In development, in the open
An operating system built on stock Linux and the Felix log.
Nothing boots yet. I'm building NineLives so that the memory of a whole cluster is a log, and so that when a machine dies its programs can carry on somewhere else, from the last record they handled.
What it is meant to be
The design is that every change to the system will be a durable, ordered record in Felix: what should run, where it runs, what each program received and what it produced. A program's state is a fold over those records, so any machine can rebuild it. That is where the name comes from.
Linux is meant to keep handling drivers, memory and local processes. NineLives is for what Linux can't do across machines.
Failover
The goal: a dead machine's programs continue elsewhere, without lost or repeated work.
Time travel
The goal: rebuild any program as it was at any moment, then step forward one record at a time.
An audit trail
The goal: every decision the system makes is on the record, in order.
The kernel is stock Linux, on purpose. Here is why.
Where it is
Design stage. Nothing boots yet. The plan is written down and the first milestone is next. Updated 2026-10-28.
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M0
Boots in a VM
Next -
M1
Joins a cluster
Planned -
M2
Survives losing a machine
Planned -
M3
Atomic upgrades
Planned -
M4
System programs on the log
Planned -
M5
Real hardware and clouds
Planned
Follow along
The work happens in the open. Read it, argue with it, or pick up an issue.