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Visual Language (non-frozen — living doc)

Status: shipped in v0.6.0; kept as the living reference. A non-behavioral visual system for the canvas: node shape, colour, edge style, badges, state cues, zoom levels, motion, and light/dark. It says how the graph looks and how a visual cue maps to a model state — it does not define what any model state means or how the engine computes it.

The Canvas Visual Refresh landed in three PRs — chrome / silhouettes / states, then edge class / direction / cues + motion, then zoom LOD + the acceptance matrix. The v0.6.0 scope is the look of edges and the elision of detail, not edge geometry: edge paths stay on React Flow's Bézier route (getBezierPath) and orthogonal routing is deferred (§VL6 "Routing"). The sections below describe the shipped behaviour; anything still deferred is marked so inline. Every semantic reference points out to a spec (→ SEMANTICS-*.md, → loop-model/1, → loop-expr/1). Carries no loop-*/N id; revised freely. §VL10–VL11 are the invariants against the GraphDoc / offline posture; §VL12 the acceptance criteria; §VL13 the decision record; §VL14 the order this feeds into.

This formalises and extends the N1 "Vessel" system already on the canvas (src/components/nodes/nodes.tsx, src/components/edges/LoopEdge.tsx, src/index.css). It is written so the later Canvas Visual Refresh slice can bring every existing node/edge onto one grammar in a single pass.

Parameter / Register visuals are live. loop-expr/1 and loop-model/1 are Frozen (SEMANTICS-X.md, SEMANTICS-M.md) and the model-language implementation has shipped, so the appearance and state representation of Parameter and Register nodes — their silhouettes (§VL2.1), the in-node layout (§VL2.4), the invalid treatment (§VL3), the display-grouping note (§VL5.4) — are normative and rendered on the real canvas. They are first-class in the acceptance matrix (§VL11.2 / §VL12), no dev flag. Rendering a Parameter or Register — like any other node — changes no GraphDoc byte, loop-revision/* digest, undo entry, or viewport (§VL10).

VL0. Principles

  1. Shape carries role; colour classifies; motion says "now". The outer silhouette tells you what a node is. Type hue appears only in small areas — a chip, a compact dot, a chart mark — never as a fill. The mineral signal (--signal-primary) is reserved for what is alive this step: flow in transit, a node that acted, a value that just changed.
  2. One cue per meaning. Selection, focus, "acted this step", "blocked", "invalid", and "conflict" are visually distinct and never share a colour or a motion. A node can show several at once without ambiguity.
  3. Legible without colour. Every state that matters is also carried by shape, line style, an icon, or a position/label change, so the canvas reads under any colour-vision deficiency and in greyscale.
  4. Detail follows zoom. Zoom out and the canvas sheds supplementary detail in a fixed order (§VL7) so a large graph stays scannable; it never rearranges, and it never hides the required set — role silhouette, edge class + direction, selection/focus, error/conflict/blocked flags, run-in-progress, and the accessible name + hit target (§VL7.1).
  5. Same information hierarchy in light and dark. The two themes differ in surface and shadow, not in what is emphasised (§VL8).
  6. Calm by default. Motion is short, purposeful, and fully suppressible (§VL9). Nothing loops or pulses while the simulation is paused.

VL1. Canvas surface

  • Background --surface-canvas; an optional dot/line grid at a fixed world spacing, drawn in --line-hairline, that fades out below §VL7's L2 zoom. The grid is a visual aid only — it does not snap or constrain positions (position is authoritative graph data, → SEMANTICS-R.md §R4).
  • Alignment & spacing helpers (align edges, distribute, match gaps) act on the current selection and are undo-tracked like any move. They change position only; no automatic layout runs behind the user's back.
  • Charts / analysis (timeline, distribution) sit as floating cards over the canvas corner, not as a docked region — dismissible, movable, with the same surface (--surface-panel) and elevation as a dialog. A card names the data it shows and the step range.

VL2. Nodes — the Vessel system

VL2.1 Silhouettes (unchanged from N1)

viewBox 120×64, vector-effect: non-scaling-stroke. The path encodes the role; it is filled with --surface-raised (light) and outlined in --line-strong.

Kind Reading of the shape
pool a tank — flat-ish top, tapered sides (holds a quantity)
source a wedge pointing out (produces)
drain a wedge pointing in (consumes)
gate a diamond (routes / decides)
converter a bow-tie (in one side, out the other)
end a rounded capsule (terminal)
parameter a small rounded tag with a notched left edge — a knob you set. Non-colour tell vs register: the notch + a short stub "handle" on the notch side, and no =; the value sits in a slot, not after an equals sign
register a narrow lozenge with a leading = glyph — a readout, not a container. Non-colour tell vs parameter: the = is always drawn (struck through when invalid, §VL3), the outline is a single unbroken lozenge with no notch and no stub

Parameter and Register are visually lighter than the flow nodes — smaller, thinner stroke, no resource/state handles (§M1.3 / §M2: they have no ports and are never edge endpoints) — to read as annotations on the model rather than stages in the flow. The two are told apart without colour: the parameter's notch-and-stub silhouette vs the register's plain lozenge, and the register's persistent = glyph vs the parameter's slotted value. Neither shares a silhouette with any flow kind.

