External Engines
The kernel computes the verbatim operators to ≤0.1%. When a problem needs a full numerical simulator or an authoritative dataset, the machine reaches for an external engine — a curated registry of physics solvers and data services it can bind to and call from a contract or an agent plan.
External engines are the bridge from the operator catalogue to the heavyweight tools of computational physics. The registry is read-public — anyone can list what's available — and the PLAN-mode agent proposes binding to one when a step needs more than a single operator can give.
Source: shared/api-core/src/routes/externalEngines.ts · API: /api/external-engines.
The seed registry
Eight engines ship by default, spanning simulators and authoritative data:
| Engine | Kind | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| NIST CODATA | Data | Authoritative physical constants — the source the kernel's constants are bound to. |
| LAMMPS | Simulator | Large-scale molecular dynamics. |
| OpenFOAM | Simulator | Computational fluid dynamics. |
| ANSYS Cloud | Simulator | Multiphysics FEA. |
| COMSOL Server | Simulator | Multiphysics modelling. |
| BOUT++ | Simulator | Plasma / fluid turbulence. |
| Wolfram Alpha | Data/compute | Symbolic + curated knowledge. |
| NREL | Data | Renewable-energy datasets. |
Operators add more rows directly (SQL today; an admin surface lands in a later phase).
Browse the registry
# list everything (optionally filter by category)
curl -sS https://zeqapi.com/api/external-engines
curl -sS "https://zeqapi.com/api/external-engines?category=simulator"
# fetch one
curl -sS https://zeqapi.com/api/external-engines/lammps
# dry-ping an engine's endpoint to see if it's reachable (best-effort, 3s bound)
curl -sS https://zeqapi.com/api/external-engines/lammps/probe
The probe is a bounded, best-effort reachability check against the engine's admin-curated endpoint_url — not a user-supplied URL, so there's no SSRF surface.
How a machine uses one
- The PLAN-mode agent identifies a step that needs a simulator or dataset and proposes an engine from the registry.
- You bind it; the framework records the binding on your machine.
- A state contract or agent calls the engine through a registered external API, with the response bound back into the transition input — so the engine's output flows through the same compute → prove → ZSP → entangled-state path as everything else.
The kernel stays the source of truth for the verbatim operators; external engines extend reach without leaving the audit trail.
See also
- External Engines API — the three read routes.
- Extend — wire an external API — how a contract calls outward.
- State Contracts — bind an engine call into a transition's pre-actions.