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Platform

A real COBOL runtime. Never a simulation.

Cobra runs your COBOL on a genuine execution runtime, containerised on modern .NET infrastructure. Tests, generated code and integrations all exercise the same execution path the production estate would. That single decision — real execution, not a stand-in — is what makes everything above it trustworthy.

What runs underneath

The runtime, in the terms your engineers use.

Four load-bearing pieces, each preserving a behaviour the estate quietly depends on.

Real execution

Rocket Visual COBOL RunUnit

production
Programs execute inside a genuine Rocket Visual COBOL RunUnit, not a re-implementation. What runs in the platform is the same code path the estate runs in production.
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Data access

CSDBIOC database access

production
File and database I/O is served through the CSDBIOC layer, so COBOL data access behaves as it does on the mainframe while the data itself can live in a modern database.
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Program linkage

CSDYNCAL dynamic calling

production
Dynamic program-to-program calls resolve through CSDYNCAL, preserving the call semantics the estate depends on rather than flattening them into something easier to fake.
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Correctness

Marshalling safeguards

production
Data crossing the COBOL/.NET boundary is marshalled with explicit safeguards, so field layouts, types and sign conventions survive the trip intact.
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Why it matters

The runtime is the boundary with reality.

Generic AI-and-COBOL tools generate tests that pass against a fake. The business then breaks against the real thing. Cobra removes that gap by making the real runtime the only place code runs: an AI can propose whatever it likes, but the proposal has to survive genuine execution before anyone trusts it.

The managed runtime executes COBOL. PL/I and assembler are handled as analysis in the Dictionary MCP — parsed, mapped and cross-referenced — rather than executed here; Rocket PL/I is unmanaged code.

See it on your code

Run one of your programs on it.

Bring a representative program. We will run it on the real runtime and show you the execution path, the data access, and the tests that follow from it.

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