The system: the ladder is the truth, everything snaps to it.
- Prose snaps to the ladder's 16px rung (--lh-prose-size 16.5→16; the
half-pixel was a reskin-era hand-tune with no visible payoff and a
system cost). lh-prose, lh-input, and the session titles all read the
one variable — one reading size, now a ladder citizen. @theme inline
inlines literals without emitting runtime vars, so the variable can't
var()-link to --text-lg: documented as the one deliberate duplication
(change one, change both).
- The 10px rung merges into 11px: one pixel apart was a distinction with
no visible difference, and 10px sits at the mono legibility floor —
quiet labels (Sessions, Background agents, dock hints, model-picker
footers) get their quiet from color + tracking, not a notch of size.
All 13 text-xxs uses → text-xs; --text-xxs token removed.
- Derived constant follows: TEXT_CAP_SCALE 16.5/12.5 → 16/12.5 (1.32 →
1.28; test pin 232.32px → 225.28px) — the plan-graph text cap now
tracks the snapped prose size.
Live: title 16px, Sessions/Background-agents labels 11px, composer 16px
with the 20px lh-input line box. Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
Lane note: components/graph-context-marker.tsx (graph-stream file) had a
mechanical text-xxs → text-xs swap — required: the token removal
otherwise leaves a dead class in their file.
- lh-input: lh-prose's 1.5 reading leading made typing carets tower
(~25px box on 16.5px text, ~2.1× the glyphs — the caret fills the line
box in Chromium). Inputs are not paragraphs: 1.25 leading drops the
caret to ~21px, the font-metric floor (as close to the glyphs as
Chromium will draw). Swapped on every typing surface — composer
(chat + home), the thinking field, answer + editable-Other inputs, the
model search; rendered prose (message.tsx container, option
descriptions, chat.tsx pre-wrap) keeps lh-prose 1.5. Same family and
size as prose; only leading differs.
- Session titles: 14px (text-base) — Source Sans at 12.5px read as
small as the 11px mono meta under them; the title now holds its rank.
Live: title "Source Sans 3" 14px vs meta "JetBrains Mono" 11px, row
52px; composer line box 20.625px (was 24.75px).
Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
- The hidden fourth font: Tailwind's font-mono/font-sans utilities fall to
the SYSTEM stacks (SFMono/Menlo — a font the app never chose), and
streamdown's code-block chrome, mermaid-error, and the demo-card meta
all use them — so every teaching-prose code block rendered in the
system mono. Fixed at the token level: @theme now aliases --font-mono →
JetBrains Mono and --font-sans → Source Sans 3, so every utility use
resolves to the app's three fonts (chrome=JetBrains, prose=Source Sans,
display=CMU bold).
- Session titles: Source Sans 3 (the human-words voice — the same font
the words were typed in; mono = machine data stays on the meta line).
One rule, finally applied to the picker too. CMU bold titles are the
queued experiment if this reads wrong live.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469. Live: title "Source Sans 3" 12.5px,
meta "JetBrains Mono" 11px; code blocks now JetBrains.
Nothing exists purely for decoration: phase color-coding is retired
app-wide (phases only advance — every session ends Teaching — so
phase-as-signal was decoration with a one-time function), and what
state genuinely deserved — 'a turn is in flight' — is now carried by
MOTION alone, in the terminal's own glyph language.
- BrailleSpinner (components/braille-spinner.tsx): the canonical
cli-spinner sequence (⠋⠙⠹⠸⠼⠴⠦⠧⠇⠏) as exact dot bitmaps in a 2×4
braille cell, 80ms/frame (800ms cycle). Pure CSS: one shared keyframes,
frames staggered via animation-delay; no JS timer, no re-render per
frame — cheaper than the old breathing dot. Static contexts (SSR,
prefers-reduced-motion) show frame 0 — a legible glyph, not a blank.
- Sidebar rows: spinner ONLY while a teach turn is in flight; idle and
question-pending render NOTHING (a resting state has no scan value —
the meta line's 'Waiting for your answer' text carries it). The
three-state phase dot (pulse/solid/hollow) and PHASE_FILL/RING maps
are gone.
- Top bar PhaseChip: label-only pill; the old dot slot becomes the
spinner's home while a turn is in flight (busy prop wired from
ChatView's busy = localStream || turnInFlight). Transcript
PhaseDividers drop phase colors for monochrome rules + labels.
- API narrowing (app/api/chats/route.ts + ChatListItem contract):
busy = isTurnRunning ONLY — background jobs no longer count (the
sidebar's Background agents section is their channel; a per-row
spinner would double-signal them).
- globals.css: --phase-* tokens + lh-dot-breathe removed (dead after
the sweep — no remaining users).
Live-verified: idle/pending rows render no indicator, /chat/new chip is
label-only, 10 CSSAnimations at 800ms with correct 80ms stagger, static
frame 0 under reduced motion. Gates: typecheck, lint, 470/470, build.
Lane crossings to flag at merge: app/api/chats/route.ts + the
ChatListItem contract comment (src/core) — the busy-semantics narrowing;
components/chat.tsx one-line busy prop.
--text-xxs (10px) joins the ladder; every component-level text-[9|10|11px]
literal in owned components now pulls from the ladder (graph-view.tsx and
home.tsx untouched — graph stream). Cosmetic pins updated where touched.
- Palette per the owner's hexes: background #141414, raised #1C1C1C,
edges #434343, ink tokens, destructs unchanged; :root and .dark carry
identical values (the app is always dark).
- Type ladder declared once (11px base, each size carries its own
line-height); radii ladder 4/8/12/16; spacing rhythm = Tailwind's 4px
scale. All documented in the globals.css header.
