Per docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-30-welcome-screen-design.md. Fold the bare
#loading splash, the #motion-warning modal, and the #run-sim button into one
#welcome overlay — the universal entry gate:
- State A (.welcoming): heads-up notice + four output controls (Video ON,
Reduce motion OFF, Audio 2, Language) + 'Launch Simulator' button, with the
'Loading Universe' progress pinned at the bottom (media preloads behind it).
- State B (.loading): pressing Launch while still loading hides the messaging +
button, keeps the controls, and centers the loader; entry happens automatically
once phase-1 finishes. Launch when already loaded enters directly.
- The right .panel is hidden until entry (body:has(#welcome)); welcome control
values carry into the panel inputs on entry. Language + Reduce motion drive the
shared state live (both selects/checkboxes mirror); Video + Audio apply on entry.
- Launch is the single audio-unlock gesture (beginExperience runs in-gesture even
when entry is deferred). Retire WARN_KEY (welcome shows every load); entry uses
the chosen Audio level rather than forcing 2.
- i18n: new welcome.launch key + es/fr/ja for the heads-up (warn.title/body),
reworded to point at the on-screen Reduce-motion control; drop dead run.button.
Tests: new welcome.spec.ts (defaults, live language re-render, State B
deferred-entry, straight-in when loaded, control carry-over, panel hidden);
update altitude-lock/a11y/i18n/loop-recovery/static-build e2e + the Python
audio/credits e2e to the welcome flow; add a window.__hefReady diagnostic seam.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Gate the universe on one clip per altitude + connecting morphs (~126 MB, ~10-20s),
then grow the pool in the background. The random pick (pickPoolClip/pickRandomMember)
is restricted to fully-loaded clips — base + connecting morphs both ways cached
(HEFPreload.eligibleDestinations) — so a transition never stalls on un-downloaded
media and new clips become reachable only once fully loaded. Pure planner in
preload.js (+ node tests).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Integrates the fully-static Cloudflare publish line (live at
benstull.art/human-experience-simulator) into main: the static build (Pages + R2,
manifest-only media tree, baked API JSON), the "Run simulation" start button, the
public CC-BY/BY-SA credits page with the "License & reuse" CC BY-SA 4.0 derivative
declaration (Option A + D1), the repeatable Cloudflare deploy script, and assorted
load/audio fixes (progressive boot, scaleAudioUrl via mediaBase).
Clean auto-merge with main's per-clip affect/feelings + i18n work — only app.js and
altitude-lock.spec.ts overlapped, both auto-resolved. Verified green on the merged
tree: node 29, pytest 315 passed / 2 skipped.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Clamp each per-altitude step to the WCAG 2.3.1 floor (no-op at 1200ms, guards
a future lowering). Audit: #black fade + audio crossfade can't exceed 3/sec, no
clamp needed. boot() now seeds the gate-dismissed flag (returning visitor) so
the run-sim test isn't blocked by the new interstitial.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The hold-last-frame settle gated playLoop() behind a canplay event that doesn't
re-fire on an already-loaded element → the next altitude's video never started.
Reverted to the simple swap, and gate the universe on a full preload (every base +
every morph) so navigation is smooth with no on-demand stall. Adds a ?debug on-screen
media-state overlay for diagnosing real-browser playback.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
role=slider + tabindex on the dial; Arrow/Home/End stepping; labels become
Enter/Space buttons; aria-valuenow/valuetext track the committed altitude via
renderDial. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Single guard in playLoop() holds a still frame; autoScrub jumps instantly;
applyReduceMotion pauses/resumes. Default from prefers-reduced-motion, then
the choice persists. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
s0031 removed "About this work" to avoid duplicating it on the separate About
page, but that section WAS the D1 compliance — it declares the altered work is a
derivative offered under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is what satisfies the ShareAlike
obligation for the BY-SA source clips. Without it the live site credited the
BY-SA authors but never declared the derivative share-alike.
