Bake TLV Spec v0.2

Binary format for baking neuromorphic personalities

📐 General Rules

Rule	Description
Endianness	Little-endian
TLV Padding	0, value alignment to 4-byte boundary
CRC32	IEEE (zlib/crc32) over all bytes from offset 0 to start of TLV_CRC32

📋 Header (28 bytes)

BakeBlobHeader

Offset	Field	Type	Value
0	magic	char[4]	"D8BK"
4	ver_major	u16	2
6	ver_minor	u16	0
8	flags	u32	BAKE_FLAG_DOUBLE_STRAIT (bit0)
12	total_len	u32	Full blob size
16	bake_id	u32	Bake ID
20	profile_id	u32	Profile ID
24	reserved0	u32	0

Header Flags

Bit	Flag	Description
bit0	BAKE_FLAG_DOUBLE_STRAIT	Conductor does double pour on each incoming chord

🧩 TLV Header (8 bytes)

Offset	Field	Type
0	type	u16
2	tflags	u16
4	len	u32

📦 TLV Type Map v0.2

TLV Type	ID	Required	Description
TLV_TOPOLOGY	0x0100	✅	Array topology
TLV_TILE_PARAMS_V2	0x0121	✅	Tile params (13 bytes/tile)
TLV_TILE_ROUTING_FLAGS16	0x0131	✅	Routing flags
TLV_READOUT_POLICY	0x0140	✅	Readout policy
TLV_RESET_ON_FIRE_MASK16	0x0150	✅	Auto-reset on fire
TLV_TILE_WEIGHTS_PACKED	0x0160	✅	Weights 8×8
TLV_TILE_FIELD_LIMIT	0x0170	❌	Tile limit
TLV_CRC32	0xFFFE	✅	Checksum (last)

1️⃣ TLV_TOPOLOGY (0x0100)

len = 16 bytes

TopologyV0

Offset	Field	Type	Value
0	tile_count	u32	Number of tiles
4	tile_w	u16	Array width
6	tile_h	u16	Array height
8	lanes	u8	8
9	domains	u8	16
10	reserved	u16	0
12	reserved2	u32	0

Invariant

tile_count == tile_w * tile_h

2️⃣ TLV_TILE_PARAMS_V2 (0x0121)

len = tile_count × 13 bytes

TileParamsV2 (13 bytes per tile)

Offset	Field	Type	Description
0	thr_lo16	i16	Lower threshold
2	thr_hi16	i16	Upper threshold
4	decay16	u16	Decay
6	domain_id4	u8	Domain (low nibble)
7	priority8	u8	Priority
8	pattern_id16	u16	Pattern ID
10	flags8	u8	0 (reserved)
11	reserved	u16	0

Invariant

thr_lo16 <= thr_hi16 for each tile

3️⃣ TLV_TILE_ROUTING_FLAGS16 (0x0131)

len = tile_count × 2 bytes

Per Tile

Offset	Field	Type
0	routing_flags16	u16 (LE)

Constraints

reserved bits 10..15 must be 0

4️⃣ TLV_TILE_WEIGHTS_PACKED (0x0160)

len = tile_count × 40 bytes

Structure (40 bytes per tile)

Bytes	Field	Description
0..31	Wmag[8][8]	Magnitudes (64 nibble, 4 bits each)
32..39	Wsign[8][8]	Sign bits (64 bits), LSB-first

SignedWeight5

Bits	Field	Description
0..3	mag4	Magnitude (0..15)
4	sign1	Sign (1="+", 0="−")

5️⃣ TLV_RESET_ON_FIRE_MASK16 (0x0150)

len = tile_count × 2 bytes

Per Tile

Offset	Field	Type
0	reset_mask16	u16

6️⃣ TLV_READOUT_POLICY (0x0140)

len = 12 bytes

ReadoutPolicyV0

Offset	Field	Type	Description
0	mode	u8	0=R0_RAW_BUS, 1=R1_DOMAIN_WINNER_ID32
1	reserved0	u8	0
2	winner_domain_mask	u16	If mode=1
4	settle_ns	u16	Recommendation for hardware
6	reserved1	u16	0
8	reserved2	u32	0

7️⃣ TLV_CRC32 (0xFFFE)

len = 4 bytes

Offset	Field	Type
0	crc32	u32

CRC Calculation

CRC32 IEEE (zlib/crc32)
Over all bytes from offset 0 to start of TLV_CRC32

8️⃣ TLV_TILE_FIELD_LIMIT (0x0170)

len = 4 bytes

Offset	Field	Type
0	tile_field_limit	u32

Value

0 = full kTileCount

✅ Load-time Validation

Bake loader must verify:

1. Header

magic == "D8BK"
ver_major == 2
ver_minor == 0
total_len is correct

2. TLV Presence

All required TLVs are present

3. Strict len

TILE_PARAMS_V2: tile_count * 13
TILE_ROUTING_FLAGS16: tile_count * 2
TILE_WEIGHTS_PACKED: tile_count * 40
RESET_ON_FIRE_MASK16: tile_count * 2

4. CRC32

CRC32 by rule "before TLV_CRC32"

5. Reserved Fields

reserved fields = 0
flags8 == 0
routing reserved bits 10..15 == 0
header.flags may contain only BAKE_FLAG_DOUBLE_STRAIT

6. Invariants

thr_lo16 <= thr_hi16 for each tile
tile_count == tile_w * tile_h

📐 Structure Example

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Header (28 bytes)                  │
│  magic: "D8BK"                      │
│  ver: 2.0                           │
│  total_len: 1234                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_TOPOLOGY (16 bytes)            │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_TILE_PARAMS_V2 (N×13 bytes)    │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_TILE_ROUTING_FLAGS16 (N×2)     │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_TILE_WEIGHTS_PACKED (N×40)     │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_RESET_ON_FIRE_MASK16 (N×2)     │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_READOUT_POLICY (12 bytes)      │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  TLV_CRC32 (4 bytes)                │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Bake the Future. Build the Substrate. 🛠️⚡️