CROSS-OS: An Operating System You Solve, Not Run

This work introduces CROSS-OS, a conceptual operating system paradigm in which computation is reframed as resolution rather than execution. Inspired by the structure of crossword puzzles, CROSS-OS models processes as words, resources as cells, dependencies as crossings, and peripherals as definitions. Execution emerges from constraint satisfaction rather than command-driven control. This publication establishes CROSS-OS as a novel operating system architecture and general computational metaphor.