Because the universe of "no-op" candidates is huge and most of them
aren't no-ops. A for i in 1..1e9 loop that increments and decrements
a counter looks like a no-op until you notice it heats the CPU. Formal
verification draws the line: a program is a CNO iff a machine-checkable
proof says so, in a model that captures the side-effects you care about
(state, I/O, and entropy).
Each catches what the others miss. A property proved in Coq + Lean + Agda + Isabelle + Mizar + Z3 doesn't depend on any single backend's foundational quirks. When something is provable only in some, that tells you something about the foundational dependency. See Proof Systems.
src/abi/ is the FFI surface, not a proof system in its own right —
it carries formal alignment + size proofs for the C ABI used by the
Zig shim. See ABI.
- Axiom (Coq) /
axiom(Lean) /believe_me ()(Idris2 0.8.0): an asserted proposition. Permanent unless discharged. - Admitted (Coq) /
sorry(Lean) /?hole(Idris2): a placeholder in a proof, marking incomplete work. Should not ship.
absolute-zero core: 0 Admitted, 73 Axioms + 42 Parameters, all owner-classified.
Deleted 2026-05-25 per the strict CLAUDE.md language policy. See Contributing. The CNO concept generalises across languages; the demonstrations now cover the 23 still-allowed ones.
hyperpolymath/absolute-zero/issues. For audit / trust-escape findings,
use the existing AUDIT.adoc issue template; for
proof discharges, the regular issue template + an ADR plan.
Through the echidna-llm-mcp BoJ cartridge — never directly. See the
ECHIDNA tool table in 0-AI-MANIFEST.a2ml.
Core theory: yes (11/11 files compile, 0 Admitted). Model-layer assumptions (Parameters about abstract physics, quantum, POSIX) are owner-classified — these are intended axiomatisations of the external world, not gaps in the verification of the computational claim.
.machine_readable/6a2/STATE.a2ml. Updated on every meaningful change.
The thermodynamic analogy: at 0 K, a system has no entropy to release. A CNO is a program at "computational absolute zero" — it has no side-effect entropy to release into the world.