Files
Sylpheed/tools/re-capture
Sylpheed RE agent 70cff9ca21 re: the 147 ISL built-ins characterised; Stage 02 gates on units, not counts
Table at 0x8227226C is 147 big-endian absolute VAs (verified structurally: it
ends exactly where the first handler begins, all targets inside sub_82272220).
Arguments are not in the instruction -- every handler does c_str() on
[phase+20], a packed blob, which is what the local[] staging fills. Return 2 =
yield; five built-ins block by skipping the pc advance.

Recovered the ScriptPhase state layout: 32-entry float and flag register files,
int/double result registers, the timer block, and the runtime unit array at
+324 indexed by symbol-table-2 index -- a direct hook from bytecode call sites
to the two .ssb symbol tables.

Spot-checked two claims against the disassembly rather than trusting them: id 4
loads a DOUBLE into the thread countdown and returns 2 (wait_s), and id 24 reads
current/initial squadron member counts (squad_survival_pct). Both exact.

Counting Stage02.ssb: unit_state 255, hp_pct_test 167, dist_lt 92, unit_alive
71, unit_relation 52 -- and squad_survival_pct, group_ratio_pct and the two
global counters are NOT called at all. So Stage 02's phases are gated on named
units (destroyed / HP / proximity), never on an aggregate count, even though the
kill-counter primitives exist in the VM. That answers the standing 'next wave
after N kills or after an event?' question for this stage: specific units, not a
number.

isl.py now names the built-ins, so the run-up to the first END_PHASE reads
wait_cmds_drained / fade_sound(3) / builtin85(3) / wait_s(3) / END_PHASE.

Not settled: 3 handlers unresolved (55, 75, 105); the 1024-slot interpreter
command table is only partly recovered.
2026-08-25 12:36:02 +00:00
..

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wait_title.sh Older variant: wait for the title (green Ⓐ glyph at px 625,618) and tap A. Superseded by skip_intro.sh.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 OB steps 4 → 8 → 12 inside 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.