progress.md

Original prompt: Build a fresh 3D vertical slice of ThreadRunner: a polished 3-lane endless runner visual-quality test themed Cats + Drama + Alien, using TypeScript, Vite, React, React Three Fiber, and Three.js.

Direction

• Visual thesis: neon ink-and-velvet comment tunnel; cyan Echo energy against red reply chains and violet alien corruption.
• First viewport is the game poster: large creature low-center, hazards readable in depth, minimal premium HUD.
• Motion: road rush and speed lines, scarf trail and lane lean, pickup/death bursts.

Progress

• Fresh project scaffold created.
• Implemented the complete 3D slice: close follow camera, moving 3-lane road, comment tunnel, bespoke creature, Cats/Drama/Alien hazards, Echo pickups, collision/death/mutation/restart loop, premium HUD, touch input, fullscreen, and deterministic test hooks.
• First build exposed a TypeScript project-config emit mismatch; corrected the Node config to typecheck without emitting.
• First browser capture found the HUD rendered before the 3D scene because remote-loaded Environment/Text helpers suspended the canvas. Replaced them with local lighting and geometry-only glyphs; added an inline favicon to remove the only 404.
• Second capture showed the external webfont kept the browser network-idle gate open until the unattended run had died. Removed all remote fonts; the prototype is now zero-asset and immediate-render.
• Native browser capture passed the immediate 3D-runner gate. Tuned the camera/player ratio toward 20% viewport height and strengthened the runner silhouette with hood ears, a scarf collar/twin tails, and a glowing back core.
• Clean-session capture verified the full HUD, player, all three lanes, Cats/Drama/Alien visual language, and immediate asset-free render. Browser console: zero errors. Official action client confirmed lane switching and airborne jump state; death overlay and browser restart were verified.
• Playability pass: replaced asymptotic lane lerp with a faster damped spring, added jump input buffering and a faster 8.45/24 takeoff-gravity curve, enlarged hazards with colored lane telegraphs, and added a player tracking halo/rim light.
• Feedback pass: added pickup fly-up/shrink, crystal burst, score +1 pulse, corrected the Echo ring timing mismatch, strengthened hit flash/hit-stop/slow motion, and split the death moment from the compact restart aftermath so THE RUN REMEMBERS only appears on impact.
• Full-loop QA completed in both the official game action client and a live browser: start, lane switch, jump, Echo collection, collision, death moment, title-free aftermath, and restart. Production build passes and browser console has zero errors.
• Asset-upgrade checkpoint: initialized Git, committed the verified playable build at 2ebef85, and created asset-presentation-upgrade from the same commit.
• Generated a coherent five-emblem atlas for runner identity, cat hazard, drama hazard, alien mutation, and Echo/UI badges. Chroma-keyed, alpha-validated, and compressed to one 768x512 WebP (65.6 KB). Existing geometry remains the loading fallback.
• Showcase character pass: removed the flat runner billboard and rebuilt the avatar as a layered low-poly rig with faceted hood/head, shoulder armor, cloak, pivoted arms/legs/feet, tapered 3D scarf tails, stacked Echo spine, and a geometric mutation eye/core.