Restore the declaration on the credits page, under the heading "License & reuse"
instead of "About this work" so it isn't confused with the separate About page
(which covers the project's intent). Tests assert the declaration is present and
that the heading is NOT "About this work".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Adds the Reduce-motion toggle markup + i18n label in the same Output
fieldset (wired in a later task). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The CC BY-SA work-license declaration ("About this work") was on the credits
page, but the About page (built on the parallel feat/accessibility-pass) will
own that content; keeping it in both places would duplicate it. Remove the
section from credits.html and make the footage note self-contained (it still
states the footage is altered — the per-clip "indicate modifications" cue stays
with the attributions). Tests updated to assert the declaration is intentionally
no longer on the credits page. The .declaration CSS rule is left in place for the
About page to reuse.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The audio layer built the soundtrack url as a literal /media/audio/<f>, which 404s
on the static R2 build (audio err 4, silent). Route it through mediaBase() like the
video path: dev → /media/ (unchanged), static → https://static.benstull.art/. Verified
live: aud loads 200 from R2 and plays.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Denser left labels (now >=3/clip) plus the always-4 right affect words made the
two HUD layers collide. renderAffect now nudges each Feel word vertically off the
Think chip plates (and off already-placed words + the ANALYSIS status tag),
staying on-screen, keeping the least-overlapping spot if nothing is fully clear.
Feelings are scene-level (soft position) so we move THEM, never a chip off its
subject. Obstacles are computed from the manifest, not the DOM, and a tracked
label's path is sampled across the loop — so the clearance holds for the whole
loop even though the per-frame track re-render keeps moving the chips (no per-frame
re-layout, no jitter). New diagnostic seam window.__hefNoDeconflict (sibling of
__hefState) A/B-toggles it.
Verified across all 6 scales at max knobs: authored overlaps drop to 0 with none
introduced (cosmos 3->0), and a tracked abyss clip stays at 0 overlaps sampled
over loop time as its chip drifts. No affect-position test exists to break;
16/16 node unit + frontend pytest green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Boot becomes ready on the first clip and streams the rest in the background
(was: blocked on the full ~2.3 GB before 'Run simulation' appeared). During nav,
the visible morph and landing base only swap to cached blobs — otherwise the
current frame holds (settleGen guards a stale settle) — so rapid altitude-clicking
never blanks the stage.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
CC BY / CC BY-SA footage needs its author + license shown to the viewer, and the
installation alters every frame (a derivative). Per-clip license/source already
shipped in clips.json but only surfaced in the dev panel and internal review
pages — the public experience showed nothing, so the static benstull.art site
was not attribution-compliant.
Option A — add a manifest-driven credits/colophon (credits.html + credits.js):
the page fetches the same clips the experience uses (baked clips.json in static,
the live API otherwise) and renders one attribution block per clip (title,
license, source), HTML-escaped, sorted, never silently dropping a clip. An
"ⓘ Credits & licenses" link in the header (localised en/es/fr/ja) makes it
reachable from the work — what CC's "reasonable to the medium" calls for. Audio
is all PD/CC0, credited as a courtesy block.
Option D1 — the colophon declares the altered work itself is offered under
CC BY-SA 4.0 and states the footage is modified, satisfying the ShareAlike +
"indicate changes" obligations for the BY-SA sources. Non-commercial.
Ships in the static build (added to PUBLIC_ASSETS). Verified: 41/41 clips
credited incl. all 7 CC-BY/BY-SA clips, 0 missing a license. Tests: node units
for creditEntries/creditsListHtml + escaping + page structure/declaration;
pytest build-output assertion; Playwright e2e (page lists attributions, header
links through).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The experience boots silent and waits for a gesture (browser autoplay blocks
an un-gestured audio play()). Until now that gesture was an unlabelled Video
toggle — not obvious to a first-time viewer. Add a "Run simulation" button,
revealed over the black stage once media has preloaded; clicking it turns
Video on, snaps the audio dial to a gentle 2/10, dismisses the prompt, and
starts the soundtrack in that one gesture. Turning Video on directly still
begins the experience too (couples audio in, dismisses the button) via a
shared beginExperience(). Localised en/es/fr/ja.
