oaax-context

name	oaax-context
description	Provides architectural and standard context for the OAAX reference implementation
when_to_use	When reasoning about design decisions, API changes, or user-facing behavior
user-invocable	false

What OAAX Is

OAAX (Open Architecture for AI Exchange) is a standard for portable AI model deployment. This repository is the reference implementation — it defines what conforming toolchains and runtimes must do.

Two-Component Architecture

ONNX Model → [Conversion Toolchain] → Optimized ONNX → [Runtime Library] → Inference

Conversion Toolchain — runs once offline:

• Input: arbitrary ONNX model
• Process: simplify via onnxsim (operator fusion, constant folding, dead code elimination)
• Output: optimized .onnx + logs.json

Runtime Library — runs at inference time:

• Loads optimized ONNX via ONNX Runtime C++ API
• Exposes a pure C interface so any language can call it
• Async inference via one dedicated thread + two lock-free queues

C API Contract (must never break)

int runtime_initialization_with_args(int length, char **keys, void **values);
int runtime_initialization();
int runtime_model_loading(const char *model_path);
int send_input(tensors_struct *input_tensors);
int receive_output(tensors_struct **output_tensors);
int runtime_destruction();
const char *runtime_error_message();
const char *runtime_version();
const char *runtime_name();

Supported init args: log_level, log_file, number_of_threads.

Platform Support

Platform	Toolchain	Notes
Linux X86_64	GCC 9.5.0	-march=haswell
Linux AARCH64	GCC ARM 9.2	Cross-compiled
Windows x86_64	MSVC	Separate .bat build

Versioning

Version string lives in VERSION at repo root. Bump it for every release. CI uses it to name S3 artifacts.

Design Constraints

• Pre-compiled deps in runtime-library/deps/ must not be modified
• Build artifacts always go to */artifacts/ directories
• The runtime is a shared library (.so/.dll) — no main(), no executable
• Thread safety: callers serialize through send_input/receive_output queues