- Fonts: JetBrains Mono (chrome) + Source Sans 3 (prose) via
next/font/google in app/layout.tsx; CMU Serif bold bundled locally
(public/fonts/cmunbx.ttf) behind the lh-cmu @font-face.
- Prose/emphasis tokens: --lh-ink-strong (rust bold), --lh-ink-italic
(blue italic), .lh-prose wrapper — ready for the future settings UI.
- l.h-ink-strong/italic defaults sampled from the reference mockup.
Redesign per review feedback: the colored phase strips were too busy —
removed. One small dot now carries two channels:
- COLOR = phase (sky/violet/emerald, same system as chip + dividers)
- FILL + MOTION = what's owed:
- pulsing = teacher is working (the only state that deserves motion)
- solid = a question awaits the learner's answer — the dominant
resting state of real sessions, so deliberately calm
- hollow = idle, nothing owed
The amber attention channel is gone entirely (it would read as a
phantom fourth phase). The meta line now leads with the useful fact:
"Waiting for your answer · 5m ago" / "Teacher is working…" — the
message count only shows when idle. Ordering stays pure recency.
- SessionRow (extracted, exported for tests): leftmost phase strip
(bookmark tick, per-phase color: probe/plan/teach) + status dot left of
the title — pulsing amber attention dot when an answer is owed, quiet
breathing dot while the teacher works, nothing when it's the learner's
turn. A pending answer outranks 'working'.
- globals.css: phase + attention color tokens (one system shared with the
upcoming header chip and dividers) and the two dot animations, both
disabled under prefers-reduced-motion.
- SessionsSidebar polls /api/chats every 2.5s while open (payload is tiny
now that busy/phase/pendingQuestion come from the list) and pauses while
the tab is hidden; fetch-on-navigation preserved.
- src/core/math-delims.ts: pure preprocessing for the \(...\)/\[...\] math
contract — balanced delimiters rewrite to the two-dollar forms remark-math
parses ($ is never math). Skips code fences/spans, escaped delimiters, and
leaves unbalanced (mid-stream) delimiters untouched. Display math renders
as a block: mid-paragraph gets blank-line padding; indented (list items)
degrades to inline so list continuations don't half-parse.
- message.tsx: transform in the render path (children-memoized); math plugin
now singleDollarTextMath: false — the currency hazard dies structurally.
remark-breaks via the cjk remarkPluginsAfter slot (the bare remarkPlugins
prop would replace the [remark-gfm, codeMeta] defaults).
- mermaid: dark theme + sans font via Streamdown's mermaid prop; dark-styled
error fallback (components/mermaid-error.tsx) with error, source in
<details>, and retry.
- globals.css (appended): @source for streamdown dist — its internal UI
chrome (code blocks, mermaid containers, tables) was entirely unstyled
because Tailwind v4 never scans node_modules; --color-sidebar → card; wide
mermaid SVGs capped to the column; .katex-display scrolls.
- tests/render-markdown.test.tsx: 26 tests (transform unit + render). The
math describe block in render-cards.test.tsx is updated to the new
contract ($...$ now renders as literal text — pinned).
- Animation: the blob's shell morphs height (WAAPI, 180ms) on every
variant change — chat ↔ question ↔ collapsed bar — plus a quick
fade/rise (160ms) on the swapped content. Gotcha pinned in code: never
measure the shell while a morph is in flight (getBoundingClientRect
reads the ANIMATED value and corrupts the next morph's start height);
cancel running morphs before measuring, refresh settled height only
when no morph is running.
- Gradient-over-scrollbar fixed structurally: the dock is no longer an
absolute overlay on the conversation root — it's sticky bottom-0 INSIDE
the scroller (in flow). The transcript scrolls fully clear of the dock,
the fade never touches the scrollbar lane, and the pb-hack clearances
are gone.
- New question while at the bottom scrolls to reveal the dock; scrolled
up → collapsed bar, no yank.
- Thin dark native scrollbar app-wide (8px webkit + scrollbar-width:thin,
dark thumb, transparent track). Note: use-stick-to-bottom sets
scrollbar-gutter: stable both-edges on its scroller — the lane is
outside the content flow by design.
- 'Writing a question…' transcript shimmer while a tool call streams its
input (same slot as 'Thinking…'). Protocol pinned by a test asserting
tool-input-start precedes tool-input-available; scripted mock now
streams tool input as deltas like real providers do. (OpenRouter/
Anthropic often delivers the whole input in ONE delta — then the dock
appears instantly and no indicator is needed or shown.)
Verified live: grow 54→349px and shrink 349→54px fire with correct
from/to; collapse/expand intact; gradient stops before the gutter;
Thinking… observed in-page; 58/58 tests.
The teaching agent no longer runs on pi. Stack:
- ToolLoopAgent (ai@7) + OpenRouter (OPENROUTER_API_KEY), model via LH_MODEL,
default anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5 with reasoning tokens
- quiz/ask_user_question = client-side tools (no server execute): the call
lands as a typed tool part in input-available state; the card grades via
src/core/question-core.ts; addToolOutput sends the verdict; the teacher's
reaction continues the same assistant message
- resume-mid-quiz is free: the pending tool part persists in the transcript
- persistence: one JSON per chat (data/chats/), full UIMessage transcripts,
saved onFinish (also on abort)
- UI: AI Elements (owned copy-paste components, pruned to the five in use)
+ button-based QuizCard/AnsweredCard (ask answers never graded)
- pi fully removed: TUI, extensions, Fastify+WS server, bridge, custom
protocol all deleted (recoverable from git history)
- tests: question-core units carry over; chat-flow integration drives
handleChatRequest with MockLanguageModelV4 (48 tests, zero tokens);
render smoke tests guard the cards (renderToStaticMarkup)
Carried over unchanged: teacher system prompt, question-core, schema/
ledger/derive/extract pipeline, data model.
amosblomqvist