VL2.2 Inside the node

Top to bottom, shown/hidden per §VL7:

  1. Title — the label. One line, ellipsized. --text-primary.
  2. Primary value — the number the node is "about" while a run is live: pool count, source/drain amount this step, gate split, register result. Large, tabular figures. Absent when no run is live (→ SEMANTICS.md).
  3. Capacity / bound — n / cap when a pool has a finite capacity; a thin fill bar under the value tracks value ÷ cap. Uncapped pools show the value alone.
  4. Key expression — for nodes that carry one (register always; provisional for gate/source/converter once loop-expr/1 is adopted there), a single monospace line of the expression as written, ellipsized, in --text-tertiary. It is display text, not evaluated here.
  5. Type chip — a 10–12 px pill in the node's hue with the resource-type name (§VL5). One chip per node. A node with a flow colour (issue #325, docs/flow-colour-and-compact-nodes.md FC-4.1) shows that colour on the chip, the faint hue wash and the L0 dot instead of the kind hue; the silhouette still carries the kind.

VL2.3 Handles

Resource ports are the side circles (out right, in left); state ports are the top/bottom state-* handles. Handle affordance (size, hit area, hover halo) is unchanged from today; this doc does not touch connection behaviour.

Parameter and Register have no handles at all — no resource port, no state port, no drag-to-connect affordance on any edge — because the model gives them no ports and forbids them as edge endpoints (→ SEMANTICS-M.md §M1.3, §M2). They participate only by being referenced from an expression.

VL2.4 Parameter and Register — in-node layout

Fixed against the frozen model spec. Both use the §VL2.2 top-to-bottom order, but only the rows below ever apply to them.

Parameter (→ SEMANTICS-M.md §M1):

  1. Title — data.label. One line, ellipsized.
  2. Value — data.value, the single semantic field: a finite number, large tabular figures, shown whether or not a run is live (it is a constant, not a per-step reading — §M1.1). A read-time-filled default reads 0 with the Inspector's PARAM_VALUE_FIXED notice; the node itself shows no error cue — a Parameter is never invalid (§M1.1), so it carries no struck-=, no —, no warning outline for its own state.
  3. Unit — data.unit (already trim/NFC/≤24-byte normalised by the model, §M1.2), a short suffix in --text-tertiary next to the value (4.5 gold). Absent unit → value alone.
  4. Advisory-range tell — when min/max/step are present and coherent, the value slot gets a thin tick scale underlay (min→max) with the current value marked; this is decoration of an advisory hint, never a clamp. When the stored value is outside [min, max] the mark sits at the clamped end of the scale and a small ▲!-style advisory dot appears on the value (the Inspector shows PARAM_VALUE_OUT_OF_RANGE); the number itself is still shown as stored, unclamped (§M1.2). A hint the model dropped at read time (PARAM_STEP_INVALID, PARAM_RANGE_INVALID, PARAM_UNIT_TOO_LONG after truncation) produces no canvas cue — only the Inspector notice.
  5. Type chip — §VL5.4 (display grouping only).

No capacity bar, no expression row, no primary-value-from-run row.

Register (→ SEMANTICS-M.md §M2, §M3):

  1. Title — data.label.
  2. Computed value — R(currentStepIndex) (§M3.5): the evaluation of the Register against the current committed snapshot. Large tabular figures, rendered through data.format (int rounds for display, float as-is, percent shows value × 100 %) — display only; the digested value is the raw number. Absent when no run is live, exactly like a pool's primary value.
  3. Invalid state — when the model reports the Register invalid (§M3.4): the value area shows the neutral placeholder —, the leading = glyph is struck through (the §VL3 invalid layer), and the outline takes the --warning solid treatment. No number is shown — never 0, never the last valid value (§M6.2). The Inspector carries the enumerated model code (M_REG_PARSE · M_REG_EVAL · M_REG_UNKNOWN_REF · M_REG_WRONG_KIND · M_REG_INVALID_ID · M_REG_CYCLE · M_REG_DEPENDS_ON_INVALID) plus a message; the canvas shows only the placeholder + struck = (no code text on the node).
  4. Expression — data.expr in loop-expr/1 §X8 canonical form, one monospace line in --text-tertiary, ellipsized, as written (never evaluated or rewritten for display; a dangling @id after a delete stays visible — §M5). This is the §VL2.2 "key expression" row; for a Register it is always present (default "0").
  5. Unit — data.unit, same placement as Parameter.
  6. Type chip — §VL5.4.