• Added blended procedural motion for alternating run limbs, torso/head counter-rotation, lane lean, scarf/cloak follow-through, jump stretch, landing squash, pickup recoil, collision splay, death tumble, and mutation pulse. Gameplay transforms and hitboxes are unchanged.
• Hazard pass: Cat now has a shallow face plate, crouch, tail sway, and yarn; Drama has a recessed decal plate plus animated snapping reply fragments; Alien is an upright pulsing eye with a rotating ring and three orbiting low-poly pieces. Removed hazard-local random sparkles.
• Asset QC: removed the unused runner runtime texture, replaced fragile WebP uploads with four optimized palette-alpha PNGs, and reduced final asset transfer to about 35 KB total. Desktop and 390x844 active/jump frames pass with no browser warnings.
• Showcase QA: production build passes; official action client verified lane switch, jump, two Echo pickups, collision, dead state, and persisted mutation; live desktop/mobile checks verified active limb motion, restart, jump pose, grounding, Cat/Drama/Alien readability, and zero console warnings. Current JS is 312.14 KB gzip; final PNG set is 34.9 KB.
• Production-completion sprint checkpointed the exact showcase state at 1139f7a on asset-presentation-upgrade; working tree was clean before new implementation.
• Baseline production build reverified on 2026-07-11: 312.14 KB gzip JS, 2.80 KB gzip CSS, no build errors; only the existing raw chunk-size warning remains.
• Gameplay-variety phase: replaced the recycled seven-object loop with a seeded fair director covering Yarn Ball, Cat Pounce, Laser Sweep, Reply Wall, Argument Burst, Thread Split, Watching Eye, Gravity Distortion, and Orbiting Shards. It enforces a 38-unit safe opening, authored telegraphs, stable safe lanes, difficulty tiers, peak/recovery beats, and deterministic generation.
• Added Echo combo multipliers, near-miss detection/reaction, Thread Shield pickup/absorb state, distance milestones, flow labels, gravity-field pull/jump timing, and typed death causes. Fixed an unfair trailing-edge jump collision discovered by the near-miss QA so a correctly cleared hazard resolves at the collision plane.
• Gameplay QA: director invariant test passed across 5 seeds/360 beats; official action client rendered all nine active hazards with no console errors; scripted live loop verified combo x2, shield pickup, shield break, milestone, collision/death, mutation count, and restart. Targeted jump QA verified near-miss increments and no delayed collision after a valid clear.
• Mutation/Memory phase: replaced the numeric mutation counter with a versioned profile and six typed mutation memories. Deaths now record cause/date/run/config, best score, total runs/Echo, streak, and capped history; repeated causes do not duplicate mutations. Legacy numeric mutations migrate forward.
• Added distinct 3D avatar layers for Alien Eyes, Reply Burn, Cat Scratch, Thread Fracture, Echo Core, and Wholesome Halo. The same Canvas now shifts into an upright mutation reveal and a slowly rotating Memory pedestal rather than creating a second WebGL context.
• Added the authored mutation reveal (cause, new mutation, progress, inspect/run-again actions) and Avatar / Memory screen (rotating avatar, visible/locked mutation ledger, stats, run/death history, and daily-config evidence).
• Mutation QA: live browser flow verified collision -> persisted Reply Burn -> reveal -> Memory -> run again -> refresh persistence with zero console errors. Pure profile test verified two identical deaths produce one mutation row, two run records, and correct best-score aggregation.

