the next agent. The two that close the arc of this folder:

The rest of the seed layer: [VISION.md](VISION.md) (the three laws),

[native-rendering.md](native-rendering.md) (one scene, every viewer),

[lenses.md](lenses.md) (who sees which face, zero engine change),

[versioned-runtime.md](versioned-runtime.md) (how the substrate evolves itself),

[consolidation.md](consolidation.md) (the settled track map).

Operations