Timeline — a step index where the Register is invalid is a gap: no series point, not a 0 and not an interpolated segment (§M6.2). When the Register recovers, the series resumes at the next index with no bridge across the gap. The timeline card marks the gap span with the same struck-= glyph in its legend row so the gap is not misread as missing data.

No content change from rendering. Drawing either node — resting, invalid, mid-run, at any zoom — mutates no GraphDoc field and moves no digest, undo entry, or viewport (§VL10, VL-INV-1…6). A content change happens only when the user actually adds or edits a Parameter / Register (VL-INV-6).

Each is an additive layer over the resting node. Colours are from --state-*; every state also has a non-colour tell.

State Colour cue Non-colour tell Motion
resting — — none
hover --line-strong → slightly darker 1 px outline grows none
selected --state-selected ring 2 px ring, offset 2 px — drawn 2.5–4.5 px outside the silhouette, never a recolour of the outline (docs/flow-colour-and-compact-nodes.md FC-4.1) none
focus (keyboard) --state-focus ring dashed ring, the innermost layer: 4.5–6 px inside the silhouette, inside the selected ring and inside a flow-colour band none
acted this step ("fired") --state-fired edge glow a corner tick mark appears for the step one 320 ms fade-in, then hold until the next step
value changed --state-fired on the number ▲ / ▼ glyph beside the value number slides up/down ~320 ms (→ §VL9)
arrival (a pool just received) --state-arrival fill pulse at the in port a small inbound chevron one 320 ms pulse
blocked (acted-but-nothing-happened, e.g. a gated-closed passive) --state-warning outline a hollow ⃠ badge, top-right none — steady until state clears
conflict (Review: this element differs base vs proposed vs yours) --warning hatched outline a ▲! badge; the Review panel lists it none
invalid (a Register the model reports as invalid — parse / evaluate / unknown or wrong-kind / unreferenceable-id / cycle / depends-on-invalid, → SEMANTICS-M.md §M3.4, SEMANTICS-X.md §X7) --warning solid outline the leading = glyph struck through; value shows — (no number — never 0, never the last valid value, §M6.2); the enumerated M_REG_* code + message in the Inspector; a Timeline gap at every invalid step index none — steady until the model clears it

Stacking: rings (focus inside selected) < step cues (fired glow, value slide) < persistent flags (blocked, conflict, invalid badges, always top-right, stacked downward in that order).

Spatial order of the rings (issue #325, docs/flow-colour-and-compact-nodes.md FC-4.1), from the inside out: the dashed focus ring, the flow-colour band (only when the node has a flow colour), the neutral structure line on the silhouette, the selection ring, and the dashed invalid ring outermost. Each is cut from the silhouette at a fixed pixel distance, so all of them show at once and none paints over another.

The invalid state applies only to Register nodes (→ SEMANTICS-M.md §M3). A Parameter is never invalid (§M1.1): a bad value is read-time filled to 0, and a bad advisory hint (min/max/step/unit) is dropped with an Inspector notice only — neither puts any error cue on the node. selected / focus / conflict (Review) still apply to both kinds normally.

Run controls do not restyle nodes. running vs paused vs ended is shown by the run bar and the timeline head, not by the nodes.

VL4. Badges

Small, fixed-size chips attached to a node corner or an edge midpoint. At most one badge per corner; overflow collapses to a ••• chip that expands in the Inspector.

Badge Where Shows Style
value / capacity in-node (§VL2.2) n or n / cap + fill bar not a chip — part of the node body
expression in-node, or edge midpoint for edge exprs the source text, ellipsized monospace, --text-tertiary, no border
flow resource edge midpoint the flow amount as written (2, 1-3, 2D6) solid chip, --edge-resource text on --surface-canvas
probability / condition state edge midpoint ✳ trigger, ≥… activator, ±… label — the expr as written dashed-border chip
warning node top-right ⃠ blocked · ▲! conflict · struck = invalid see §VL3
resource-type mismatch edge midpoint a small ⚠ + the two type names on hover advisory only — the edge is not dimmed or blocked. When a pairing counts as a mismatch is loop-model/1's call, not this doc's (§VL5.3)

Badges never overlap the silhouette outline; they sit just outside it.

VL5. Resource Type — advisory

→ loop-model/1 will define resource types — the field structure, how a mismatch is judged, and whether/how a type is carried in the canonical projection (→ loop-revision/2). This doc fixes none of that. Here, given that a resource type exists on an element, the visual rules are:

  • it drives colour, icon, legend, and Inspector warnings;
  • it does not change any number, delete a connection, or block a run;
  • it is advisory in v0.6.0 (VL-D3).

VL5.1 The set (initial)

Type Hue token Icon (line, 12 px)
Gold / currency warm amber coin
Energy / stamina teal-green bolt
XP / progress violet upward chevrons
Player / population blue person
Item / stock neutral brown box
(untyped) --line-structure —

Hues are low-chroma, chosen for ≥3:1 against --surface-canvas and mutual distinctness under deuteranopia/protanopia; the icon is the primary carrier so the set works in greyscale. The exact palette is tuned in the Refresh slice against the accessibility checks in §VL8.