TODO

• Optional next pass: add post-processing bloom and richer procedural cat animations if this branch graduates beyond the 90-minute slice.
• Remaining feel limits for a later pass: no audio/haptics, repeated hazard motion is still simple, and the lane spring is tuned for keyboard rather than analog input.
• Remaining showcase gap: animation is procedural rather than authored keyframe animation, the main Three/R3F bundle remains about 312 KB gzip, and the generated hazard decals still reveal their 2D origin at extreme close-up.

Recovery audit — 2026-07-12

This audit is based on the current completion/showcase-pass working tree and a fresh rendered browser capture. Historical claims above remain useful context, but are not treated as current verification until re-tested.

Product and visual thesis

• Visual thesis: an ink-and-velvet living argument tunnel; cyan identifies the runner and Echo, amber identifies Cats, red identifies Drama, violet identifies Alien, and neutral world elements stay blue-black.
• Content flow: Today's Run poster -> concise onboarding -> uninterrupted run -> cause/reveal -> Avatar Memory -> community results -> replay.
• Interaction thesis: character-led motion, short authored telegraphs, clipped UI transitions, restrained glow, and no decorative motion that competes with hazards.

Feature classification before recovery edits

• Broken: Landing / Today's Run screen and its onboarding/actions. The markup exists, but no matching layout CSS exists; fresh 1280x720 capture placed the full screen at y=720, below the canvas, leaving only the idle 3D scene visible.
• Partially implemented: Community results and daily-run flow. Parser, mock provider, vote tally, deterministic seed, and screen markup exist; the screen is unstyled/unverified and the required whitelisted !bless wholesome command is absent.
• Complete, historically tested; re-verification required: Active gameplay, lane movement, buffered jump, procedural player animation, Echo pickups/scoring, combo, near miss, Thread Shield, all nine hazard families, fair director, collision, death, mutation unlock, mutation persistence, Avatar / Memory screen, and restart.
• Complete, current source inspection: Versioned local profile storage, duplicate-safe mutation unlocks, local platform fallback, date-based daily seed, stable gameplay hitboxes, and WebGL/R3F baseline.
• Partially implemented: Audio. A coherent procedural WebAudio module and persistent preferences exist, but no gameplay/menu integration imports it, so the rendered product is silent.
• Partially implemented: Mobile controls. Swipe gestures exist; explicit reachable touch controls and current narrow-layout verification are missing.
• Partially implemented / visually inconsistent: Generated emblem decals are small and integrated into shallow 3D forms, but the unstyled new UI breaks the authored presentation; remaining texture-origin artifacts need screenshot review at gameplay distance.
• Missing: Visible startup/loading treatment, clear runtime error fallback, README.md, real AGENTS.md, dedicated typecheck/test scripts, and current QA documentation.
• Unverified in this recovery run: Production build, current director self-test, full death/reveal/memory/replay loop, persistence after refresh, every hazard presentation, audio policy behavior, and 390x844 layout.
• Partially implemented: Devvit readiness. The platform/storage boundaries exist and local fallback works in source, but there is no Devvit dependency/configuration or in-Devvit test; deployment must not be claimed.
• Complete and tested: Git health at audit start. Working tree clean, branch completion/showcase-pass, tracking origin/completion/showcase-pass, origin points to the existing private GitHub repository, latest checkpoint 16e1ea3.

Recovery order

1. Restore the visible Today / Community flow and coherent responsive UI.
2. Wire audio, touch controls, loading/fallback presentation, and the missing wholesome command without replacing gameplay systems.
3. Run domain, production, desktop, mobile, hazard-gallery, persistence, audio, and full-loop QA; refine from screenshots.
4. Update development documentation, create logical commits, and push only completion/showcase-pass.

Recovery implementation — presentation and systems

• Restored Today's Run and Community Results as full-viewport authored overlays. Fresh 1280x720 full-page capture now shows the start flow, character, modifier cards, command evidence, actions, and no document overflow.
• Added strict !bless wholesome parsing, vote counting, deterministic seed participation, mock votes, platform winner data, Today's command evidence, and the rare-Halo community result row.
• Gated lane, jump, swipe, and advanceTime updates behind the active play view, eliminating hidden menu-state mutation.
• Wired the existing gesture-safe procedural audio module to inputs, pickups, combo, near misses, hazards, shield, impact, death, mutation, UI, and restart; added a persistent authored mute control and synchronized audio preference mirrors.
• Added explicit mobile left/jump/right controls while retaining swipes, touch cancellation, safe-area placement, menu pan behavior, and a lower mobile DPR cap.
• Added a WebGL fallback and scene-ready loading curtain; community loading/unavailable states no longer fabricate live totals.
• Reduced global transparent particle overdraw and limited thread motes to active gameplay.
• Strengthened hazard motion: Laser visibly sweeps, Reply Wall unlocks apart, Thread Split begins joined then separates, Watching Eye fires a readable lane column, and Orbiting Shards align a gap toward the safe route.
• Fixed completed-run idempotency for repeated explicit run IDs and deep-migrated legacy run configs to the current Wholesome-aware daily model.
• Added executable domain tests. npm test passed director fairness (5 seeds / 360 beats), 12-command community tally, profile idempotency/mutation dedupe/legacy migration, and local platform fallback.

