HISTORICAL · FROZEN EVIDENCE

DByteOS Mutable Preferences

Version: 9.0.2 Subsystem: User Configuration

Overview§

DByteOS v9.0.2 introduces Mutable Preferences, an overlay configuration system that allows users to persist safe configuration changes across sessions.

Because DByteOS emphasizes determinism and strict security boundaries, standard configurations (etc/config.dby, etc/system.dby) remain read-only. The Mutable Preferences subsystem is strictly sandboxed.

Storage§

User preferences are stored as a DByte-native module at: home/deadbyte/preferences.dby

This file is part of the user's workspace and is preserved during clean operations. It is written dynamically by the sys/preferences.dby API.

Safe Writable Keys§

To prevent arbitrary configuration injection and maintain system health, preferences are restricted to a strict allowlist of keys and values.

Key	Description	Allowed Values
`ui.theme`	Visual theme	`default`, `dark`, `light`
`system.prompt`	DByteOS shell prompt	`dbyte-shell>`, `dbyteos>`, `deadbyte>`
`user.display_name`	Name shown in profile	`deadbyte`, `guest`, `operator`

When the shell is launched with the DByteOS rc file, system.prompt controls the interactive shell prompt. The shell falls back to dbyte-shell> if the preferences file is missing, malformed, or contains an unsupported prompt.

Command Line Interface§

The prefs command manages these settings:

prefs show - View all preferences
prefs get <key> - Get a specific preference
prefs set <key> <value> - Set a safe preference
prefs status - Check the health of the preference subsystem and backup
prefs doctor - Validate the schema of the current preference file
prefs allowed - List all safe mutable keys and their permitted values
prefs backup-demo - Copy the current preferences to a .bak file
prefs restore-demo - Restore preferences from a .bak file
prefs reset-demo - Reset preferences to their default state

Security and Diagnostics§

Anti-Injection: sys/preferences.dby validates all sets against the strict allowlist before generating the preferences.dby file.
Diagnostics: doctor and check-system now verify the existence and integrity of the preferences file.

SOURCE: DBYTEOS_PREFERENCES.md