E2E coverage updated (Playwright + pytest-playwright): button shown after
load, button starts video+audio+dismisses, and direct-Video-on path.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Relative asset paths (work at dev-root and under the /human-experience-simulator
deploy prefix), config.js gate, devLiveReload no-ops in static mode.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ascending the altitude dial and landing on the higher-altitude clip jumped ~3
seconds. A baked morph `transitions/{h}__{l}.mp4` spans src@0 (frac 0) ->
dst@~LOOP_TAIL_S (frac 1) and is scrubbed bidirectionally, but the steady loop
element always seeked LOOP_TAIL_S (3.0s) on landing. Descending lands on dst at
its tail (matches the seek — the s0026 loop-from-tail fix); ascending lands on
src at the morph's HEAD (src@0), so seeking the tail was a 3s jump.
Make the loop landing frame direction-aware: pure `HEFScrub.loopLandFrame(dir,
loopTailS)` returns 0 when ascending, loopTailS otherwise. `loadLoop` takes a
`landFrame`, stores it as `dataset.loopStart`, and the timeupdate/ended wrap
handlers honor it (the base clips are already seamless crossfade-loops, so a
reverse landing wraps [0,dur] cleanly). The settle path lands explicitly on the
direction's frame so a fast ascent never jumps even if the heading clip wasn't
preloaded in time. App-side only — no 154-morph LFS re-bake.
Verify: node unit (loopLandFrame) + a new reverse-landing e2e asserting the loop
anchors at the head (loopStart "0"), and the existing forward "loops from tail"
e2e still green (12/12 altitude-lock).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The post-load autoStart() flipped Video on and lifted audio to 3/10 with no
user gesture. Browser autoplay policy blocks an audio play() made outside a
gesture (muted video survives, sound does not), so auto-start showed video but
stayed silent. Boot SILENT instead and wait for the operator to turn Video on —
that click IS the gesture, and its handler couples audio to 3/10 and starts the
soundtrack in-gesture, so sound reliably comes up with video.
Updates the pytest e2e + Playwright e2e specs to assert boot-silent + the
video-on-couples-audio wiring instead of the old auto-start wiring.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Root cause: the steady-state loop (#vid-loop) restarts only via a narrow
timeupdate window (last 0.08s -> seek to LOOP_TAIL_S), with native loop off.
Headless Chromium reliably lands a final timeupdate in that window, but under
real-browser decode/GPU load a timeupdate can skip past it; the clip then fires
'ended' and freezes on its last frame ('videos aren't looping'). There was no
recovery path. Add an 'ended' listener that seeks back to the tail and resumes,
guaranteeing the loop regardless of the timeupdate race. No change to normal
playback. Proven by a Playwright regression test that forces the ended state.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Expanded-pools sky-scale work plus two experience tweaks:
- New `sky` altitude (airplane-window / low-flight layer) between orbit and
coast; RING_ORDER cosmos·orbit·sky·coast·reef·abyss. New clip pools across
all scales, re-baked the full adjacent-pair morph set (all-intra, LFS), and
removed the now-stale cosmos↔abyss transitions the old ring order produced.
- Auto-start: once the preload finishes the experience turns Video on and
raises the audio dial to 3/10 with no user gesture (app.js autoStart()).
- Dropped reef_hawaiian (text overlay — violates the text-free pool rule);
reef pool 7→6, manifest transitions 586→558.
Tests: rewrote tests/test_e2e_audio.py for the dial UI + auto-start; updated
the manifest morph-count assertions and the altitude-scrub target for the new
ring order. 302 pytest + 11 Playwright e2e + 9 node unit all green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator: slow click/auto transitions 2x and make them the same speed between any two
altitudes (2 away should take twice as long as 1). autoScrub duration is now
PROPORTIONAL to distance (PER_ALTITUDE_MS=1200, ~2x the old fixed 600ms total): a
label-click or wheel jump of N altitudes takes N*1200ms, so per-step speed is constant.