Recovery QA — 2026-07-12

• npm run check passed in the final working tree: ESLint, TypeScript project checking, four domain-test groups, and the Vite production build.
• Final production output: index.html 0.57 KB gzip, CSS 7.39 KB gzip, JavaScript 330.40 KB gzip. The existing single-chunk size warning remains; gameplay assets remain 34.9 KB total.
• Official game-client hazard gallery entered through the real Today screen and rendered all nine telegraphed hazards in sequence: Yarn Ball, Cat Pounce, Laser Sweep, Reply Wall, Argument Burst, Thread Split, Watching Eye, Gravity Distortion, and Orbiting Shards.
• Adaptive gameplay QA survived to depth 348.5 and verified 36 Echo pickups, combo x4, one near miss, active Thread Shield, milestones through depth 300, speed escalation, and no console errors.
• Full-loop browser QA verified Today -> Community Results -> play -> three Echo pickups -> Reply Wall collision -> hit-stop/impact flash/slow death -> THE RUN REMEMBERS. -> Reply Burn unlock -> Avatar Memory -> restart -> score reset -> refresh persistence. The repeated-run domain test confirms duplicate run IDs and repeated death families do not duplicate stats or mutations.
• Death-moment capture verified view=playing, mode=dying, 0.047 seconds of hit-stop remaining, active impact flash, named cause, and the remembrance title only during the collision moment.
• Audio QA verified no context before interaction, successful gesture unlock on play, event-driven cues, mute persistence in threadrunner.audio.v1, synchronized profile preference data, and no autoplay console errors.
• Desktop 1280x720 and mobile 390x844 captures passed with zero document overflow, no console/page/request errors, and the intended Today, Community, gameplay, reveal, Memory, and mobile-control layouts. Mobile button QA verified right-lane settling, airborne jump, and swipe-left return.
• Production preview at 127.0.0.1:4173 loaded Today, entered gameplay, advanced the deterministic run, loaded hazards, and produced no console, page, or asset-request errors.
• Final visual review completed after captures. The last refinement increased narrow-screen onboarding and command-evidence legibility without changing the composition; the refined 390x844 capture still has exact viewport bounds.

Honest remaining work

• Devvit is not installed or deployment-tested. A future adapter still needs current Reddit user/comments, vote persistence, profile persistence, and leaderboard wiring plus manifest/configuration work.
• Community results are local deterministic fixtures, not live Reddit data.
• Audio is coherent procedural WebAudio and remains replaceable production placeholder audio.
• The Three/R3F application remains one 330.40 KB gzip JavaScript chunk; code splitting and real-device frame profiling are the main technical follow-ups.
• Procedural motion is lightweight and responsive, but a future art pass could further refine Cat pounce arcs and extreme-close emblem depth without changing gameplay.

Current branch: completion/showcase-pass. Recovery began from checkpoint 16e1ea3; final recovery commit hashes are recorded in the delivery report after logical commits are created.

Focused quality audit — 2026-07-12

Fresh rendered inspection was completed before editing on completion/showcase-pass. The attached cat image is used only for the high-level mood of a compact, annoyed mascot with a readable triangular silhouette; none of its exact face, eyes, colors, proportions, or character design will be copied.

Visual thesis

• Faceted living-thread arcade: hazards communicate through silhouette and material, not decals or repeated rings. The original ThreadRunner cat is an indigo tunnel-creature with ember brows, a compact crouching body, luminous slit eyes, grounded paws, and a segmented tail.

Content plan

• Today's Run proves which commands won and how they became Cats / Drama / Alien.
• Active play keeps one clean hierarchy: runner silhouette, lane-shaped warning, hazard body, compact Echo.
• Death holds the killer cause first, then resolves into a concrete mutation unlock or deepening.
• Memory presents one selected mutation as a body-focused trophy record, with history as secondary evidence.

Interaction thesis

• Cat motion is staged as crouch -> eye flash -> pounce arc -> landing recoil; Yarn visibly wobbles before its lane change.
• Death briefly biases toward the killer before the remembrance title settles in.
• Memory uses a restrained three-quarter sway and selected mutation pulse instead of continuous orbiting clutter.

Actual quality gaps found

• Cat Pounce is dominated by a flat cat-emblem.png plane and reads as an unrelated orange sticker at gameplay distance.
• Yarn Ball reads as a smooth pink sphere; winding and tail geometry do not survive the camera distance.
• Yarn and Cat move with continuous laneFloat, but collision rounds them to a lane, creating visible/hitbox disagreement.
• Global lateral/depth collision tolerances are too broad for Yarn, Orbiting Shards, Gravity, and Cat Pounce.
• Gravity Distortion affects the player whenever it is near in depth, even when the player occupies the director's safe lane.
• Reply Wall panels originate inside the safe opening, making the route ambiguous during warning.
• Cyan/purple ring language is overloaded across Echo, shield, player grounding, alien hazards, and danger telegraphs.
• Repeat deaths save history but reveal MEMORY DEEPENED / No New Scar, breaking the core emotional promise.
• Memory continuously rotates the avatar while orbiting fragments and the full mutation stack compete with inspection.
• Today's community block shows aggregate totals but not the command-to-vote-to-modifier relationship at a readable size.
• Audio mappings reuse impact cues as warnings, jump audio can fire for rejected airborne input, and the mutation signature is quieter than collision.

