# Session 0013.0 — Transcript

> App: human-experience-filter-art
> Start: 2026-06-22T08-34 (PST)
> End: 2026-06-23T11-29 (PST)
> Type: planning-and-executing
> Posture: yolo (autonomous)
> Claude-Session: f0a3044a-e9cb-467e-991f-f1ce618fc418
> Status: **FINALIZED**
> Lands: PR #12 → `main` (merge `23306fa`). Suite 233 passed / 2 skipped.

## Launch prompt

"Let's keep working on the simulation. What's next? Figuring out the labeling for left
brain HUD?" — opened against the stored 0012 next-goal (judge the real forest Right look,
tune the v2v curve). Reconciled live: operator said "I liked the forest Right," which
closed the judgment half and mooted the curve tuning, freeing the session for HUD + a
Right-axis rethink.

## Pre-state

Through session 0012: engine (`player/`) + simulator built; scale ring (cosmos/forest/abyss);
forest carried real flow-stabilized **pre-baked SD Right variants** (1–4); Left HUD was
functional but never art-directed (plain cyan boxes); Dark/Light were two separate knobs with
`mood_gain`/`overlay_gain` calibration sliders. 228 tests.

## Arc (turn by turn, wrong turns included)

1. **Session gate + claim.** Classified planning-and-executing; claimed ID 0013 from the main
   clone (no nested-worktree resolver issue this time). Clean `main` baseline.

2. **Left HUD art-direction pass.** Operator chose "look & feel first". Redesigned the analytical
   overlay: corner-bracket targeting reticles (capped arm length), translucent legible label
   chips, two sensor channels — cyan `detected.*` with deterministic per-key confidence scores
   vs amber `measure.*` with a center crosshair — and a bbox-sized `◉ ANALYSIS · L{n} · {k} OBJ`
   status tag that escalates with the Left knob. Judged by eye via headless-Chrome screenshots.
   Fixed two self-spotted flaws (status-tag clipping → measure from real `getBBox`; over-long
   reticle arms → cap).

3. **Affect / emotion channel (brainstormed → built).** Operator wanted emotions surfaced when
   Left AND Right are both up. Brainstormed: trigger = `min(left,right)`; soft ambient violet
   words (not boxed); stable per-scene palette, more words as combined strength rises. Built:
   `AffectOverlay(strength,intensity)` in the engine (math in Python), own SVG layer in the
   client, palettes in the manifest. 5 new unit tests. Design doc committed.

4. **mood_gain "does nothing" (not a bug).** Operator reported it. Traced: it's a gain on the
   Dark/Light grade — invisible with both at 0. Added a clarifying hint, then (later) removed the
   whole calibration UI anyway.

5. **Stale-cache saga (several rounds — the time sink).** "I don't see the emotions" / "Nothing
   is changing" — repeatedly diagnosed as the open tab running stale `app.js` (the live RenderPlan
   readout masked it). Added `no-cache` to the dev server; then a real `/dev/version` + 1 s client
   poll **live-reload**; then an on-screen error banner + crash-proof `update()`. Confirmed by the
   operator: "Works in incognito mode" — code was always correct; environment state was stale.

6. **Right axis reframe — the centerpiece.** Operator: the dreamlike knob is "too fluid... changes
   across the loop more than it should." Brainstormed the concept: Right should be a STILL altered
   state. Chose a **deterministic real-time filter** over the baked SD churn. Phase 1 (CSS luminous
   haze) built — then the operator clarified "same movement as the main video, just stylized": the
   haze read as blurred video, not stylized. Pivoted to **Phase 2: a WebGL2 Kuwahara painterly
   shader** on the live frames (edge-preserving → crisp motion, holds still across the loop). Caught
   and fixed a UV-mapping bug (lower-half streaking) mid-build. Operator: "That looks great. Let's
   get even a little more stylized. Max should be pretty trippy" → added saturation + ~45° hue-drift
   + posterize, ramped by `intensity²` so only max goes psychedelic. "Perfect."

7. **Control surface 4→3 knobs.** Operator: make Dark/Light one dial; fold in mood_gain; drop
   overlay_gain. Collapsed Dark+Light into one bipolar Mood dial; removed the Calibration section
   (gains pinned to the locked `1.0` constants). Sim panel is now Left · Right · Mood.

8. **Processing-time question.** Operator asked compute/min for the coming content pipeline.
   Measured bundled ffmpeg at ~8× realtime (~10 s/min). Headline: the reframe killed the dominant
   per-clip cost (the SD bake) — per-minute compute is now trivial; the real cost is human authoring.

9. **Wrap.** Committed in three feature commits; PR #12 → `main`, merged; branch deleted; memory
   updated; transcript published.

## Cut state

`main` @ `23306fa`. 233 passed / 2 skipped. Sim runs locally (uvicorn :8000); Right dream is
real-time WebGL (no bake); 3-knob control. Legacy `bake_right_variants.py` + baked `right*.mp4`
parked, unused. Three design docs in `docs/superpowers/specs/` (affect channel; right-axis
deterministic dream; + the Phase-1/2 staging recorded there).

## Deferred decisions

- **No formal implementation-plan artifact** — built by-eye in the fast iteration loop; the two new
  design docs are the record. No content repo configured (`CONTENT_REMOTE` empty), so nothing to
  `submit-plan.sh`; docs live in-repo and merged.
- **Pipeline (§9):** no PPE/prod stage exists for the simulator (simulator-first phase) — merge to
  `main` is the completion; no deploy ran. Not a skipped gate; there is no stage yet.
- **4→3 knob change** is a real experience-design change not yet reflected in the canonical design
  SPEC (still describes 4 knobs). Engine keeps dark/light internally. To record in the SPEC later.
- **Legacy SD baker parked, not deleted** — kept for reference; can be removed once the real-time
  dream is fully settled.

## Operator plate (what the operator did / decided)

Drove every aesthetic call by eye: liked forest Right; chose HUD look-and-feel; specified emotions
on Left+Right; rejected the "too fluid" SD dream and the blurred haze; approved the painterly
direction and asked for a trippy max; asked to merge Dark/Light into one Mood dial and remove the
calibration knobs; asked the processing-time question; directed commit + push + finalize and to
start a fresh session for the content pipeline.

## Next-session prompt

`/goal` Start the **content pipeline** for the installation: source full neutral video clips +
processing + labeling. **Brainstorm/scope into a content-pipeline spec first**, deciding:
(1) sourcing — which strict-PD clips, which scales (beyond cosmos/forest/abyss); reuse the 0008
strict-PD map (NASA/Hubble, NOAA Ocean Exploration, NPS/USGS = true PD; "free stock" is NOT PD);
(2) clip length + seamless-loop strategy; (3) labeling approach — STATIC boxes (current, 0 compute)
vs MOTION-TRACKED (a detection+tracking pass), hand-authored vs detection-assisted, same for affect
placement; (4) format target (res/fps/codec for the sim now + the Pi later). Anchor fact: the Right
dream is **real-time, no per-clip bake**, so the pipeline is transcode + authoring, not ML baking.
Read `memory/sub-project-3-player-progress.md` + the scales design
(`docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-07-scales-library-and-right-axis-pipeline-design.md` §1/§3/§4) first.
