Bus Engine FAQ
Bus Engine FAQ
What is Bus Engine?
Bus Engine provides the blueprints, AI-powered engineering tools, deterministic build operations, isolated execution environments, validation workflows, and lifecycle tooling needed to create and maintain custom Linux systems.
What is Bus Engine OS?
Bus Engine OS is the rolling Linux distribution being built and maintained
through Bus Engine. Its accepted current profile is virtual-server, a minimal
QEMU/KVM server image built from verified source inputs, assembled from
validated Bus package archives, and boot-tested in QEMU. It is not yet a
production-supported general-purpose distribution.
Why not just install an ordinary Linux distribution in a virtual machine?
You can, and that is the right choice for many general-purpose systems.
A general-purpose distribution gives a broad starting system. Bus Engine is intended for cases where the operating-system decisions are part of the product: kernel capabilities, package definitions, services, boot process, image construction, tests, update behavior, and lifecycle policy must be maintained together.
Its integrated agent can investigate requirements, create and revise the blueprint, build the resulting system, diagnose failures, and maintain it as the workload and upstream components change. The virtualization layer provides the machine. Bus Engine provides the operating-system engineering lifecycle.
Can Bus Engine package software from a source URL?
That is a core workflow Bus Engine is being built to support. The intended flow is to provide a source URL, target profile, and acceptance tests. The agent inspects the source and build files, determines package, service, and kernel requirements, updates the system blueprint, creates or changes package definitions, and asks deterministic tools to build the package, assemble the image, boot it, and run tests.
In the June 2026 development state, the Engine runtime control path, artifact catalog, local VM provider path, QEMU integration, source-built package pipeline, virtual-server image generation, boot acceptance, and local artifact promotion are available. The complete source-URL-to-system-build workflow remains active development work.
How does Bus Engine help with component fixes?
When a component can legally be patched by the customer, Bus Engine is designed to carry that change in the system blueprint, rebuild the affected package or image, and validate it through the same boot and test evidence. That can let a team move on its own maintenance schedule while a fix is proposed upstream or carried as a customer-specific patch.
How does preview access work?
Preview users receive rolling pre-production development builds for technical evaluation and feedback. The preview binary lets evaluators use the Bus Engine OS tooling, while complete tested Linux distribution source access is limited to paid users under the applicable source-access terms.
Is Bus Engine OS complete today?
It is complete enough for the accepted virtual-server development profile:
the source-built package pipeline, package-built root filesystem, Linux kernel
artifact, QEMU image artifacts, boot acceptance, OpenSSH startup, and local
Engine SSH proof exist for that profile. Update, recovery, rollback, production
release operations, production support guarantees, broader hardware validation,
and the GUI profile remain development work.
Are AI model fees included?
Third-party hosted-model usage and AI service fees are not included unless a plan explicitly says otherwise. Customers may use supported hosted providers or operate a compatible model inside their own infrastructure where the configured Bus services and policies support that deployment.
Does Bus Engine use REST to talk to the agent runtime?
No. Codex App Server uses bidirectional JSON-RPC 2.0. Bus Engine may expose its own HTTP APIs, but those APIs are Bus Engine APIs rather than the native App Server protocol.
Can Bus Engine target physical hardware?
Virtualized targets are the initial supported environment. Customer-defined physical targets can be configured with Bus Engine or enabled through paid engineering support. Bus Engine enables hardware configuration; it does not automatically certify arbitrary hardware.
Is every BusDK module installed in every Bus Engine OS image?
No. Available means the commercial entitlement permits access, installed means the module binary is present in a specific image, and enabled means a service, listener, scheduled operation, or integration is active. Each blueprint should install only the modules required for that system.
Is source code public?
No public source-code publication is promised by default. Customer release areas provide corresponding source to binary recipients for GPL, LGPL, MPL, and similar covered components at no extra charge, together with the notices and build materials required for the release.
The FSL-licensed preview binary tool can be used for evaluation and custom package/profile work. The complete tested Bus Engine OS Linux distribution source tree, including the accepted package catalog and profile source, is available to paid users under the applicable source-access terms.
What does the 1 TB founder storage benefit include?
Founding Bus Engine customers receive a 1 TB Bus Engine Persistent Storage allocation for supported BusDK-hosted virtualized systems, subject to the applicable commercial and service terms. Detailed storage service terms belong in the agreement.