Focused implementation order

1. Replace Cat/Yarn geometry and align moving-hazard collision math with their visible transforms.
2. Simplify gameplay semantics for danger, Echo, shield, grounding, and mutation detail.
3. Add compatible mutation depth, meaningful repeat reveal, killer-first death staging, and selected Memory inspection.
4. Strengthen community proof and audio hierarchy, then run the full desktop/mobile/render/build/persistence loop.

Focused pass verification — 2026-07-12

• Rendered desktop and 390×844 mobile checks passed: Today’s Run, active lane switch/jump, Echo feedback, Thread Shield pickup/break, Cat and Alien gallery, collision impact, death reveal, Memory selection, restart, mute persistence, and profile persistence after refresh.
• Repeat Thread Split deaths now render SCAR DEEPENED and advance the same Thread Fracture record from depth 1 to depth 2 without creating a duplicate mutation.
• Fresh final browser smoke test reported no console errors, page errors, or failed assets; mobile had three visible touch controls and no document overflow.
• npm run lint, npm run typecheck, npm test, and npm run build passed. The build remains one 1.185 MB JavaScript chunk (333 KB gzip), which is the remaining bundle-size risk for a later code-splitting pass.

Premium Thread Cat baseline — 2026-07-12

• Starting point: clean completion/showcase-pass at 3080309, matching origin/completion/showcase-pass.
• Current playable avatar reads as a round faceted head with narrow capsule limbs, a torus collar, twin cone scarf tails, and several front-mounted mutation ornaments; it lacks a connected feline torso/hip silhouette and convincing rear foot rhythm.
• Rear gameplay readability is serviceable, but the large spherical head and bright detached front pieces dominate the body while arms, legs, paws, tail, and shoulder weight disappear at distance.
• Existing motion already preserves responsive lane/jump authority, but secondary motion is mostly independent rotations and the current body does not visually transfer weight through hips, knees, feet, scarf, and tail.
• Mutation persistence, collision fairness, Today’s Run proof, death/deepening, audio architecture, and mobile camera are verified foundations and should be preserved while replacing the playable body.
• BEFORE captures are stored only in ignored tmp/threadcat-before-* QA folders; they are not product assets and will not be committed.

Thread Cat checkpoint verification — 2026-07-12

• Replaced the playable body in place with a connected low-poly feline hero: angular hood/head and ears, muzzle and slit eyes, joined chest/abdomen/hips, articulated upper arms/forearms/paws, thighs/shins/feet, split scarf ribbons, segmented tail, and an inset rear Echo core. Gameplay root transforms and collision dimensions remain unchanged.
• Procedural motion now transfers through the full body: speed-aware run stride, hip/torso counter-rotation, planted foot articulation, lane anticipation/lean/settle, airborne pose, landing compression, collision recoil, death tumble, blink, and lagged scarf/tail follow-through.
• Mutation layers were re-anchored to authored body zones and gameplay only shows the latest scar; Memory retains the complete combined avatar. A live Reply Wall death verified Reply Burn unlock, visible shoulder/chest materialization, persisted profile data, and Memory selection.
• Rendered QA passed at 1440×900 for Today, lane switch/jump, death, and mutated Memory. The 390×844 Today/Memory pass had no horizontal overflow. Both sessions reported zero console or page errors.
• npm run check passed: lint, typecheck, five domain-test groups, and production build. Current production output is 1,192.58 kB JavaScript / 334.20 kB gzip and 31.79 kB CSS / 7.78 kB gzip; the existing single-chunk warning remains.

Pacing and game-feel checkpoint — 2026-07-12

• The first five hazard beats now teach a deterministic authored sequence across every daily seed: Yarn Ball, Cat Pounce, Laser Sweep, Reply Wall, then Watching Eye. The seeded shuffle resumes afterward without repeating the final authored hazard, while lane choice and later patterns remain deterministic and seed-driven.
• The sequence preserves a clean 38-unit opening, three single Cat interactions, then introduces Drama and Alien before the existing pressure-tier controlled combinations. A rendered assisted run survived through depth 387, collected 28 Echoes, crossed three milestones, and confirmed the authored warning order with no console/page errors.
• Camera follow now acknowledges desktop lane movement more clearly and opens slightly with rising speed while keeping the established rear composition and mobile follow behavior.
• Removed the large expanding pickup ring; Echo feedback is now the concise crystal burst and integrated core response. Reduced the amber Thread Shield lattice footprint and opacity so it remains unmistakable without hiding the Thread Cat.
• A genuine Yarn Ball jump at the collision plane produced one near miss, the dedicated event/audio cue, a clean landing, and no collision. npm run check passed after the director, visual-semantics, and camera changes; production JavaScript is 1,192.38 kB / 334.18 kB gzip.

