# Sley 1.2.0 And The Machine-Native Break

Date: 2026-08-27
Status: public source note
Chronicle: https://greyforge.tech/chronicles/sley-120-machine-native-break

> **Repository update, 2026-08-30:** Sley 1.x is now the completed, frozen
> Sley Legacy lineage at `GreyforgeLabs/sley-legacy`. Active Sley development is
> the intentionally incompatible machine-native 2.x lineage at
> `GreyforgeLabs/sley`. The dated decision record below is preserved as
> historical evidence.

## Public Decision

Sley 1.2.0 is the current public boundary of Greyforge Labs' human-readable,
agent-native 1.x architecture. Greyforge is concentrating current
language-research time and attention on the machine-native Sley 2.x line
because that direction presently appears to hold more promise.

Sley 1.x is not retired. The public repository remains available under
Apache-2.0 for use, study, experimentation, extension, forks, and community-led
legacy upgrades. Greyforge may also revisit or upgrade the 1.x line if future
evidence makes that path valuable again.

The current research focus is an incompatible Sley 2.x lineage. Sley 2.x treats
direct human readability of the canonical raw program representation as
optional while retaining human control over objectives, requirements,
constraints, authority, policy, evaluation, risk, deployment, and acceptance.

The public Machine-Native Invariant is:

> No Sley 2.x design decision should be rejected solely because its raw
> representation is inconvenient for humans.

This decision does not prohibit human-readable projections, explanations,
inspectors, visualizers, debugging interfaces, reports, or audit artifacts. It
removes only the requirement that the canonical machine representation must
itself be optimized for direct human authorship.

## Verified Sley 1.2.0 Release Facts

- Public release: https://github.com/GreyforgeLabs/sley-legacy/releases/tag/v1.2.0
- Public repository: https://github.com/GreyforgeLabs/sley-legacy
- Release state: GitHub pre-release / release candidate
- Published: August 27, 2026
- Tag: `v1.2.0`
- Commit: `d281cd1c44d9566753f881ded0a32a623244c902`
- License: Apache-2.0
- Supported artifact: `sley-1.2.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz`
- SHA-256:
  `2765aa5adb09f2ef071b5c97d2726951193b0ac97ddddb9e91e26c5562261838`
- Verification: 38 release targets
- Report schemas: 99
- Contract fixtures: 187 of 187
- Declared integration checks: 264 of 264
- Release-packet checks: 11 of 11
- Public-release checks: 4 of 4

The supported release boundary is Linux x86_64 with unsigned provenance. The
release does not claim package-manager publication, artifact signing, macOS,
Windows, container support, production deployment, or general production
promotion.

## Claim Classes

### Proven today

Sley 1.2.0 release identity, artifact boundary, verification counts, license,
public repository, and current release-candidate limitations.

### Architectural decisions

The current shift of research attention toward the clean 2.x lineage, the open
and revisitable 1.x posture, the absence of a compatibility promise, and the
Machine-Native Invariant.

### Working thesis

Greyforge expects a growing share of software engineering to involve machines
creating, inspecting, transforming, testing, and exchanging implementation.
This is a forecast that motivates the architecture. It is not a claim that
people no longer write or read code.

## Citation Boundary

Use the Chronicle and the linked public repository or release for public
claims. Do not infer unreleased Sley 2.x syntax, encoding, implementation,
benchmarks, compatibility, migration tooling, roadmap, release timing, or
support commitments from this note.