version: "1.0.0"

SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 Process Mission

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

name: qemu-register-extraction description: Use to extract a source-cited QEMU register and behavior contract from drivers, datasheets, firmware, device trees, runtime traces, and SVD, IP-XACT, SystemRDL, or vendor regfiles before modeling a hardware block.

QEMU Register Extraction

Audit workflow

For non-trivial workspace writes, use a stable .oh-my-qemu/<task-slug>/ directory and create only needed entries:

.oh-my-qemu/<task-slug>/
├── audit.md      # Baseline, scope, decisions, evidence, verification, and gaps
├── commands.md   # Redacted commands, working directories, and results
├── logs/         # Decisive build, test, runtime, or diagnostic logs
├── scripts/      # Temporary scripts, probes, parsers, and harnesses
└── output/       # Generated deliverables, dependencies, and non-QEMU binaries

Before changing source or mutable artifacts, record the workspace root, revision, git status --short, pre-existing changes, goal, scope, and acceptance checks in audit.md. Log exact redacted commands and results in commands.md; record revisions, configurations, tool versions, and hashes when they affect reproducibility. Separate observations from inferences and edit source only when requested.

Keep QEMU builds under source-root builds/build-<target>/; put third-party dependencies and non-QEMU binaries in task output/. Before writing audit artifacts or configuring QEMU in a Git worktree, add .agents/, .oh-my-qemu/, and builds/ to the repository-local file from git rev-parse --git-path info/exclude; preserve existing entries and avoid duplicates. Never stage or commit those directories. At handoff, verify them absent from git status --short. Report the task directory and unresolved gaps.

QEMU upstream and research boundary

QEMU's official GitLab and mailing lists are upstream project channels. A patch becomes an upstream contribution when sent to the mailing-list recipients selected through MAINTAINERS; do not prepare or send agent-generated patches for that submission. Local branches, commits, patch files, pushes, and pull requests are not by themselves QEMU upstream contributions. Perform those Git actions only when requested and follow the workspace's Git policy.

Summarize proprietary or copyrighted sources and cite page, section, revision, or source location; do not copy long passages.

Before extracting, read the register contract reference in full. It defines the source inventory, required facts, confidence policy, detailed output schema, and completion checklist.

Extract the contract

1. Bound the target. Record the IP name/version, SoC or board variants,

compatibility strings, register windows, endianness, access widths, IRQs, clocks, resets, power domains, DMA endpoints, and intended workload.

1. Inventory sources. Record the exact revision or document edition plus

path, line, page, section, hash, or capture command for every driver, datasheet, firmware image, DTB, regfile, and runtime trace used.

1. Cross-reference facts. Tie each register or behavior to specific source

locations. Treat generated headers and names as evidence, not authority.

1. Extract semantics. Capture offset, width, reset, access type, masks,

reserved bits, valid access sizes, aliases, banking, read/write side effects, unsupported access behavior, and version differences.

1. Extract feature flows. Record initialization order, polling, IRQ and W1C

paths, FIFO/timer/DMA/descriptor behavior, unlock sequences, and every cross-register enable or completion dependency.

1. Resolve evidence quality. Mark each fact HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, or

CONFLICT. Never choose silently between disagreeing sources or invent a default for a gap; name the check that could resolve it.

1. Record the framework decision. For every guest-visible control/status

register bank, record policy present in the target QEMU workspace, explicit user direction and whether it is compatible, and a clear maintained nearby subsystem convention. Apply them in that order, treating only compatible user direction as decisive, and stop at the first decisive input. Select RegisterInfo or justified manual MMIO callbacks; use RegisterInfo when none decides. Keep register offsets, field macros, backing storage, framework tables, and register-local hooks in the device .c file, not a header.

1. Produce the handoff. Write the contract to

.oh-my-qemu/<task-slug>/output/register-contract.md, with source-cited qtest candidates and explicit unknowns. Keep extraction/conversion scripts in scripts/ and copied or generated third-party artifacts in output/.

Evidence rules

• Separate observed facts from inference and modeling suggestions.
• Cite source revision plus line/page/section for every decisive field or

sequence.

• Follow driver call paths around writes; a scalar register can still trigger

reset, DMA, IRQ, FIFO, timer, or command behavior.

• Model cross-register dependencies as named feature flows with required order,

partial-state behavior, and a verification candidate.

• Preserve conflicts and unavailable sources as gaps.
• Do not include C implementation templates. The consumer must inspect the

selected framework in the checked-out QEMU tree before any local-only model experiment, including the current RegisterInfo API when that framework is selected.

• Do not suggest placing register definitions, backing storage, or semantics in

a header. Headers may expose only non-register-layout declarations genuinely required outside the device translation unit, such as a public QOM type or a cross-unit helper prototype.

Handoff

Report the target and variants covered, source inventory, contract path, confidence/conflict summary, missing facts, qtest candidates, and unresolved gaps. The extraction is incomplete if software-touched registers lack access semantics, side effects, source citations, or explicit unknowns.

Upstream references

• QEMU code provenance policy: docs/devel/code-provenance.rst.
• RegisterInfo API to inspect when selected:

include/hw/core/register.h, include/hw/core/registerfields.h, and hw/core/register.c.