settled-reach/CLAUDE.md

# The Settled Reach

A top-down life-sim — asymmetric information, occlusion-based perception, single-character perspective, Rimworld-style storyteller. Systems interactions like The Sims, combat and visuals like single-character Rimworld, world generation inheriting patterns from Dwarf Fortress and NMS, economy inspired by X4/EVE. Many systems interactable and ready for player participation, but capable of being ignored — the world is alive for any given run. Set in an original science fiction universe. Godot 4 client + Rust/bevy_ecs simulation server via subprocess/IPC.

**Official Title:** The Settled Reach
**Repository name:** settled-reach
**Version source of truth:** `project.yaml` (root `version` field, scheme: `0.{phase}.{n}`)

## Project Structure

```
client/               # Godot 4 client
server/               # Rust/bevy_ecs simulation server
tooling/              # Build tools, scripts, asset pipelines
tests/                # Integration and end-to-end tests
docs/                 # Architecture, design, briefings, workshops
db/                   # Schema + seed data (connectors moved to tooling/db/)
.claude/              # Agents, skills, rules
governance/           # Decision records — decisions/ questions/ rejected/ per domain (pql DQR tree)
```

Full annotated tree: `.claude/rules/project-structure.md`

## DevOps

See [docs/DEVOPS.md](docs/DEVOPS.md) for build, test, lint, and CI procedures. All development operations go through the top-level `Makefile` — run `make` for a summary of targets.

### Asset pipeline

`server/data/systems.db` is a read-only canonical snapshot produced by the generator
pipeline — never edit it directly.  To regenerate: `make regen-db`.  Full rules in
`.claude/rules/asset-pipeline.md`.

## Development Cascade — First Things First

Development follows a strict cascade. Each phase has a concrete deliverable. **Do NOT discuss, design, or implement detail from a later phase while an earlier phase is incomplete.** If you encounter references to later-phase detail (room grammar, NPC bundles, heritage tokens, etc.) in documents or decisions, either ignore them silently and stay at the correct level, or flag that the reference is dragging attention to the wrong scope level and suggest it be rephrased or moved.

| Phase | Focus | Deliverable |
|-------|-------|-------------|
| 1 | Wiki content complete — all planets, moons, stations, heightmaps, artwork | Implant-ready Godot map of the Reach with click-throughs + wiki/GTTR popups |
| 2 | Economics layer — supply/demand, transport, political/social pressure, corporations, supply chains | Economics spreadsheets/graphs with runtime-tweakable simulation |
| 3 | Planetary/moon maps & station layouts — cities, rivers, mountains, roads, biomes, rail | Atlas of the Reach (implant app) |
| 4 | World generation (tile/chunk/block) — deterministic multilayer seed→tile cascade; each layer viewed as a **map in the implant Atlas** (no in-world rendering) | Deterministic walkable-world data + per-layer Atlas maps + asset catalog |
| 5 | Player control & in-world rendering — character, walls/stairs/doors, lighting, drawn on **generated** tiles (no test map) | Player viewport with final-version assets on the generated world |
| 6 | Detail coloring — room-level NPC population, cultural room grammar | Only when the world is walkable |

**v0.2 target is dropped.** No scoping negotiations. Build the base systems fully.

**Generation before player (D-166, amended 2026-05-22 and 2026-06-12).** The world is built **outside-in**: geo layer → economic layer drawn onto the world (cities, buildings, streets, blocks, inter-settlement roads/rail) → building templates → **door boundary contracts** to building insides → only then the background NPC layer + interiors (Phase 6) → only then gameplay/scenarios ("making it a game again", parked in epic T-1036). Player control and visual rendering (Phase 5) ramp **in parallel once outside generation produces walkable exteriors** (gate held by T-962) — not before. There is **no hand-made test map** — test layers are produced by the generator itself. Progress is viewed through the implant **Atlas** (per-layer maps), which already exists (Phase 3). The current in-world rendering code is **left as-is until Phase 5** — do not build on it or rip it out before then. Guiding statement: *before this is a game, it is a Reach a character can travel through.* Phase-independent maintenance/test debt lives under initiative T-1037, not a phase epic.

## Work Modes

### Kanban mode (default)
Work flows continuously through the current phase. `/whats-next` selects the next epic-sized batch from the dependency graph (`pql ticket list --under <active-phase-epic> --unblocked`), refines ticket context via parallel Si agents, then activates a worktree. `/pr-process` (from worktree) and `/pr-review` (from main) handle the review cycle through Gitea PR comments. Phase gating is the **cascade hierarchy** (initiative `T-745` → six phase epics), not labels or a milestone entity — a ticket is in a phase by being parented under that phase epic. The active phase is the `in_progress` phase epic (sequential per D-166; currently `T-750`, Phase 4).