VL5.2 Where the type shows

  • Node type chip (§VL2.2) — hue fill + name.
  • Resource edge — a 2 px inner stroke in the type hue alongside the --edge-resource line; the arrowhead takes the hue. Untyped edges are unchanged.
  • Legend card — a floating card listing the types present in the graph with counts; toggled from the toolbar.
  • Chart series — a pool's series takes its type hue where unambiguous.

VL5.3 Mismatch — display only

What counts as a mismatch is defined in loop-model/1, not here. When the model reports one for an element, the canvas shows the resource-type mismatch badge (§VL4) at that edge and the Inspector lists it; nothing else changes — the line keeps its normal weight, the run proceeds. The Inspector's mismatch list is presented in a stable order so its rendering is deterministic (§VL10); the ordering key is a UI choice, not a wire rule.

VL5.4 Parameter / Register

Parameter and Register nodes may carry a type for display grouping only — the type chip's hue + name (§VL5.1), nothing more. They have no ports and never sit on a resource edge, so §VL5.3 mismatch does not apply to them and the model emits no finding for them (→ SEMANTICS-M.md §M4.1: resourceType lives only on a pool's data and a resource edge's data). If a build stores a type on one of these nodes it is rendered as the chip and otherwise ignored.

VL6. Edges

Class Line Arrowhead Selected Label
resource solid, --edge-resource or its flow colour, 1.5 px (+ type inner-stroke, §VL5.2) filled triangle keeps its colour, 2 px, over a translucent --state-selected underlay flow chip (§VL4)
state dashed, --edge-state or its flow colour, 1.25 px small open triangle keeps its colour, dashed 2 px, over the same underlay ✳ / ≥… / ±… chip

A flow colour (issue #325, docs/flow-colour-and-compact-nodes.md FC-4.2) is the edge's rest colour on its line, its arrowhead and a 1 px border on its label. Selection is the underlay, never a recolour; a satisfied activator keeps its --signal-primary stroke over the colour, a route-invalid edge keeps its --warning dash and flag, and run tokens keep their own colours. | dependency hint (Review: "removing this node also removes/retargets this edge", → SEMANTICS-R.md §R7A.3) | dotted, --warning | none | — | — |

  • Live flow — while a resource edge carries flow this step, a bead travels source→target along the path in --flow-strength, leaving a fading --flow-trail. prefers-reduced-motion (§VL9): the bead is replaced by a static highlighted segment near the target end and the amount chip.
  • State effect — a trigger fire / activator flip / label apply pulses the edge once (--state-guide), matching the node's step cue.
  • Routing — not in v0.6.0. Edges stay on React Flow's bézier path (getBezierPath). Orthogonal routing (right-angle segments that step around nodes, rounded corners, parallel-edge fan-out, optional manual waypoints) is its own spec-first project — see docs/edge-routing.md (DRAFT). It is a pure render concern and must never edit source / target / handles.

VL7. Zoom levels — information elision

The canvas has three detail levels, switched at fixed world-zoom thresholds — 0.8 (L2 ↔ L1) and 0.45 (L1 ↔ L0). Elision only hides supplementary detail. At every level a node keeps its position, its size, and its silhouette, and an edge keeps its class and endpoints — a zoom change is a pure fade of hidden elements, never a resize or a re-route (§VL12.5). The switch is a pure function of zoom: a threshold round-trip restores the prior state exactly (no hysteresis).

VL7.1 The required set — never hidden at any zoom

  • role — the kind-distinguishing silhouette;
  • edge class + direction — solid vs dashed, and the arrowhead's direction (its decoration may simplify, its orientation may not);
  • selection & keyboard focus — the rings (§VL3);
  • error / conflict / blocked — the invalid / ▲! / ⃠ flags (§VL3);
  • run-in-progress — the step "fired" glow and the flow bead;
  • accessible name & hit target — the node's name is on the element for AT and its clickable area does not shrink below the L2 footprint.

VL7.2 What each level adds on top of the required set

Level Zoom (approx) Nodes also show Edges also show
L2 — detail ≥ 0.8 title, value, capacity bar, key expression, type chip, all badges flow / condition chip, type inner-stroke
L1 — compact 0.45–0.8 title + value; type as a dot type inner-stroke
L0 — map < 0.45 type dot only (no text) type inner-stroke only

Grid fades out entering L1.

Parameter / Register at each level. Same rule as every other kind — the §VL7.1 required set never drops:

Level Parameter also shows Register also shows
L2 title, value + unit, advisory tick scale, type chip title, computed value, expr line, unit, type chip; struck = + — when invalid
L1 title + value title + computed value (or —); struck = kept when invalid
L0 silhouette only (notch + stub), type dot silhouette only (lozenge + =), type dot; the = stays struck when invalid

At L0 both keep: the role silhouette (parameter's notch-and-stub vs register's plain lozenge — the non-colour tell survives), the invalid struck-= / --warning outline on a Register, the selection / focus rings, and any run-in-progress cue. Only text — the number, the unit, the expr line, the Inspector code — is elided. Neither node resizes or re-routes at a threshold (they have no edges to route); their footprint and hit target are byte-identical across L2/L1/L0 (§VL12.5).