Manual drag is unaffected (operator drives its speed). E2E asserts a 2-step jump is
~2x a 1-step.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator: audio turned off sometimes after landing on a new altitude. Root cause:
fadeVolume started a setInterval ramp that was never cancelled. When restAudio faded
the idle element to 0 and — within FADE_MS — that same element became the newly-landed
ACTIVE scale (assignElements reuses an element per soundtrack url), the stale fade-to-0
kept running and dragged the now-active element back to silence. Fix: cancelFade()
supersedes any in-flight fade when a new fade starts (fadeVolume) or a direct volume
is set (ensurePlaying). E2E proves a new fade supersedes a stale one (fails without
the fix).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator request. Replaces the Audio checkbox with a 0-10 range slider that sets the
master soundtrack gain (audioVol = level/10), scaling both the per-scale rest volume
and the two-track scrub crossfade. Level 0 = silent. Turning Video on for the first
time now raises audio to 3/10 (was: full on) so the experience opens gently; raising
the slider from 0 unlocks playback in-gesture (Safari). E2E: dial is range 0-10
default 0, and first video-on lifts it to 3/10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator eyeball: a jolt/pause when the morph ends and the next altitude's loop
loads. Root cause: swapping vid.src to the base + seeking to the tail reloaded the
ON-SCREEN element (decode + seek stall). Now a dedicated #vid-loop element carries
the steady-state base loop; during a scrub it is PRELOADED to the clip we're heading
toward, seeked to the tail and paused on that exact frame. The paint shader reads the
active source (busy ? morph : loop), so landing is an instant source swap — no reload,
no seek. E2E asserts the loop element is armed + playing from ~3s after landing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator eyeball feedback: landing on an altitude jump-cut the loop back to frame 0.
Each morph reproduces the destination clip's first 3s (pipeline trim=0:3) and ends on
dst@~3s, so the steady-state loop now starts at LOOP_TAIL_S=3.0 and loops within
[3.0, duration] — the morph's last frame hands straight off to the loop, and the
morph-covered intro never re-shows at rest (removes the overlapping 'altitude video
that is part of the morph'). E2E asserts a landed clip loops from ~3s, not 0.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per plan Task 5. Replaces the .rev-asserting zoom-out test with a turn-back test
(same forward morph seeked backward, audio recedes, re-locks the start clip); adds
a detent-crossing commit+lock test via a new window.__hefState diagnostic seam.
Full tier (6 tests) green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per plan Task 4. onWheel + jumpToScale now animate pos via autoScrub() (drives the
same setPos scrub path, ~600ms, lands exactly on the integer + locks). Removes the
now-dead advance()/playTransition()/FAST_BLEND_RATE (the server /api/ring/advance
round-trip is no longer used by the client). Post-landing morph warm-up folded into
setPos's settle branch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per plan Task 3. A continuous float pos is the knob: setPos() seeks the segment's
morph currentTime by frac (throttled one seek/rAF), crossfades audio, sweeps the
needle live, and commits+locks+re-rolls on each integer crossing. Drag live-scrubs
(no more commit-on-release); release holds the blend (no auto-complete). Client-side
pool pick replaces the server round-trip for drag.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per plan Task 2. Adds <audio id=aud-b>; blendAudio(lo,frac) mixes the two
adjacent scale soundtracks by knob fraction (element reuse across crossings so
only the genuinely-new scale reloads); restAudio settles a single scale at rest.
