docs(readme): state the documentation goal

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2026-09-21 18:35:27 +02:00
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@@ -157,6 +157,38 @@ been compiled and read, never executed. Its architecture-neutral units
run under `go test ./...`, which the race workflow and a manual run
perform; the default `just test` gate does not sweep `./debug/...`.
## The documentation goal
The toolkit is the primary goal. The secondary one is documentation: a
specification of the Plan 9 assembly language and of the GOOBJ object
format that is 100 % complete, detailed enough to implement against,
and written to a professional standard. These are the two subjects this
project works with every day, and they are the two for which no usable
documentation exists.
Go documents the language on a single page, "A Quick Guide to Go's
Assembler", which carries no section for loong64, one of the four
architectures gasm supports, and covers a fraction of what each
assembler accepts. What exists beyond it lives as comments inside the
toolchain's internal source: per-architecture reference manuals for
arm64, ppc64, riscv64 and loong64, written for the toolchain's own
maintainers rather than for an outside reader, and none at all for
amd64. GOOBJ fares worst of all. The format that `go build` consumes
has no specification anywhere: it is described by a comment in an
internal package, it is not a stable interface, and it can change with
any toolchain release.
The gap is therefore filled the only way it can be filled: by reverse
engineering the toolchain itself, the same work the encoders already
perform. Most of the documentation can come from nowhere else, and it
is written as that knowledge is produced during development. It is
verified the way the code is verified: an encoding documented here is
one that differential tests against `go tool asm` confirm
byte-for-byte, and a format field documented here is one the linker
demonstrably reads. The result will live in this repository, so that
Plan 9 assembly finally carries a reference its own tooling is built
against.
## Direction
The plan, in the order it is being worked: