inputd

inputd is the normalized input routing service.

EriX is a clean-room, capability-based microkernel operating system written entirely in Rust.

Technical requirements are tracked in the EriX requirements, conventions, and project documentation.

See:

• docs for design documents, specifications, and development plans.
• Related architecture repositories for kernel, services, libraries, drivers, and integration tooling.

Purpose of This Repository

This repository implements the EriX input service daemon. Its purpose in EriX is to provide the input service role through explicit IPC and startup authority.

Functionally, it implements the daemon runtime, state model, IPC handling, and validation tests. The repository keeps the implementation, interface contracts, tests, and documentation for that behavior in one reviewable ownership boundary.

The maintained responsibilities are:

• implement the input service runtime and state model
• validate startup authority before accepting IPC requests
• self-register in named through the explicit startup-delegated discovery endpoint after reporting startup ready and before entering the service loop
• handle bounded service operations through the assigned endpoint set
• keep service behavior, tests, and authority invariants documented

Clean-Room Policy

EriX follows a strict clean-room philosophy:

• No external source code may be copied.
• No external Rust crates are allowed.
• No code generation tools that embed third-party code.
• All code must be authored within the project.

Violations will result in rejection of the contribution.

License

All EriX repositories are licensed under the ISC License.

Development Model

EriX development is modular, deterministic, reproducible, authority-explicit, security-first, and self-hosting oriented.

This repository follows the project roadmap and the validation rules documented in its own roadmap.

Feature flags

• inputd-runtime
• inputd-runtime-phase3-input
• compatibility aliases:
  • inputd-integration-smoke
  • inputd-integration-phase3-input
• inputd-integration-force-fail

Build and test

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --all-targets --all-features

Dependencies

• lib-bootstrap
• lib-capabi
• lib-ipc
• lib-service
• ipc-syscall-x86_64

No third-party crates are used.

Framebuffer console projection marks each direct fbcond write as a complete logical record with the explicit record-end flag; it does not infer record boundaries from packet length or color bits.

The startup contract logic now lives in src/startup.rs, keeping the main event-loop implementation in src/main.rs below 1 kLoC.

Dynamic Boot Artifact Evidence

Phase 5.4.37 documents inputd as a dynamic boot artifact. The image build packages the input router service as an ELF64 x86_64 ET_DYN executable with .erix_dynlink metadata in the signed dynlink-store and mirrors it under /lib/erix/dynlink with its required shared objects.

Startup remains rootd through procd staged dynamic creation before dynlinkd. Authority remains explicit: inputd receives a delegated named endpoint for post-ready self-registration and late console-sink lookup plus its documented deviced/provider and console/serial peers. Dynamic packaging and filesystem mirror records are evidence and launch inputs only; they do not grant filesystem, loader, object-store, provider-bypass, block-device, or dynlinkd authority.

Governance Principles

inputd governance is scoped to input event aggregation and dispatch.

The scoped governance rules are:

• It accepts input events only from authorized driver/provider endpoints.
• It keeps event queues bounded and preserves ordering expected by consumers.
• It separates input routing policy from device-specific driver behavior.
• It does not manage driver processes or hardware ownership.

Authority Boundaries

• inputd operates only through startup-assigned service capabilities.
• inputd publishes its own named entry only through the startup-delegated named endpoint and its assigned service endpoint, after startup readiness has been acknowledged.
• New authority must be represented in bootstrap/capability validation and integration tests before use.

Contact

Development occurs in EriX organization and discussions happen in issues and design documents.

No decisions are considered valid without documented rationale.

Maintainers can be reached via email: admin@erikinkinen.fi.