2025-11-12 TSC Overflow Meeting
Date
Nov 12, 2025
Disclosures
Participants
Agenda
CSC
Slides (link)
To raise awareness of the CSC’s extraction of normative rules from the ISA manuals
Explain how the normative rules will be used in certification
Same slides as above.
Discuss charter requirements for the group
Updated RISC-V Policies (Ken Dockser) - 30 min
TSC
Presentations
Votes
None
Notes & Action Items
Meeting recording and transcript: link
Meeting Summary
CSC Normative Rules Discussion
James explained the process of extracting normative rules from the ISA manuals to improve certification testing, including the use of Asciidoc anchors and a tool to convert these into JSON files. He demonstrated how these rules are mapped to specific text in the manuals, highlighting different mapping cases such as one-to-one, many-to-one, and one-to-many relationships. The team is working on creating a comprehensive list of normative rules for the entire ISA manual to aid in certification processes.
James presented a new HTML interface for reviewing normative rules extracted from the ISA manual, which is currently about halfway complete. The team discussed the need for TSC review of these tagged rules, with James explaining they want to complete extraction, have CSC review them, merge them into the ISA manual repo, ensure all tests cover the rules, and require normative rules for new extensions. Krste raised questions about the relationship between the golden model and normative rules, noting that sale code might provide more accurate descriptions than English text in some cases. The discussion concluded with Jeff suggesting the need to integrate tests and models with normative rules for new extensions.
The team discussed progress on test plan work led by David Harris at Harvey Mudd College, including the development of a Python tool for automation. They aligned on conducting internal RVI reviews for the new normative rules, with James suggesting adding a column in their ISO Manual spreadsheet to track external reviews. Bilal proposed using an exemplar extension during ratification to establish a process for future extensions, which Jeff agreed to pursue with ARC input. Tariq inquired about the output of this process, and James explained it involves tagging text and generating JSON files to be fed into UDB for further expansion.
The team discussed the development of a tool to extract normative rules from RISC-V implementations, which would utilize UDB to gather configuration information and generate comprehensive rule lists. They reviewed the RISC-V certification program's five-phase timeline, with Phase 0 (RVI20) targeted for completion by May 2026, followed by Phase 1 and Phase 2 by the end of 2026, and early access to RVA23 planned for June 2026 with public release by October 2026. A parallel requirements workgroup is developing market requirements documents and certification requirements to guide the phased rollout of certifications based on customer needs.
CSC Test Suite Workgroup
The team discussed the development of comprehensive certification test suites, comparing ACT 4.0 and Tenstorrent's RiESCUE-C/RiESCUE-D tools. James explained that ACT 4.0 is stronger for Unprivileged ISA tests while Tenstorrent has more resources and higher-quality tests, particularly for Privileged ISA tests which are written in Python and don't rely on reference models. Ken confirmed that both test suites are already aligned with existing normative rules and will be updated to include new rule pointers. The team agreed that RiESCUE-C could serve as a verification tool to augment the certification tests if needed.
The discussion focused on the consolidation of test suites for certification, with James and Ken discussing the integration of different testing approaches into a unified framework. The group agreed to create a single homogeneous test suite that would combine elements from ACT 4.0, Tenstorrent, and other sources, with the goal of making the testing process transparent to customers. Bilal and James noted that the test suite team, currently an ad-hoc group, would need to become an official RVI team, and Greg and Jeff discussed the need to address the governance structure of the ACT SIG. The conversation ended with Jeff assigning action items to himself and the chairs of relevant groups to further develop the organizational structure for the test suite team.
Updated RISC-V Policies
Ken presented updated RISC-V policies that went into effect in January, focusing on clarifications and new definitions to address confusion and concerns. Key changes included redefining membership categories, clarifying consensus processes, and establishing participation requirements for technical committees. The board approved these policies, and Ken will work with Jeff to publish them next week. The TSC will discuss these policies in detail at the next meeting in early December, with Ken as the first agenda item.
Detailed Notes
CSC Normative Rules Discussion
Is there a benefit to separating out individual op codes?
Answer: Not really.Building new targets to create this information and have working HTML files with links.
Normative rules have been found in some places which are not quite correct, such as in some notes which are non-normative. Current structure doesn’t care, but may need to open issues to address.
Discussion around TSC review of rules
How do we envision using/reviewing the tag format for new extensions?
Answer: Explicitly calling them out would be supportable. We should find a standard format for them.Internal review of the normative rules would naturally include TSC folks.
What is the relationship between this and the Golden Model?
Answer: Good question. Would be ideal if model could point to normative rules. Sail community has started work to link Sail back toward manual. The normative rules might help this.Does all this text tagging end up identifying all text associated with an extension?
Answer: Work is underway in UDB to pull this all together.
CSC Test Suite Workgroup
RVCP = RISC-V Certification Program
Phase 0 by mid 2026, followed by Phase 2 by end of 2026, hopefully before RVA30.
Marketing requirements being written by Requirements Workgroup. Will solicit customer feedback on the proposed program.
The roadmap slide speaks to the whole program and its deliverables
Discussion:
Where are the resources coming from for the test suites?
Answer: Members (ACT, HMC, Tenstorrent, Breker, others as offered), a few staff (hiring in process)Tenstorrent test suites have been written with certification in mind.
Updated RISC-V Policies
v117 to take effect on Jan 1, 2026
Use Jira to open issues on questions: https://riscv.atlassian.net/jira/core/projects/RVP/
Most meeting minutes items come from Robert’s Rules of Order, not in policy directly.
AI summaries should not be used as the (sole) minutes
Meeting minutes need to call out Contributions
AI: need to update ALL chairs on this
Contributions cannot be taken back and should be offered carefully by companies.
AI: Ken will revisit this with Andy to determine how to proceed
HCs and ICs both are governing committees
TSC now has new participation and voting requirements (>50%)
When does vote restoration occur?
After completion of work.Are there penalties for multiple offenses?
No. We’re hoping that won’t occur.Isn’t there a chance of just skating around threshold?
Yes. We’re hoping that won’t occur.Slide 10: “Task Group” should be “Technical Committees other than TSC”
Next steps: Ken will publish the slides and we will continue the discussion in the next TSC.
New Golden Reference Model Survey (continued)
No time
Action Items