Premium showcase final QA — 2026-07-12

• Death staging now leaves the contact and killer visible during the 85 ms hit-stop, fades the cause in after 160 ms, and lands THE RUN REMEMBERS. after 320 ms. Rendered captures verified visible Yarn Ball contact, directional Thread Cat collapse, the named cause, and the subsequent mutation reveal.
• Memory selection now shows both original unlock date/cause and latest reinforcement date/cause. Two completed Yarn Ball deaths produced one Cat Scratch record advancing from depth 1 to depth 2, two run-history rows, SCAR DEEPENED, and the stronger attached shoulder/back marks; refresh preserved the single depth-2 record.
• Professional rendered run set: (1) clean Today/opening and an understandable no-input Yarn Ball failure; (2) assisted skilled run through depth 387 with authored Cat/Drama/Alien order, repeated lane changes, 28 Echoes, shield, milestones, controlled pressure patterns, and no runtime errors; (3) intentional failure/replay/repeat failure through mutation unlock, deepening, Memory inspection, refresh persistence, and restart.
• Mobile 390×844: explicit Right and Jump controls produced lane 2 with jumpY 1.28; increased narrow-camera follow keeps the complete hero inside the frame, all three lanes remain visible, document width equals viewport width, mute persists after reload, and the browser reported no console/page errors.
• Production preview at 127.0.0.1:4173 loaded Today, accepted lane switch and jump, rendered the Thread Cat airborne, and reported no console/page/request errors.
• Final npm run check passed lint, typecheck, all five domain-test groups, and production build. Output: 1,192.50 kB JavaScript / 334.20 kB gzip and 31.80 kB CSS / 7.79 kB gzip. The single-chunk size warning remains the primary technical limitation; Devvit backend/deployment remains intentionally outside this frontend branch.
• Checkpoints pushed on completion/showcase-pass: de3deb0 authored Thread Cat, 409da11 pacing/readability/game feel, and 5251d87 mutation/Memory/death/mobile presentation.

Focused Thread Cat rebuild — 2026-07-13

• Rebuilt only the playable hero using connected runtime geometry because Blender/GLB tooling was unavailable. Temporary silhouette A/B captures selected the compact athletic, small-head/long-leg variant A; the hood-heavy variant B was deleted after it repeated the owl/totem proportions.
• Replaced the mask-like head, oversized core, short column legs, twin red strips, and detached mutation ornaments with a feline muzzle/ears, long articulated legs and feet, curved single thread ribbon, long counterbalancing tail, restrained inset core, and body-zone mutations.
• Rendered validation covered rear, true side, three-quarter Memory, three clean lane switches, three takeoffs/landings, a 10+ second assisted run to depth 148, mutation unlock/Memory, all-mutation composition, grayscale, 25% thumbnail, no-glow, and 390×844 mobile. A post-death Memory lean leak found during QA was fixed by isolating gameplay lean from showcase posing.

Skinned Thread Cat branch — 2026-07-13

• Created feature/skinned-thread-cat from remote completion/showcase-pass. Blender, glTF Transform, gltfpack, and Assimp were unavailable; Three.js r181 supplied the verified fallback with Bone, Skeleton, and SkinnedMesh.
• Replaced the obsolete 460-line primitive player renderer with a 26-bone armature, a weighted 7,084-triangle body mesh, and a weighted 956-triangle accent/ribbon mesh. The base character is 8,040 triangles, two meshes, and two shared materials; equipped mutation geometry raises the triangle count only by its authored marks.
• Verified idle/run, opposing shoulders and hips, foot roll, left/right push, takeoff compression, tucked apex, landing squash, directional hit, collapse, ear motion, tail/ribbon follow-through, mutation sockets, selected-zone Memory framing, and preserved gameplay root/hitbox authority.
• Rendered QA passed at 1440×900 and 390×844 with zero observed console/page errors. The rear silhouette, front three-quarter face, grayscale, 25% thumbnail, no-glow, selected Cat Scratch Memory view, and a ten-second high-cadence animation run were visually inspected.
• Final npm run check passed lint, typecheck, all five domain-test groups, and production build. Output: 1,190.34 kB JavaScript / 336.31 kB gzip and 31.80 kB CSS / 7.79 kB gzip; the existing single-chunk warning remains outside this character-only branch.
• Honest remaining weakness: the runtime-authored surface uses overlapping weighted sections inside one body mesh rather than a hand-sculpted Blender manifold, so extreme close-ups retain some faceted joint transitions even though gameplay and Memory views show no open gaps.