VL8. Light / Dark & accessibility

  • Tokens only. Every colour on the canvas is a --* token defined for :root (light) and redefined under the dark blocks — no literal colours in component styles. The Refresh slice audits this.
  • What changes between themes: surface (--surface-*), line weights' apparent contrast, and elevation (light uses a faint drop shadow; dark drops it and leans on surface contrast). What does not change: which element is emphasised, the hue identities (a Gold edge is recognisably the same hue in both), and the state→cue mapping.
  • Contrast is held to the numeric floors in §VL11.2 and checked automatically (§VL12.10).
  • Non-colour redundancy is mandatory for: resource vs state edge (solid vs dashed), every §VL3 state (each has a shape/icon/motion tell), resource type (icon + chip text, not hue alone), and parameter vs register (notch-and- stub silhouette vs plain lozenge; the register's persistent = glyph, struck when invalid) — distinguishable in greyscale, under simulated deuteranopia / protanopia / tritanopia, and under forced-colors: active (the shape, the dash-free outline, and the = / struck-= all survive a UA colour override).
  • Focus is always a visible indicator distinct from selection; tab order follows reading order. On the canvas it is the --state-focus ring (§VL3). In the shell it follows the family contract (Cozy Shelter tokens v1.1.0 §3), and the class is decided by whether the control normally shows a boundary:
    • A — a visible boundary (bordered buttons, the play-bar buttons, every bordered input and select, the view tabs, the mean toggle, the minimap toggle, the expression operator keys): the boundary itself takes --line-focus, a 3 px --focus-halo surrounds it, and there is no outline. The solid boundary carries the 3:1 obligation — measured 3.78–4.40 light, 5.14–7.55 dark. The halo is an 18 % tint, 1.25:1 on its own, and is never the indicator.
    • A-clipped — the same control inside a box that clips (the series trigger and CSV in the one-row Timeline legend): an outer halo would be cut, so it is dropped and the solid indicator is thickened inward.
    • B — no visible boundary (ghost buttons, palette chips, menu and sheet rows, links, checkboxes, table cells, the reference-insert pill): the opaque 2 px --line-focus outline of the global :focus-visible rule. When in doubt, B.
    • Under forced-colors the halo is dropped by the UA, so every selector that says outline: none is repeated with the same specificity to restore a real Highlight outline (inside the box for the clipped pair). --focus-ring / --line-focus is the SOLID colour (--cs-accent in light, Loop's own #83a9e6 in dark). The family's --cs-focus-ring is the halo and must not be aliased onto it.
  • Shell tokens. The light shell reads the family's --cs-* layer through Loop's own names: ground and sunken (one soft page surface — no warm grey is left, and depth is a boundary or an existing shadow, never a difference in colour temperature), canvas, panel / raised / overlay (one white), the hairline, the container line, primary and secondary ink, the solid focus colour, the halo and the overlay elevation. Dark is Loop's own palette — the family layer has no dark values. The hover fill is a role of its own, --surface-hover (a hovered or keyboard-focused row, chip or icon button), with its own values in both themes: it does not follow the sunken surface, so the rest / hover step did not shrink when sunken joined the family ground (a menu row steps by an RGB distance of 43 in light, 41 in dark; following sunken it would be 15). --line-structure is not a shell token: it is drawn only by the node silhouettes, the state handle, the chart axes, the minimap and plot frames and three non-interactive labels; a container's boundary is --line-container and a control's is --line-control. What the shell may and may not move. The functional token values (hues, edges, flow, signal, frame accents, states) are identical to what they were, pinned value by value in e2e/shell-function-colours.spec.ts, and the opaque data marks were measured pixel-identical. A translucent functional fill (a frame tint, the 4 % hue wash, the flow trail) composites over the shell background, so its rendered result can differ by up to 6 per channel in light: that is the background changing, not the functional colour. The canvas's information ink (node titles, edge-chip text, token counts) and its non-data structure — the dot grid (--canvas-grid) and the plot grids (--chart-grid) — follow the shell ink and hairline in light and keep their values in dark. The grids are SVG paint, which forced colours do not recolour, so under forced-colors each names a system colour by its role rather than letting a shell colour show through: the dot grid is a decorative position aid — as thousands of GrayText dots it would compete with the nodes and edges — so it is Canvas and is not seen; a plot grid is a line values are read against, so it is GrayText. Two radius axes: --radius (12 px) for containers, dialogs and popovers, --control-radius (8 px) for standard rectangular controls; compact controls (15–22 px tall chips, triggers, tabs, operator keys) keep their own 4–6 px — the class is the control's form.
  • Control boundary. Any 1 px control border on a panel — the shared .btn (every variant that does not set its own border: plain, --sm, --icon), the PlayBar's .pb-btn and the Timeline's .timeline__csv — is --line-control at rest and --line-control-hover hovered, and keeps ≥ 3:1 against the surface behind it and against its own face, light and dark (WCAG 1.4.11). The face contrast is what makes the rule global rather than per surface: with --line-structure it was 1.86 (light) / 2.15 (dark) on every surface, and 1.78 / 1.65 / 1.86 / 1.51 against a panel / overlay / raised / sunken surface (desktop audit 2026-09-20; the mobile sheet found the same 1.78 on 2026-09-19). Measured minima with the control tokens, composited pixels, on the family shell (2026-10-01): light rest 3.92 (on a hovered row, --surface-hover) · 4.49 (sunken) · 4.82 (panel, overlay and face — one white), hover ≥ 7.04; dark rest 5.46 (face) · 5.98 (overlay) · 6.46 (panel), hover ≥ 7.67. Ghost is outside the contract and keeps its own pair — no border at rest, --line-strong hovered (an appearing edge, not a boundary that has to stay legible) — and primary keeps its --signal-primary. A disabled control is the WCAG exception (opacity: .4, .pb-btn:disabled → --line-disabled), not a 3:1 contract, and its token does not change on enable; under forced colours the UA owns the border (ButtonBorder, Highlight hovered, GrayText disabled). Pinned on composited pixels in e2e/desktop-btn-boundary.spec.ts (one control per surface token + PlayBar + Timeline, light / dark / forced) and e2e/mobile.spec.ts (the sheet buttons). The other bordered controls (2026-10-01) — Inspector fields and selects, the Monte-Carlo and author inputs, the language search, the share URL, the seed field, the distribution pool select and mean toggle, the view tabs, the minimap toggle, the expression operator keys and the reference-insert pill — drew --line-structure until the shell branch and are held to the same contract in e2e/shell-control-boundary.spec.ts: rest ≥ 4.14 light, ≥ 5.46 dark, hover --line-control-hover, and a disabled field drops to --line-disabled and the disabled ink so it reads as disabled. The thirteenth rule is the data-import dialogs' text and number inputs, paste area and selects: they were unstyled browser controls (white with black text in the dark theme too) and are shell controls now — the control boundary, the shell face and ink, class A focus — with their box unchanged (a 1 px border and 2 px 3 px padding in place of the browser's 2 px inset border and 1 px 2 px padding). The inputs and the paste area take the 8 px control radius; the selects are 16–19 px tall, compact controls, and keep 6 px. --line-control-hover states its own value per theme; it does not read an ink token, so a shell ink change cannot shrink the rest / hover step.
  • forced-colors / high contrast: when the UA overrides colours, the §VL7.1 required set stays distinguishable (shape, dash, icon, ring); the app does not fight the override.

