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Linux Systems Field Manual

Full Dossier Standard

Imported from _research/manual-study-linux/full-dossier-standard.md.

Full Dossier Standard

This dossier is not complete when a subsystem has a scaffold page. A subsystem volume is complete only when it teaches enough implementation detail to design a clean-room Rust equivalent without copying Linux source.

Definition Of Done For Each Volume

Each subsystem volume must include:

  1. Source surface: the main C/Rust/header files and relevant Documentation/** files.
  2. Entry points: where external requests enter the subsystem.
  3. Core data structures: objects, ownership, reference counts, locks, trees, lists, per-CPU state, and lifetime rules.
  4. Main control flows: creation, lookup, hot path, slow path, teardown, error handling, and retry behavior.
  5. Concurrency model: locks, RCU, memory barriers, atomic state, and what can sleep.
  6. Resource model: allocation, accounting, quotas, reclaim, throttling, and failure modes.
  7. Extension points: operation tables, callbacks, subsystem registration, and policy hooks.
  8. Rust translation: types, traits, guards, ownership states, unsafe boundaries, and APIs that preserve the Linux contract without copying code.
  9. AI-native translation: how the subsystem shape informs agent/runtime design.
  10. Evidence: source-note links with exact Linux file and line references.

True-Full Completion State

The previous broad dossier is now a foundation, not a completion claim. A page or source note is not enough. A volume reaches true-full status only when its core ledger rows are verified.

The strict ledger uses these states:

  • planned: source exists in the inventory but has not been source-noted.
  • reading: active source reading in progress.
  • source-noted: source note exists, but chapter synthesis is incomplete.
  • chapter-integrated: source evidence has been integrated into a chapter.
  • verified: source note and chapter both pass the true-full checklist.

Rows marked core are required for true-full completion. Rows marked supporting or representative improve completeness but do not claim to cover every driver or every architecture implementation.

Minimum Quality Bar

Each source note must answer:

  • What does this file implement?
  • What are the primary structs/functions?
  • What are the hot paths?
  • What locks or lifetime rules make it safe?
  • What should a Rust equivalent preserve?
  • What should an AI-native system learn from it?

Rows in progress-ledger.csv should remain below verified until the corresponding source note has real evidence and the chapter includes the full implementation walkthrough.