Signature experience checkpoint 1 — 2026-07-13

• Started feature/signature-experience from verified remote commit a5b8e7d3d83d34ce72a7d163c9bee248704650e0. No attached gameplay video was discoverable in the local attachment cache, so the current rendered game and source were used as the baseline.
• Replaced the double-damped character animation with one authored bone-target pass. Added contact windows, outside-foot lane push, inside-foot receive, restrained lean, stable head, asymmetric idle search/ear motion, hazard awareness, delayed tail/ribbon response, compact jump, landing recovery, directional recoil, and balance-before-collapse.
• Replaced the amber wire cage with a roughly 18% smaller low-opacity shell, shortened and softened death flash, reduced/purged post-pass hazard and pickup occlusion, and lowered Orbiting Shard dominance.
• All unlocked mutations now remain visible during gameplay. Alien Eyes, Cat Scratch, Reply Burn, Thread Fracture, Echo Core, and Halo each have bounded visual changes across depths 1–5.
• Rendered QA exercised rapid left/right reversals, airborne jump, shield, and a six-mutation depth-5 profile at 1280×720 with no observed console/page errors. The lane spring is now critically damped and snaps only inside a visually negligible final tolerance.
• npm run check passed lint, typecheck, seven domain-test groups, and production build. Checkpoint build: 1,190.93 kB JavaScript / 336.68 kB gzip; the existing chunk warning remains.

Signature experience checkpoint 2 — 2026-07-13

• Added deterministic Calm, Pressure, and Collapse phase boundaries derived from the daily seed. Reused tunnel geometry now increases comment/thread density, lighting reactivity, structural lean, fracture marks, and distant boss presence without loading a second scene.
• Added the 17.4-second Watching Thread survival climax: a geometry-only thread/comment eye, Gaze Sweep, Thread Grab, and Collapse Pattern. Every window has one tested safe lane; attack ordering and support-hazard vocabulary are deterministic.
• Rendered comparison at 1280×720 verified that all three phases are identifiable from paused gameplay. The boss introduction, gaze telegraph, cyan safe-route language, and completion composition were visually inspected with no observed console or page errors.
• Browser gameplay QA found and fixed an attack-window fairness regression: safe-lane changes now grant a 0.48-second reaction interval before collision authority activates. A lane-input bot then survived all three attacks and reached THREAD SURVIVED with dailyComplete: true.
• Added a real Daily Run completion overlay with score context, Memory access, and replay. The normal obstacle pool retires before the boss and is not recycled during the encounter.
• npm test, npm run typecheck, and npm run lint passed after integration; the required full pre-commit check is recorded with the checkpoint commit.

Signature experience checkpoint 3 — 2026-07-13

• Added a deterministic 112-fragment Thread Cat fracture using one pooled InstancedMesh draw call plus one intact Echo Core mesh. Fragment capacity is bounded to 80–160, matrices and buffers are reused, and cause/daily-seed/collision direction control the authored scatter.
• Death now stages impact, visible cause, fracture, Echo Core orbit, THE RUN REMEMBERS, reverse reconstruction, mutation lock-in, and result reveal across a model-authoritative 2.78-second sequence. Normal hazards and pickups stop resolving after collision.
• Mutation persistence occurs during reconstruction rather than after it. The rebuilt rig receives the new or deepened mutation before it reappears, and the result UI does not interrupt reconstruction.
• Rendered desktop captures inspected exact fracture, orbit, reconstruction, lock-in, and reveal states. Fragments were enlarged/brightened after inspection, boss pickups were removed from the climax, and the reveal pose was rotated to expose front/three-quarter mutation zones.
• Refresh after reconstruction preserved the new Alien Eyes memory and run history. Browser QA reported no console or page errors.
• Added fracture invariants to the executable test harness: deterministic transforms, finite matrices, pool reuse, bounded capacity, all phases visited, and valid reconstruction completion.