VL9. Motion

  • Durations: step cues ~320 ms; hover/selection transitions ~120 ms; the flow bead's travel scales with the run speed slider. Nothing animates while status === 'paused' | 'idle' except a direct user action (select, hover, drag).
  • prefers-reduced-motion: reduce (already honoured for edges): no travelling bead (static segment instead), no number slide (instant swap with the ▲/▼ glyph kept), no pulse (instant colour change held for one step), no card slide-in. All information is preserved; only the animation is dropped.
  • Playback, issue #330 PR 1 (v0.22.0) (docs/simulation-playback.md §PB4.6): a Gate output that moved is highlighted while its token travels, and the step's summed amount rides beside the token as a +N badge from +1. Under reduced motion the same information is static for the committed step: the moved path's highlight, the arrival tell, and the +N badge at the target end. A connection's own label never moves; it dims only while the token or its badge covers it.
  • Playback, issue #330 PR 2 (v0.23.0) (docs/simulation-playback.md §PB4.7): when a token reaches a Pool, a soft tint pulses inside the Pool (0.5 s, under the text); a Converter whose tokens move shows a small ⇄ mark inside it, which fades after the step. Under reduced motion both are held static for the committed step; in forced colours the pulse is a 2 px system-colour line instead of a tint.
  • Playback speed tiers, issue #330 PR 3 (v0.24.0) (docs/simulation-playback.md §PB6.1): at 400 ms a step or slower the token travels with its +N; from 200 to 399 ms it travels and +N shows on arrival; below 200 ms the moved path flashes and the token appears at the end with +N. Step always draws the full form; reduced motion is unchanged.
  • Motion never conveys information that isn't also in a static frame.

VL10. The Refresh does not touch the GraphDoc

Re-rendering an existing file in the new visual system is a pure view change. Opening or scrolling a graph must never make a revision dirty or mint a migration.

