1. A different hash family. The corpus knows three (idxd-tag-hash.md): name_hash, tag_hash, ixud_hash. Scoring all 5977 harvested names x 6 prefixes: GP_TITLE 8/16 and GP_PAUSE_MENU 6/11 under name_hash (the positive controls), and tag_hash and ixud_hash explain NOTHING anywhere -- including the paks name_hash does explain. So they are not the TOC function, and the unnameable pair is not keyed by a different one. GP_MAIN_GAME_E2D stays at 0/711 under all three. 2. The executable. sylpheed.db's strings table holds 7140 rows, of which exactly two look like asset paths -- Data\gmicon002_2.t32 and Data\gmicon006_2.t32, in a Data\ directory nothing else on the disc uses -- and neither resolves in any archive. The binary is not the name source; it holds two strays and no table. 3. Name transformations -- 13 of them on the 419 config paths, all 0. The container runs out here. Those TOC keys hash names that exist on neither the disc nor the executable in readable form. The only lever left is a dictionary attack using name_hash's shape (top byte = the character-sum checksum), and that needs a plausible name corpus this disc does not contain. Noted as blocked rather than improvised around. The port does not need these names: sprites and bundles are readable by content (T8aD, RATC), and the config records already say which asset each HUD element uses. Only the archive-key to name mapping is missing. Artefact +22 lines / 0 deletions; the other eight regenerate byte-identical.
Runtime-capture harness (sylph-re container)
Screenshot-driven scripts for reading the running retail game's menus under Xenia
Canary + lavapipe, headless. They assume the container helpers screenshot,
vgamepad, pad are on $PATH and HOME=/sylph-home/re.
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
skip_intro.sh |
Boot → main menu, unattended. Taps A only while the intro movie is actually playing (frame-to-frame RMSE), then once at the PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON title. Static logo screens are left alone, so a stray tap can never land on NEW GAME. |
wait_title.sh |
Older variant: wait for the title (green Ⓐ glyph at px 625,618) and tap A. Superseded by skip_intro.sh. |
step.sh |
One Arsenal navigation step (down/up/next/prev/none) + a compact capture: weapon list stacked over the DATA SHEET. |
sweep.sh |
Walk a whole weapon-type list, capturing only rows that show a DATA SHEET — locked rows (a "Conditions to Develop" panel) are detected by the brightness of the Range Class label box and skipped. |
type.sh |
Change weapon-type tab N times (RB) and report the header strip. |
hp.sh / cyc.sh |
Hangar hard-point carousel: cyc.sh steps it (d-pad down, not left/right) and captures the Name + DATA SHEET. |
Input timing under lavapipe: the game polls input at its own low frame rate, so a 60 ms d-pad tap is dropped roughly half the time. 200 ms is reliable; 300 ms starts to auto-repeat (two rows per press).
Findings produced with these: docs/re/weapon-datasheet-runtime.md.
Guest-memory tools (no screenshots)
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
gmem.py |
Read the live guest address space out of /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* (Xenia's backing file), addressed by guest VA. find / read / words. |
weapon_runtime.py |
Solve the Weapon/Shell struct layouts against the disc records and read the fields the disc defaults. |
unit_discover.py |
Find which runtime class carries a set of ID strings, assuming no vtable: tallies the word at pointer_site - k across distinct IDs. |
unit_runtime.py |
Same solver for the unit\UN_*.tbl definition objects (vtable 0x820af844). Unions several snapshots — unit definitions are per-stage. |
schema_order.py |
Merge a sub-record's field-declaration order across all tables (topological sort); the layout check that pins fields no table ever values. |
order_check.py |
Test offset = base + 4*index for one table's sub-record against solver output. |
grab_tutorial.sh |
Cold-boot Canary, walk to the Nth TUTORIAL entry, wait for the stage load, snapshot guest RAM. One emulator per capture — backing out of a loaded mission wedges it. |
Snapshot first — cp --sparse=always /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* snap.bin (~2 s) — and
point $GMEM_FILE at the copy; the running emulator pegs every core under lavapipe.
🔴 pgrep -f / pkill -f match YOUR OWN shell
An agent driving this toolkit runs its commands through a wrapper shell whose command line contains the pattern being searched for. So
pgrep -f 'pilot\.py' # matches the wrapper running this very command
pkill -f 'fly_session|pilot\.py' # kills that wrapper — the script dies mid-way
This has cost four separate mistakes in one session: two scripts killed
mid-execution, and twice a "is it already running?" guard that answered yes
because it had found itself. The [p]ilot bracket trick does not help when
the literal invocation (python3 pilot.py …) also appears on the wrapper's
command line.
What works:
pgrep -x xenia_canary # exact NAME match, no -f
ps -eo pid,args | grep 'python3 pilot.py' | grep -v snapshot-bash
kill -9 <explicit pid> # look it up first, then kill by pid
The snapshot-bash filter is the reliable tell: the wrapper's command line
always contains the shell-snapshot path.
🔴 The emulator does not survive the end of an agent turn
/work/.claude/settings.json defines a Stop hook that kill -9s every
xenia_canary when a turn ends, printing "Stop hook killed N stale xenia
process(es)".
So:
- never launch a run intending to read it in a later turn — it will be dead;
- an experiment has to produce its evidence within the turn that starts it;
- prefer measurements that land in the first minutes of flight.
REMAINING OBsteps4 → 8 → 12inside the first few minutes, which is why a two-pass differential works in one turn while a 25-minute freeze watch does not.
This cost three iterations of investigating a "mysterious external SIGKILL", complete with cgroup and host memory forensics, before the hook was found. When a process dies at a session boundary, check the harness first.