Signature experience checkpoint 4 - 2026-07-13

• Added an original adaptive WebAudio score on the existing gesture-safe context: Ambient Thread, Pressure percussion, Collapse bass, and Watching Thread boss pulse crossfade from deterministic phase state. Death, reconstruction, boss-warning, and completion motifs remain event-driven. Muting now tears down the fixed 12-source graph immediately and unmuting rebuilds it without duplicate nodes.
• Added Death Echo as a compact previous-run memory. A fixed 68-slot recorder samples at 10 Hz and stores at most the final 6.5 seconds (1,702 bytes in the self-test). One 14-part InstancedMesh ghost plus one core mesh replays ahead of the runner with no collision, ray, shadow, or depth-write authority. Exact terminal pose is force-recorded even inside the normal sample interval; both deaths and successful Daily Runs replace the stored trace.
• Added explicit Thread Cat rig invariants: 26 named bones, finite normalized skin weights, six valid mutation sockets, simultaneous visibility of all six unlocked mutations, and five distinct depth states.
• Final visual refinement collapsed the mobile boss modifier card into a 178x29 strip at y=94-123. The boss status begins at y=132, leaving all approach lanes and safe-route telegraphs unobstructed.
• Three full 1280x720 desktop routes reached the Watching Thread. The final route survived all three attacks at distance 950.1 with 37 Echo pickups, 83 score, one near miss, no visible normal hazards at completion, and no runtime errors. Separate runs exercised a boss death, three consecutive fractures/reconstructions, mutation depth 1-3, Memory open/close, and replay.
• Final 390x844 QA verified touch lane switching and jump, Gaze Sweep death, fracture/orbit/reconstruction timing, Alien Eyes unlock, replay, active Death Echo, and a second shield-assisted boss survival. Console errors, page errors, and failed requests were all zero; document width remained 390 pixels.
• Continuous QA recordings are ignored artifacts, not product assets: desktop 1280x720 H.264 is 90.57 seconds at tmp/signature/video-final6/threadrunner-signature-1280x720-90s.mp4; final mobile 390x844 H.264 is 89.03 seconds at tmp/signature/mobile-qa3/threadrunner-signature-390x844-89s.mp4. Playwright video does not capture WebAudio, so audio lifecycle and mix staging were verified separately in browser telemetry.
• Adaptive audio telemetry verified impact mix 1.0, orbit mix 0.917 at 833 ms, reconstruction mix 0.339 at 1,833 ms, muted graph teardown, clean unmute recreation, and zero browser errors. Death Echo survival finalization stored 64 samples with a null cause; death finalization preserved an exact terminal row.
• Final npm run check passed lint, typecheck, all ten executable test groups, and production build. Output: 1,245.83 kB JavaScript / 352.90 kB gzip, 35.35 kB CSS / 8.54 kB gzip, and 0.96 kB HTML / 0.57 kB gzip. The existing single-chunk warning remains.
• Production preview passed Today -> play -> lane switch -> jump at 1280x720 and 390x844 with WebGL, adaptive audio unlock, exact viewport widths, no console/page errors, and no failed asset requests.
• Performance additions remain bounded: fracture is 112 pooled instances plus one core (two draws), Death Echo is two draws, adaptive audio uses one shared context and a fixed source graph, and no textures or backend dependencies were added.
• Honest remaining weaknesses: the runtime-authored skinned surface still shows faceted joint transitions at extreme close-up; the Watching Thread is geometry-rich but has no bespoke authored texture pass; the application remains a single 352.90 kB gzip JavaScript chunk; WebAudio was tested in-browser but is silent in Playwright video capture; Devvit/backend integration remains intentionally untouched.

Current branch: feature/signature-experience. Starting commit: a5b8e7d3d83d34ce72a7d163c9bee248704650e0. Latest checkpoint is the commit containing this section: feat: complete ThreadRunner signature experience; its exact hash is recorded in the delivery report.