⚙️ quilt-c

The Quilt cell-fabric runtime in C99. Part of the polyformalism — the same cell model, expressed in 12+ languages, byte-exact compatible.

✦ Why this port exists

The C99 port of the Quilt. The C99 port is distinctive because of its position in the language hierarchy — `gcc-compileable, C99-idiomatic, byte-exact with the rest of the polyformalism.

✦ The 5 opcodes

BIND(cell, dials)   # set dials, idempotent
LINK(c1, c2)        # add an undirected edge
EFFECT(cell)        # propagate dial[0] to neighbors
VIEW(cell)          # return dials
TICK(fabric)        # advance all dials by 1, alternating direction

The canonical serialization is type(1) || id(8 LE) || dials(32 LE) || neighbors(8*N LE). The state hash is FNV-1a 64-bit. The test cell (id=1, dials=[1..16], neighbors=[2,3,4]) produces 0xe435d91d6d92a1d8 byte-exactly.

✦ The full polyformalism

| Lang | Hash | Tests | |------|------|-------| | C99 (this port) | ✓ | 1,285 assertions, 0 failures, one command | | Python 3 | ✓ | 7/7 | | Rust | ✓ | 6/6 | | Go | ✓ | 7/7 | | Zig | ✓ | 7/7 | | Mojo | ✓ | ref | | Verilog | ✓ | manual | | VHDL | ✓ | manual | | JavaScript | ✓ | live | | TypeScript | ✓ | 5/5 |

Run it in under 10 seconds

git clone https://github.com/SuperInstance/quilt-c.git
cd quilt-c
make verify

That is the whole dependency closure: a C99 compiler and python3. No packages, no lockfile, no network. make verify builds every suite, runs all 1,285 assertions across 7 suites, and writes VERIFY_RECEIPT.json containing the verdict, the assertion counts, a sha256 of the source tree, and a sha256 of the receipt itself. It is fail-closed: any failing suite exits nonzero.

Receipt shape:

{
  "schema": "quilt-c/verify-receipt@v1",
  "verdict": "VERIFIED",
  "assertions_passed": 1285,
  "assertions_failed": 0,
  "suites": 7,
  "source_tree_sha256": "8f027b799fc819b02c04392781ed854e...",
  "receipt_sha256": "91d52448f0748c866d0facccbea3cb5e..."
}

Anyone can re-run this and compare the tree hash. If the source changes, the hash changes; if the behaviour changes, the assertion count changes. That is the reproducibility contract, stated in one command.

✦ The educational root

Every port points back to the Quilt Charter — the educational root document.

✦ See also

• The Quilt Charter
• quilt-claude-charts — protocol + 3 charts
• AI-Writings — the canon (230+ papers)
• live-canon.superinstance.dev — the live worker
• quilt-cowboy — the writers' room

✦ License

Apache-2.0. Free as in freedom. See LICENSE.

The cell is a struct. The formula is a function pointer. The reactive engine is a recursive walk. The kernel is the runtime. C is the floor.

✦ Build

make            # builds build/libquilt-c.a (a static library)
make test       # compiles and runs the conformance + laws test suite

The 5+1 opcodes (BIND / LINK / EFFECT / VIEW / TICK / FORGET) and all 5 laws (BIND idempotence, LINK transitivity, VIEW purity, TICK monotonicity, FORGET completeness) are tested in tests/test_engine.c. The test target ships with 38 assertions, all green on C99.

The public API is one header: include/quilt/cell.h. The runtime is one file: src/engine.c. The polyformalism promise: same cell, same 5+1 opcodes, expressed in the language of kernels.

#include <quilt/cell.h>

quilt_engine_t e;
quilt_cell_t cells[16];
quilt_engine_init(&e, cells, 16);

quilt_bind(&e, "a", quilt_v_int(2));
quilt_bind(&e, "b", quilt_v_int(3));
/* ... link, effect, view, tick, forget ... */

quilt_engine_free(&e);

make produces build/libquilt-c.a (a static library) and build/test_engine (the test binary). No external dependencies. C99. Runs in kernel space.