A machine-session environment that turns the Field Horizon workstation into an instrument: corpus, cycles, engine commands and local inference exposed through a severe operator shell.
Mission profile
- Run safely as a windowed hosted session before claiming the machine console.
- Expose real Field Horizon command grammar rather than a decorative pseudo-terminal.
- Operate as a systemd appliance session on tty1 with a documented recovery path.
- Keep the existing desktop installed and reversible.
- Provide a QEMU direct-boot profile for sealed demonstrations while the installed appliance remains the GPU inference path.
Architecture
Verified state
What exists and has been exercised at the time of writing.
- R0.2, named Native Covenant, is dated 10 August 2026 and targets Field Horizon 3.2.
- The release manifest records fourteen passing tests.
- The integration contract is threefold: an authenticated loopback API, the native command-line interface, and a read-only SQLite fallback for offline observability.
- Six chambers are exposed: nave, corpus, cycles, conflicts, provenance and machine.
- Cycles report four real verdict classes: canon, useful fragment, heresy and noise.
- R0.2 replaced guessed command semantics with the exact grammar of the real repository.
- NOEMA can start the engine server itself, and tracks and stops only the process it spawned; an external backend is never adopted or killed.
- Four deployment profiles exist: hosted session, installed appliance, direct-boot bundle and ISO builder.
- The appliance profile claims tty1 while the ordinary desktop stays installed and reachable from another virtual terminal.
Stated limits
What this project is not, written here so nobody has to discover it later.
- R0.2 is a handoff release. It is not a certified product and carries no hardware compatibility claim beyond the workstation it was built for.
- The test count covers the delivery contract, not every runtime path an appliance can meet.
- The direct-boot profile is for sealed demonstration; the installed appliance remains the path with real local inference.
- Field Horizon itself is a separate project with its own open work, and NOEMA inherits its state.
- At build time the repository push was not performed from the local checkout, so alignment was verified through the connector rather than a local remote.
Hosted first
NOEMA begins in a windowed host mode. The operator can inspect status, engine help, corpus seeks and machine views before any attempt to own tty1.
Appliance, not replacement
The installed profile claims tty1 while leaving the ordinary desktop installed and reachable from another virtual terminal. Disable NOEMA and re-enable getty to recover the standard machine session.
Exhibition profile
A QEMU direct-boot build provides a sealed environment for demos, interface work and corpus inspection. The installed appliance remains the appropriate path for high-end local inference and the existing model store.