<![CDATA[ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance)]]>Why I built this

I hate Unix commands. ls, cd, rm, mv, cp — two- and three-letter cryptic abbreviations that made sense to someone in 1971 and have just been carried forward ever since because "that's how it's always been." I wanted a shell where the commands actually describe what they do, without needing to memorize a decades-old convention. So instead of complaining about it, I designed my own command set and built an OS around it from the ground up.

ShellyForever (currently v0.1.1) is a 64-bit OS written completely from scratch in x86-64 NASM assembly. No C, no existing kernel, no BIOS libraries beyond boot-time disk/keyboard calls. It boots and runs on real hardware, not just in an emulator. The name's a commitment, not just a name — I plan to keep updating it forever.

To be upfront about how this was built: the assembly code itself is almost entirely AI-written. My part was designing the shell and commands — what each one should be called, how it should behave, what made sense to me as the person who'd actually be typing them — then having the AI implement that in asm and iterating with it on bugs and logic.

How it's built

  • Bootloader (boot.asm) — 512-byte boot sector. Starts in 16-bit real mode, loads the kernel off disk, switches to 32-bit protected mode, builds its own minimal page tables, switches to 64-bit long mode, jumps into the kernel.
  • Kernel (kernel.asm) — everything else:
    • A VGA text-mode driver (writes directly to 0xB8000) with scrolling
    • A polled PS/2 keyboard driver (decodes scancode set 1, handles shift, backspace, enter)
    • rush, the custom shell — prompt, line editor, a tokenizer that understands quoted strings, and a command dispatcher
    • An in-memory filesystem tree rooted at /home, with recursive copy/move/delete
    • A simple name = value int64 variable table
    • A built-in line editor for file content

The commands (no more ls/rm/cd)

Command Example What it does
cf cf docs, cf .. change folder
mkf mkf docs make a folder
mkfl mkfl a.txt "text" make a file with content (-force/-silent/-info/-test)
del del a.txt delete a file (requires auth)
rname rname old.txt new.txt rename a file or folder
owrite owrite a.txt "new text" overwrite a file's content in place
cpy cpy docs docs_backup copy a file/folder (recursive)
mov mov docs archive move/rename a file/folder (recursive)
show show "hi", show a print a message or a variable
list list list current folder contents
view view a.txt print a file's content
find find notes.txt search every drive for a name, print its path
lookfor lookfor "todo" notes.txt grep a file's content, with optional line range
edit edit a.txt built-in text editor
<n> = <value> a = 5 set a variable
rmv rmv a remove a variable
vars vars list all variables
calc calc 1 + 2 * 3 evaluate a math expression
rr rr script.rsh run a rush script file
prs prs, prs kill 1 list/kill running scripts
auth auth sdown elevate for one dangerous command
current current print current path
wipe wipe clear the screen
dscan dscan scan drives for existing volumes
fmt fmt data format a drive with a volume label
mount mount data mount a formatted drive under /data/
label label old new rename a mounted drive's label
ali ali gs list create a command alias
alis alis list aliases
color color cyan change output text color
sync sync save the filesystem to disk
rboot rboot save and restart (requires auth)
sdown sdown save and shut down (requires auth)

Some quality-of-life extras: command history and scrollback (arrow keys), ; to chain commands on one line, ~ to pipe one command's output into another, $ for comments, and .rsh script files for automation.

Known limitations

No interrupts yet (keyboard/disk are polled), no real memory allocator (flat identity-mapped first 2MB), no ACPI (shutdown uses emulator magic ports on QEMU/Bochs/VirtualBox, halts cleanly on real hardware/anything else), and fixed-size file/folder tables for now.

Code

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GitHub - TheServer-lab/ShellyForever: A 64-bit shell-based OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly, from scratch — no C, no BIOS libraries beyond boot-time disk/keyboard calls, no existing kernel.

A 64-bit shell-based OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly, from scratch — no C, no BIOS libraries beyond boot-time disk/keyboard calls, no existing kernel. - TheServer-lab/ShellyForever

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GitHub (github.com)

Happy to go deeper on the boot process, the on-disk filesystem format, or the AI-assisted workflow if people are curious. Feedback welcome, especially from anyone who's done bare-metal x86-64 work.

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]]>https://citiverse.it/topic/8e3e2f5c-02b9-4f76-9484-73f52a887367/shellyforever-a-64-bit-os-written-entirely-in-x86-64-nasm-assembly-with-ai-assistanceRSS for NodeTue, 18 Aug 2026 10:23:39 GMTMon, 03 Aug 2026 16:18:40 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:36:32 GMT]]>You complain about cd (change directory) and instead replace it with cf (change folder)? How is that any better? The keys even have the same distance to each other.

What?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://feddit.org/comment/14299282https://citiverse.it/post/https://feddit.org/comment/14299282Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:36:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:47:17 GMT]]>Honestly, my biggest complaint about Linux is the unmount command. Really? They couldn't add one more character to 'umount'?

Likewise, you have lots of four character commands. Why drop one character from move and copy?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25117694https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25117694Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:47:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:34:09 GMT]]>Seems far more esoteric than existing UNIX commands, even weirder that some of them the description can only be understood if you already know better unix commands.

grep a file's content, with optional line range

If I didn't already know what grep was, how would this be helpful, if I do know what grep is - why would I want it changed?

Change for changes sake is never good.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25115849https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.world/comment/25115849Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:34:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Mon, 03 Aug 2026 23:48:29 GMT]]>If you hate commands so much why didn't you just alias them? Instead you've replaced them all with your own esoteric versions. That's fine, if it works better for you then by all means. But it's certainly not easier or better than any of the other conventions we have.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26721564https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26721564Mon, 03 Aug 2026 23:48:29 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:02:54 GMT]]>Lmao this is a troll right?

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26719360https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26719360Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:02:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:23:32 GMT]]>Their contribution to this project appears to be just making up command names and describing common operations. That's kind of worthless.

On the functionality front rather than the technical accomplishment front, why would anyone want to use a vibe-coded OS that breaks long-standing usage patterns and has zero oversight over the actual code? If you just want to change the name of commands, you can use "alias", or in this scheme "ali" because that apparently "describes what they do" better than the full word.

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sopuli.xyz/comment/24930123https://citiverse.it/post/https://sopuli.xyz/comment/24930123Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:23:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:03:41 GMT]]>Mentioned the word "AI"

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26716616https://citiverse.it/post/https://sh.itjust.works/comment/26716616Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:03:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to ShellyForever — a 64-bit OS written entirely in x86-64 NASM assembly (with AI assistance) on Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:52:41 GMT]]>what did you do to trigger the downvotes? lol

]]>https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27049807https://citiverse.it/post/https://lemmy.ml/comment/27049807Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:52:41 GMT