Session 9 — First Native Binary & NCI Integration¶

Date: April 2026
Status: Complete ✅

What We Built¶

Phase 2.5 — First Native Binary ✅¶

Installed GCC via MSYS2 on Windows and compiled output.c to a native binary — the first ever native Terse program.

# Install GCC via MSYS2 MINGW64 terminal
pacman -Syu
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc

# Compile
cd src/transpiler
gcc output.c -o hello -I. -Wall

# Run
./hello.exe
# Output: dog is mammal: 1

The inference engine ran as compiled machine code. Not Python. Not an interpreter. A native Windows binary that correctly derived dog is mammal from dog has fur and the rule when has fur then is mammal.

Phase 2.5 complete.

Parser Bug Fix — `with reason:` Stray Output ✅¶

Fixed a cosmetic bug where with reason: "some text" in ethics deny statements produced stray relationship output: linked: with -> reason -> :.

Root cause: with and reason were not in the KEYWORDS set in lexer.py. The lexer tokenized them as identifiers, and the relationship handler in parse_statement() treated with reason : as a three-word relationship before the ethics parser could consume them.

Fix: Added with and reason to KEYWORDS in lexer.py.

# Before
'fill', 'dot', 'shape', 'zeros', 'ones', 'sealed'

# After
'fill', 'dot', 'shape', 'zeros', 'ones', 'sealed', 'with', 'reason'

Important for NCI: The lib/terse/ copy in NCI must be this version or later. Earlier versions have the stray output bug.

Sealed Block Signature Bug Fix ✅¶

Fixed a bug where sealed blocks always failed verification with "has no registered signature".

Root cause: seal.py prints "Paste this into your project" but the SEALED_SIGNATURES constant was never actually added to interpreter.py. The __init__ method initialized self.sealed_signatures = {} — an empty dict — so verify_sealed_block immediately raised because "ethics_core" not in {}.

Fix: Added SEALED_SIGNATURES as a module-level constant in interpreter.py and changed __init__ to use it instead of an empty dict.

Stage 1 — Terse/NCI Integration ✅¶

The Terse interpreter is now a live dependency of NCI running in production on Oracle.

What was built:

lib/terse/ created in NCI — lexer, parser, interpreter, errors copied in
terse_loader.py — reads a .trs file, extracts deny rules, returns [(keyword, reason)]
rules/ethics_rules.trs — 5 production ethics rules written in Terse
SafetyProfile in ethics.py gains block_reasons: dict — Oracle now explains why it refused, using the reason string from the .trs file
Deployed to Oracle, rehashed, confirmed healthy with 5 rules in startup logs

The rules file:

ethics rule no_manipulation
  when intent is manipulation
  then deny with reason: "Absolute limit"

ethics rule no_exploitation
  when intent is exploitation
  then deny with reason: "Absolute limit"

ethics rule no_coercion
  when intent is coercion
  then deny with reason: "Absolute limit"

ethics rule no_surveillance
  when intent is surveillance
  when consent is absent
  then deny with reason: "Absolute limit"

ethics rule no_deception
  when intent is deception
  when target is vulnerable
  then deny with reason: "Absolute limit"

Confirmed working: A Terse rule fired in production at confidence 1.0 with the exact reason string from the .trs file.

Design Decisions Made This Session¶

with and reason are now keywords — prevents relationship handler from consuming them before the ethics parser
SEALED_SIGNATURES must be explicitly populated — seal.py generates it, developer must paste it into interpreter.py. The empty dict default was the bug.
Terse interpreter is a live NCI dependency — any breaking changes to lexer, parser, interpreter, or errors must be flagged for NCI sync at lib/terse/
custom_blocks + block_reasons pattern — Terse rules load into SafetyProfile as keyword/reason pairs. Fast pre-check layer, not a replacement for semantic reasoning. Synonym gaps are handled by Layers 0, 4, 5 (Ollama + NCI brain)
Stage 1 integration complete — Terse as NCI's declaration layer. Stage 2 begins after Phase 3 LLVM is complete.

Integration Architecture¶

rules/ethics_rules.trs          <- written in Terse
        |
terse_loader.py                 <- reads .trs, extracts deny rules
        |
SafetyProfile.custom_blocks     <- keyword list
SafetyProfile.block_reasons     <- keyword -> reason string
        |
EthicsEngine._check_profile()   <- Layer 4, fast string match
        |
Oracle response                 <- includes reason from .trs file

Next Session Goals¶

Begin Phase 3 — LLVM emitter architecture planning
Add float/numeric support — resonance scores need real floats, prerequisite for deeper NCI integration
Future: pyproject.toml so NCI can import Terse as a proper package instead of file copy

Project	Status
NCI	Session 31+ — Stage 1 Terse integration live on Oracle
Terse	Phase 2.5 complete — first native binary