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LayerCake concepts

LayerCake separates model execution, capability packaging, acquisition, and scientific evidence. Keeping these terms distinct prevents most integration mistakes.

Core vocabulary

Term Meaning Not the same as
Execution host Runtime code that validates artifacts, maintains state, invokes the core or selected cakes, and returns UTF-8 output. A trained English model or an acquisition system.
English core The model artifact responsible for domain-independent language behavior in a deployment. The Python, SQL, or other specialist cakes.
Cake An immutable capability package containing declarative metadata and closed-schema tensor payloads. Executable plug-in code, a prompt template, or a claim of quality.
Cake ABI The versioned structural and behavioral contract between a host and a cake. ABI's foreign-teacher extraction research.
Registry Local content-addressed storage plus the active installed-version records. A remote download service.
Catalog Declarative records describing packages that may be discovered. Proof that a package is installed, authenticated, or useful.
Router A policy or model that selects eligible installed cakes for a request. A mechanism allowed to bypass package authentication.
Orchestrator Coordinates core-only, selected-cake, top-k, or structured multidomain execution. Latent neural fusion unless that mode is separately implemented and certified.
Acquisition Producing a capability artifact through training, extraction, or another process. Hosting or installing the resulting artifact.
Evidence lineage Exact code, data, artifact, runtime, hardware, observations, and verifier identities supporting a claim. A filename, branch label, or manually written status.

Package identity versus behavior

LayerCake treats these as separate questions:

  1. Package identity: are the archive, manifest, and tensor bytes exactly the authenticated bytes expected by the host?
  2. Compatibility: does the package declare the ABI, precision, backend, and required features this host supports?
  3. Semantic behavior: does the installed package retain its intended capability on a frozen functional suite?
  4. Performance: does that same artifact meet latency, memory, and throughput gates on the declared hardware?

Passing one question does not imply the others.

LayerCake and ABI

The repositories share a handoff boundary, not an implementation tree:

foreign source model
  -> ABI extraction, labeling, minimization, and artifact validation
  -> immutable external capability artifact
  -> LayerCake compatibility and conformance checks
  -> signed cake/core package
  -> LayerCake installation, routing, and execution

LayerCake contains no foreign-teacher extraction implementation or evidence. An artifact produced elsewhere earns no LayerCake quality or performance claim until the exact final artifact is tested on the exact host lineage.

Sealed release versus current development

The tag layercake-moonshot-final is the frozen scientific release. The default branch contains later host constructs and deliberately does not inherit the tag's affected certificates. This distinction is explained in Project status.