---
version: 0.29.0
date: 2026-06-20
headline: "First-class agentic-contributor on-ramp, a re-greened trunk, and ~50 commits of bench/serving/model work."
themes:
  - "contributing"
  - "extending"
  - "tools"
  - "webbench"
  - "benchmark"
  - "metalgemm"
  - "causalbench"
  - "watchdog"
highlights:
  - "New fak/EXTENDING.md: the researcher/team golden path to build a subsystem optimization."
  - "New tools/extend_preflight.py: one-command readiness gate (plug in, prove correct, prove faster)."
  - "CONTRIBUTING.md fixed: stay-on-master + ship-stamp, drops the OFF_TRUNK branch misdirect."
  - "Trunk re-greened: webbench browser package split into its own directory."
  - "metalgemm tiled q4_k prefill GEMM and causal invalidation-on-external-write witness."
---

**TL;DR** — This release makes agentic and research contributors first-class: a task-first
extension on-ramp (`fak/EXTENDING.md`), a one-command readiness check
(`tools/extend_preflight.py`), and a corrected front-door contribution doc — on top of ~50
commits of accumulated benchmark, serving, model, and infrastructure work. It also re-greens
the module build, which had stopped compiling fleet-wide.

## Contributor & extension experience

- **`fak/EXTENDING.md` — "Build your optimization on fak."** The missing on-ramp for a
  researcher or team that wants to make a subsystem faster or smarter without forking the
  core: pick your registration seam (`compute.Register` for device/quant kernels, the
  `abi.Register*` family for rungs/engines/cache/verdicts), prove it correct with a
  deterministic witness (the typed Reference `max|delta|=0` vs Approx argmax-exact+cosine
  contract), prove it faster with the non-forgeable keep-bit (`cmd/rsicycle` /
  `shipgate.Evaluate`), then ship it.
- **`tools/extend_preflight.py` — readiness in one command.** Verifies the git guards,
  stay-on-master state, ship-stamp convention, and all three gate entry points, then prints
  the golden path. `--json` for an agent tool to parse. Makes EXTENDING.md runnable, not just
  readable.
  - *Why:* agentic contributors are first-class here, so "am I set up correctly?" should be a
    command, not tribal knowledge spread across five docs.
- **`CONTRIBUTING.md` front-door fix.** Replaced the "branch first if you're on master"
  instruction — which contradicts the operator law and is refused by the trunk guard
  (`OFF_TRUNK`) — with the stay-on-master flow plus the `(fak <leaf>)` ship-stamp trailer the
  DOS verify-referee binds. Discoverability pointers added from the README and
  `fak/ARCHITECTURE.md`.

## Build & benchmark

- **Re-greened the trunk** — `internal/webbench/browser.go` (`package browser`) had been
  committed into the `webbench` package directory, which Go forbids, so the whole module
  stopped compiling. Relocated it to its own `internal/webbench/browser/` package and dropped
  three unused imports; `go build ./...` and `go vet` are green again.
- **metalgemm** — tiled q4_k prefill GEMM that reads each weight once and reuses it across the
  token tile; SIMD-reduction q4_k GEMV.
- **causalbench** — a reproducible causal invalidation-on-external-write witness, bound to the
  benchmark authority.
- **Plus** accumulated work across dgx serving, the model ladder (qwen36), the architest
  self-modify gate (#172 Hole 1), the DOS Python supervisor watchdog, and fleet-lease
  transport.

> Note: GitHub Actions CI is billing-blocked (pre-public-launch), so this tag was cut on a
> green *local* witness — `go build`/`go vet`, the release-substrate suite
> (`release_dry_run.py --json HEAD`), and `extend_preflight` — per the
> default-release-on-local-green operator law.