Diagnostic readout now reports whichever element is audible.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Per plan Task 1. position->segment, frac->currentTime, audio gains, and
integer-crossing detection; 9 node --test cases green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The dial needle now sweeps one detent per crossed altitude driven by the morph
video's playback progress, landing exactly when the morph ends and the clip
locks. Drops the live finger-follow during drag (which moved the needle to the
target ahead of the zoom and caused a snap-back on commit) so the needle moves
ONLY with the transition. Verified in Chromium + WebKit, both directions, wheel
and drag.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Task 8. New simulator/e2e Playwright tier (§9 browser tier). altitude-lock.spec
proves: zooming plays the morph matching the landed clip (forward + .rev), and
the clip is LOCKED after landing (no change while parked). advance() records
played morph paths on window.__hefMorphs (diagnostic seam; reliable under the
blob cache).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Task 7. advance() threads the current clip as from_clip_id, plays the
server-resolved chained morphs (each already lands on its destination clip),
then locks activeClipId until the next altitude change — no fade-to-black
secondary swap, no re-roll while parked. Builds a (from->to) morph lookup
from the ring; preloads only the morphs reachable from the locked clip,
refreshed per landing (154 morphs is too many to preload up front). Drops
reverseFile + fadeThroughBlack.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The 'no sound' debugging is resolved (stale-server resilience). Move the audio
status readout + native test player into the Dev Mode panel — kept for future
'can't hear' debugging, out of the installation UI. 7 E2E pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The operator's video wouldn't turn on: their stale uvicorn (old Python) requires a
7-way 'content' and 422s the {visual,audio} payload, and returns {content:{video}}
not {render:{video:{shown}}}. So the alteration POST failed and video never updated
(audio works because it's client-driven). Fix: controls() also sends a back-compat
'content' field (current server ignores it; old one ignores visual/audio), and
update() reads video-shown from either response shape. Verified end-to-end against a
simulated fully-stale server: video shows + audio plays, zero errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Root cause of 'no sound', found via the live readout: the operator's /api/ring
returned the ring WITHOUT the per-scale audio field (a server process predating the
audio code) → soundtrackUrl() was null → the element never got a src (readyState 0,
no error). The native test player proved the file itself plays. Fix: client falls
back to a scale-id→soundtrack map (mirrors build_pool_manifest.SCALE_AUDIO) so audio
works without a server restart. Verified: stale-ring sim now plays; audio-first-then-
video leaves both on. +2 E2E regression tests (7 total). Chromium + WebKit clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The operator's 'PAUSED readyState 0' (no error) means soundtrackUrl() returned null
— the running app's /api/ring has no audio for the scale, the signature of a STALE
uvicorn server (Python predates the audio code; static reload doesn't restart it).
Status now shows url=<…|NONE>, ring=server|SYNTH, scale id so it's unambiguous.
Fresh server verified: ▶ playing rs=4.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three blind fixes failed because headless browsers relax autoplay (can't reproduce)
and play() errors were swallowed. Instrument instead:
- #audio-status: live readout (playing/paused/blocked/media-error) under the toggle
- surface the play() rejection reason + element error (was .catch(()=>{}))
- 'Audio check' fieldset with a native <audio controls> on the soundtrack file, to
test the file directly with zero app code in the path
Diagnostic only — no behavior change. 37 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator follow-ups:
- Remove the tap-to-start wall; show a 'Loading Universe…' splash until all media
preloaded (main() awaits preloadAllMedia + a progress bar), then reveal the app.
- Both Video + Audio toggles default OFF (black + silent at start).
- FIX audio still silent on real Safari: the A/B-crossfade-after-gesture didn't
unlock on Safari (priming srcless elements doesn't unlock them). Use ONE <audio>
element played SYNCHRONOUSLY inside the toggle's click — the reliable Safari
unlock; later altitude swaps reuse the unlocked element.
- First time Video turns on, also turn Audio on (one flip = full experience), set+
played in the same gesture; Audio-on-first stays audio-only.
- Soundtrack follows Altitude via the single element (brief fade swap).
- Verified in headless Chromium AND WebKit: coupling works, soundtrack plays,
video-off blanks, zero JS errors. 290 tests + 5 Playwright E2E pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator-driven live-UI revision:
- Video + Audio are now Dev-Mode-style on/off toggles (Audio on = soundtrack);
white-noise deferred (removed from the live control; pure machinery kept).
- FIX video-off not blanking: the <video>/<canvas> are GPU-composited and could
paint above the auto-z #black on a real GPU — give #black z-index + its own
layer AND hide the video layers (opacity 0) on video-off.
- FIX no soundtrack on Safari/iOS: Safari unlocks <audio> only when play() runs
INSIDE the user gesture; the start gesture now primes both A/B elements
synchronously, so the async crossfades are allowed to play.
- Toggles wired on 'change' (matches the Dev Mode switch).
- player/audio.py AUDIO_SOURCES -> {off, soundtrack}; tests + E2E updated.
- Verified in headless Chromium AND WebKit: audio plays, video-off blanks both
layers, zero JS errors. 288 tests + 3 Playwright E2E pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
BenStullsBets