  • VL-INV-1 — no stored field is auto-changed by rendering: node position, label, and any size/measurement field are left exactly as saved.
  • VL-INV-2 — the new silhouettes do not re-fit or nudge saved positions; a node drawn with a different outline keeps its coordinate.
  • VL-INV-3 — opening a document creates no auto-migration commit and no undo entry.
  • VL-INV-4 — for any pre-Refresh file, the GraphDoc bytes and the loop-revision/1 fullContentDigest are identical before and after the Refresh ships.
  • VL-INV-5 — no automatic fitView and no viewport re-save on open (the one exception already specified is mobile rotation, → docs/mobile.md).
  • VL-INV-6 — a content change happens only when the user actually adds or edits a Parameter / Register / Resource Type, and only then under the new model version (→ loop-model/1 / loop-revision/2).

VL11. Assets, offline & deterministic snapshots

The visual system must not break the local / offline / deterministic posture.

VL11.1 Assets

  • Icons and fonts are bundled or served from public/ — no runtime CDN request, ever (same rule as the rest of the app; → docs/pwa.md).
  • Every visual asset is inside the Production precache closure (check:pwa-closure) and inside the portable single-file build.
  • Icons ship as inline SVG or a bundled sprite, not as separate network fetches at render time.

VL11.2 Deterministic snapshots

  • Tests freeze the animation phase or disable motion; a screenshot for a fixed graph × sim state × theme × zoom is byte-deterministic (modulo the approved pixel tolerance).
  • Snapshot matrix: {light, dark} × {desktop, mobile} × {L2, L1, L0} over a fixed fixture, plus the per-state and per-edge-class frames from §VL12.
  • The long-label fixture is LATIN-only — a role split, not a cut in multi-script support. §MML1 wraps a long title in full (no ellipsis), so the whole string now reaches the pixel clip; a CJK / Cyrillic / emoji tail would then render with whatever glyphs the CI runner's OS fonts supply and stop being byte-deterministic between Windows builds. The pixel fixture (e2e/canvas-refresh-visual.spec.ts) therefore uses a long Latin string (bundled IBM Plex, identical everywhere) that still wraps to several lines, grows the vessel to its ceiling, and force-breaks an unbreakable token. The multi-script / CJK / Cyrillic / emoji stress case lives in e2e/node-long-label.spec.ts as a DOM test — full string kept on the element, no sideways spill, silhouette grows, the side handles stay on the 28 px port row (docs/diagram-layout.md §DL1) — and never compares pixels.
  • Parameter / Register are in the committed matrix. Their frames — param resting, param out-of-range, register valid mid-run, register invalid (each M_REG_* reason once), the Timeline gap — sit in the same {light, dark} × {desktop, mobile} × {L2, L1, L0} grid as every other kind. The Canvas Visual Refresh slices land them in three passes: chrome / silhouettes / states first, then edge & motion, then the full zoom × forced-colors matrix.
  • Verified environments: prefers-reduced-motion: reduce, keyboard-focus visible, and forced-colors / high-contrast (the required set of §VL7.1 must still be distinguishable when the UA overrides colours).
  • Contrast is numeric, not eyeballed: node outline & body text ≥ 4.5:1 on their surface; edge lines & state-indicator strokes ≥ 3:1 on --surface-canvas; type hues ≥ 3:1 and mutually ≥ some ΔE floor under simulated deuteranopia / protanopia / tritanopia. The exact numbers are pinned in §VL12 and checked.

VL12. Acceptance criteria

Machine-checkable, for the Refresh slice's E2E — the chrome/state/edge frames in e2e/model-nodes-visual.spec.ts + e2e/canvas-refresh-*.spec.ts, and the committed pixel matrix in e2e/canvas-refresh-visual.spec.ts:

