by jodytornado | 2026-02-24 17:23:32+00:00
Show HN: I built a bare-metal OS with an autonomous reasoning engine in no_std Rust
I've been working on this for the last 24 months as a solo developer and wanted to share what I've built and the results we just validated.
What it is: PROTOS is a bare-metal operating system (no Linux, no Windows, no cloud) with an integrated reasoning engine called "EARL" (EPISTEMIC ADAPTIVE REASONING LAYER) that does autonomous multi-source intelligence fusion. Everything runs on a single laptop — no GPU, no network connection required. It's 174K+ lines of no_std Rust across 189 modules, including custom NVMe drivers, a filesystem, a knowledge base, the reasoning engine, autonomous learning systems, and safety controls.
The core problem it solves: Current AI tools (LLMs included) can't explain their reasoning, give different answers to the same question, require cloud connectivity, hallucinate, and can't be audited. For defense and intelligence applications, this is a non-starter — DoD Directive 3000.09 requires that autonomous systems explain every decision with a verifiable audit trail. No existing AI system meets this standard for intelligence analysis.
How it works: EARL uses symbolic reasoning rather than neural networks. It reads raw documents, automatically identifies entities (people, organizations, locations, weapons, financial transactions), discovers hidden connections across sources, learns new concepts from context, and detects when sources contradict each other. Every conclusion is backed by a cryptographically signed (SHA-256) evidence chain. Same inputs always produce the same outputs.
What we just proved: We tested EARL against the buildup to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. We reconstructed 12 intelligence documents spanning satellite imagery analysis, intercepted comms, HUMINT reports, financial intelligence, OSINT, and technical weapons assessments from Oct 2021–Feb 2022.
We defined 10 intelligence connections that Five Eyes agencies actually identified during this period (all verifiable against public sources — Maxar imagery, CRS reports, OSCE data, investigative journalism).
EARL discovered 8 out of 10 autonomously. No training on the scenario, no pre-labeled data, no human guidance. It read raw text, built its own understanding, and independently arrived at conclusions that took the combined intelligence apparatus months to assemble.
The system also correctly enforced safety constraints — connections below the confidence threshold were flagged but blocked from triggering autonomous action, exactly as 3000.09 requires.
Technical details for the curious:

Pure no_std Rust, bare-metal execution
Custom NVMe drivers and filesystem
Symbolic reasoning engine (not neural/statistical)
PMI-based knowledge representation with 15M+ edges
Three-layer cognitive architecture: symbolic reasoning, metacognition, values/constraints
Deterministic — reproducible results on every run
Cryptographic forensics chain for full auditability
Air-gap capable by design

My background: I'm a civil engineer who transitioned into systems programming after retirement. The technology has received preliminary validation from USASOC analysts who described the "reproducible reasoning" capability as disruptive.
We're currently positioned for strategic acquisition and are open to strategic investment for formal DoD certification, team buildout, and field deployment optimization.
Happy to answer technical questions about the architecture, the benchmark methodology, or the bare-metal Rust experience.