Architecture

Architecture

Zinc has three boundaries.

Circuitry

Circuitry owns the reusable shape:

circuitry
name
about
in
out
$value references

It defines value flow. It does not know packages, surfaces, runtime config, packet limits, or history.

Zinc

Zinc owns environment-native execution:

shape loading
package records
surface resolution
process invocation
YAML request construction
YAML field routing
runtime.parallel
packet limits
run history
package install/update
binary update

Zinc runs only explicit surface entries.

Packages

Packages own extension behavior:

surfaces
software
settings
policy
prompts
docs
orchestration
relationship semantics

A package surface receives YAML and returns YAML.

Execution flow

shape file
  -> Circuitry parse
  -> Zinc ready-wave executor
  -> package surface request
  -> package surface response
  -> active run values
  -> runs / steps / packets

Markdown files enter the same path after Zinc extracts YAML front matter.