  1. Snapshot matrix — a committed screenshot for every cell of {light, dark} × {desktop, mobile} × {L2, L1, L0} over one long-content fixture (a long Latin label that wraps full-height with an unbreakable-token tail — see §VL11.2 for why not multi-script — large + negative values, unit, an invalid Register, a selected + keyboard-focused node, a resource and a state edge, a live run cue), plus a forced-colors: active frame at L2 and L0. The multi-script / CJK / Cyrillic / emoji long label is covered from the DOM in e2e/node-long-label.spec.ts, not here. Non-deterministic chrome (the build stamp) is outside the .react-flow clip; the minimap + attribution are masked; fonts are awaited and the single-shot run cue is frozen before the shot. Tolerance and platform pinning as for the existing Distribution snapshots.
  2. No off-canvas UI — at every supported width (desktop + the mobile View/Run widths, → docs/mobile.md), every floating card, legend, and badge has its bounding box fully within the viewport; the document never scrolls sideways.
  3. Token purity — a check (script, like check:mobile-query) asserts no literal #rgb / rgb() colour in src/components/nodes/**, src/components/edges/** — only var(--*).
  4. Colour-blind & forced-colors redundancy — for a fixture containing every node state and both edge classes, each is distinguishable with hue stripped and under forced-colors: active (class name / shape / dash presence / icon in the DOM/SVG carries the non-colour tell).
  5. Zoom keeps the required set, and the canvas does not jump — going L2 → L1 → L0: the §VL7.1 required-set elements stay present at every level; only supplementary text/badge elements disappear; and node bounding boxes, silhouette paths, positions, and edge endpoint coordinates are byte-identical across the three levels (no resize, no re-route at a threshold).
  6. Reduced-motion parity — with prefers-reduced-motion, a mid-run DOM snapshot contains the same information nodes/edges (values, ▲/▼ glyphs, amount chips, state badges, required-set flags) as the normal frame; only animation properties/classes differ.
  7. Light/Dark parity — the set of emphasised elements (rings, badges, fired glow targets) is identical between themes for the same graph state.
  8. GraphDoc untouched — load each examples/** graph, render it, pan and zoom, and assert the serialized GraphDoc and its loop-revision/1 digest are byte-identical to before; canUndo is unchanged; no autosave write fired (VL-INV-1…6).
  9. Assets are offline-safe — check:pwa-closure still passes with the new assets; the portable build contains them; a test with the network blocked renders every node kind, both edge classes, and every icon from cache.
  10. Contrast thresholds — an automated check computes the §VL11.2 contrast ratios for the token pairs actually used and fails below the floor.
  11. Parameter / Register are first-class in the matrix. Their appearance and state representation (§VL2.1, §VL2.4, §VL3, §VL5.4) are rendered on the real canvas and covered by criteria 1–10 like every other kind — no dev flag, no provisional fixture. The invalid state (Register only — a Parameter is never invalid) is drawn as a --warning dashed outline plus a corner ! flag, so it is identifiable with hue stripped and under forced-colors; the value area shows —, never 0 or a stale value.

VL13. Decisions & scope

  • VL-D1 — non-behavioral. This doc fixes appearance and the visual↔state map only. Any statement about when a state occurs, what an expression evaluates to, or what a resource type permits lives in a spec, not here.
  • VL-D2 — extend N1, don't restart. The Vessel silhouettes, the hue-in- small-areas rule, and the mineral-signal-for-"now" rule are kept. The Refresh slice migrates existing nodes/edges onto the full grammar; it does not redesign the shapes.
  • VL-D3 — Resource Type is advisory in v0.6.0, and this doc fixes only its look. Colour / icon / legend / Inspector warning; computation-neutral, validation-assist. The field structure, the mismatch rule, and any canonical / digest inclusion are loop-model/1 + loop-revision/2 decisions, not this doc's. Hard type validation is a later, separate spec.
  • VL-D4 — Parameter / Register are live and first-class. loop-expr/1 / loop-model/1 are Frozen and the model-language implementation has shipped: the silhouettes (§VL2.1), in-node layout (§VL2.4), the invalid treatment (§VL3, Register only — a Parameter is never invalid), zoom behaviour (§VL7.2), and the display-grouping note (§VL5.4) are normative and rendered on the real canvas, in the committed acceptance matrix like every other kind — no dev flag, no provisional fixture. Rendering these nodes changes no GraphDoc byte, loop-revision/* digest, undo entry, or viewport (§VL10).
  • VL-D5 — charts float, they don't dock. The timeline/distribution move from a docked region to dismissible floating cards as part of the Refresh.
  • VL-D6 — routing is render-only. Any edge routing / label placement added never mutates graph data (source / target / handles / position).
  • VL-D7 — desktop and mobile share this grammar. The mobile View/Run layout (→ docs/mobile.md) applies the same node/edge/state visuals; only the chrome around the canvas differs.
  • VL-D8 — the Refresh is a view change, not a data migration (§VL10). No existing GraphDoc / loop-revision/1 digest moves because of it.
  • VL-D9 — every visual asset is offline-safe (§VL11.1): bundled or public/, in the precache closure and the portable build, no runtime CDN.
  • VL-D10 — zoom never hides the required set (§VL7.1) and never resizes / re-routes at a threshold (§VL12.5).

VL14. Order this feeds into

  1. This doc — Visual Language draft (here). ✔ merged; Parameter / Register appearance fixed in this follow-up.
  2. loop-model/1 + loop-expr/1 — Parameter / Register semantics, expression grammar & evaluation. ✔ Frozen (SEMANTICS-M.md, SEMANTICS-X.md).
  3. loop-revision/2 (with the "Workspace stays v1" note, → SEMANTICS-M.md §M8.2) — new node kinds and expression fields in the canonical projection / semantic digest. Draft — the remaining pre-implementation spec.
  4. Merge loop-revision/2; verify merge-commit CI.
  5. chore/open-0.6.0-dev.
  6. Implementation slices: model language → Canvas Visual Refresh (this doc made real). Scenario Compare is out of the confirmed v0.6.0 scope — it needs its own spec/design PR and a separate go decision after the Refresh.