Manifest schema
The manifest is Kern's portable wire contract. The current format is schema version 4.
Canonical schema
The JSON Schema is generated from the Rust manifest types and checked into the repository:
Use it for editor completion and generic structural checks. Run kern verify for the cross-field invariants and serving protocol validation implemented by Kern.
Top-level responsibilities
| Section | Declares |
|---|---|
constants | Readable numeric dimensions expanded before typed validation |
vars | Bounded values supplied for a particular call |
buffers | Typed weights, inputs, outputs, scratch, and state |
modules | Digest-pinned sources of compiled device code |
ops | Typed launch interfaces and implementations |
programs | Ordered calls and their serving shape |
chat | What a chat frontend needs of the model's output syntax: the tool-call parser's registry name (optional; the runtime never reads it) |
The schema is exhaustive. Unknown variants or fields are errors, and a schema version is interpreted only by a runtime that implements that version.