System Architecture Specification (SDS)

Document reference: GFTCL-SDS-001 · Framework: GAMP 5 Category 5 · EU Annex 11

Verified by: IQ — Installation Qualification

FortressAI Research Institute · Norwich, Connecticut

Patents: USPTO 19/460,960 · USPTO 19/096,071 — © 2026 Richard Gillespie

This specification describes the design of the GaiaFTCL vQbit Quantum VM: its

components, boundaries, data flows, and persistence. It is the "left arm" of the

V-model verified by IQ.

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1. System context

The system is a single bespoke macOS application, Franklin.app, distributed as a

code-signed, notarized DMG and run on operator-controlled Apple Silicon hardware. It

has no external runtime dependencies — pure Swift 6.2 / Swift Package Manager. It is a

sovereign, self-contained system: the operator configures bounded authority once, and

the substrate operates autonomously through Franklin's heartbeat.

2. Component architecture

Franklin is the cell's only public interface. All load-bearing call sites route

through FranklinCellSurface. Subsystems are internal implementation detail.

Franklin.app  (single sovereign entry point)
├── Franklin            sovereign orchestrator + cell surface (FranklinCellSurface)
├── VQbitVM             vQbit virtual machine — M⁸ measurement engine (child process)
├── FranklinConsciousnessService   awakening + heartbeat service (child process)
├── VQbit module        compute boundary — owns Metal / Accelerate
├── Substrate store     append-only SQLite (GRDB), federation-cosigned rows
└── Embedded NATS bus   127.0.0.1:4222 — internal subsystem messaging

The 19 C⁴-rail algorithms (QC-001…QC-019) plus QC-020/QC-021 are recipes composed

inside the vQbit VM; they call the VQbit API and never import Metal directly.

3. Data architecture

The system of record is an append-only SQLite database at

~/Library/Application Support/GaiaFTCL/substrate.sqlite. Every table:

• is append-only — BEFORE UPDATE/BEFORE DELETE triggers RAISE(ABORT);
• carries a canonical_witness and witness_hash_sha256 (SHA-256 seal);
• carries a signature_quintet (federation cosignature, five contexts);
• declares a nats_subject_sealed broadcast subject.

Schema versions and their columns are catalogued, generated from source, in the

Substrate Schema Catalog. Exact-rational (IntRational)

representation is used throughout substrate arithmetic; floating-point amounts are

refused at the column level.

4. Interfaces

The CLI is a comms projection ingestion surface (Klein-bottle topology): operator

messages enter Franklin through projection; there is no direct function-call into

Franklin internals.

5. Host-aware capacity

At startup the substrate detects host resources (hw.memsize, Metal working set,

Apple-silicon generation) and allocates per-algorithm cell capacity proportional to

the host — 5% of unified memory ÷ 64 B/cell ÷ 21 algorithms, rounded to a power of

two, clamped to [1024, 1,048,576]. The measurement-correctness invariants hold

identically at any allocation.

6. Constitutional floor

Predicates C-007 (no military aggression), C-008 (no planetary harm), C-009 (Entropy

License compliance), C-010 (substrate stress under capacity) are evaluated per

measurement and recorded in V174 substrate_constitutional_evaluations. The substrate

refuses any operation that breaches the floor.

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*Cross-references: User Requirements ·

Functional Specification ·

Configuration Specification ·

Franklin as the Cell's Surface.*

*Federation cosignature: pending — gaiaftcl wiki sign --section GAMP5.*