Bare-Metal Startup

Purpose

Guide agents through bare-metal startup from reset to main(): reset and exception vectors, .data/.bss initialization, stack and heap setup, C runtime integration with linker scripts, and common Cortex-M and RISC-V bring-up bugs.

When to Use

• Firmware hangs before reaching main()
• Porting to a new MCU without vendor HAL
• Writing custom startup.s or Reset_Handler
• Integrating with skills/embedded/linker-scripts
• Debugging uninitialized globals or stack overflows at boot

Workflow

1. Boot sequence mental model