### Pair session
Human and Claude work together interactively on a single task. No background agents, no autonomous work. Used for load-bearing architecture changes where the human needs to make judgment calls as the work progresses — not approve a finished result.

**Rules:**
- No `Agent` spawns, no `run_in_background`. One thread of work.
- Propose one change at a time. Wait for human reaction before continuing.
- Explain what you're about to do and why before doing it.
- After each change, verify together (compile, test, inspect) before moving to the next.
- The human is a participant, not a reviewer. Ask questions, surface tradeoffs, flag risks in real-time.

**When to use:** Ticket description says "pair session", or the work touches foundational systems where a wrong call is expensive to undo (tick cycle architecture, protocol design, data model migrations, build pipeline rewrites).

## Agent Instructions

### Agent scope

- All file paths are relative to the repo root (e.g. `server/src/bridge/types.rs`).
- Topic branches per logical work unit (e.g. `heightmap-import`, `city-names-table`). Any agent can touch any file — personalities guide perspective, not file access.
- **Never chain git commands** in a single Bash call (e.g. `git add ... && git commit ...`). Always run `git add` and `git commit` as **separate sequential Bash calls**.
- **Stale git lock files:** If a `git` command fails with `index.lock: File exists`, you may remove the lock file at `.git/index.lock` (or `.git/worktrees/<name>/index.lock` if in a worktree).

### Planning store (pql)

Tickets live in `.pql/pql.db`, rebuilt from the **git-tracked** `.pql/changelog/` (no
binary-DB backup ritual). Decisions are markdown-sourced under
`governance/{decisions,questions,rejected}/` and synced into the same DB. Ticket ids are
`T-NNN` (`T-440 == legacy #440`). The pre-commit hook auto-exports + stages the changelog.

### Before starting work
1. Check active work: `pql ticket list --status in_progress`
2. Check your ticket: `pql ticket show T-<id> --with-context`
3. Check dependencies: `pql ticket show T-<id> --with-blockers`
4. Read relevant `governance/**/*.md` decision record(s) referenced in the ticket (`pql decisions show <id>`)
5. Background context: `docs/briefings/{your-name}.md`, `docs/discussions/`

### CLI tools

**Use `pql`** for tickets and decisions. Never use the `sqlite3` CLI — it crashes in Claude Code (std::bad_alloc).

| Tool | Command | Full reference |
|------|---------|----------------|
| Tickets | `pql ticket list`, `show`, `new`, `status`, `assign`, `label` | `.claude/rules/ticket-cli.md`, `/ticket` skill |
| Planning | `pql plan whatsnext`, `review`, `status`, `board` | `.claude/rules/ticket-cli.md` |
| Decisions | `pql decisions show`, `list`, `claim`, `validate`, `sync` | `.claude/rules/ticket-cli.md` |
| Vault query | `pql query`, `search`, `backlinks`, `related`, `context` | — |

Phase gating is the **cascade hierarchy** (initiative `T-745` → six phase epics), not a milestone entity: `pql ticket list --under <active-phase-epic> --unblocked` (active phase = the `in_progress` phase epic, currently `T-750`).

### Testing preferences

- **Prefer live Gauntlet testing over mocks.** For visual tests and rendering verification, use the full client/server pipeline (`--test-mode` + `SR_LIVE=1`) instead of TestHarness mocks. The Gauntlet test world produces production-identical data. Mocks can mask rendering bugs by taking different code paths.
- **Gauntlet rooms are immutable.** Never modify existing rooms — new systems get new rooms. This ensures StableId determinism and fixture stability.
- Three test tiers: (1) Live server — highest fidelity, (2) MessagePack replay via `Protocol.decode_snapshot()` — for unreachable rooms, (3) TestHarness mock — for UI-only tests where fog data doesn't matter.
- `make fixtures-gauntlet` regenerates real server snapshot fixtures from the Gauntlet world.

### Implant UI component library (D-169, D-170)

The implant UI system — all diegetic neural overlay panels — lives at `client/ui/implant/`. Components are Godot Control scenes styled via a shared `Theme` resource (`default_implant.tres`). Do not hand-roll implant panel layouts; compose from the library.

**Components:** `ImplantPanel` (root container), `ImplantHeader` (title + subtitle), `ImplantSeparator` (horizontal rule), `ImplantDataRow` (key/value row, optional color), `ImplantTextBlock` (RichTextLabel for wrapping text).

**Theme resource:** `client/ui/implant/default_implant.tres` — defines semantic color roles (`PRIMARY_TEXT`, `DIM_TEXT`, `ACCENT_ACTIVE`, `ACCENT_POSITIVE`, `ACCENT_NEGATIVE`, `ACCENT_WARNING`, `SEPARATOR`), spacing, and font sizes. Swap the entire `.tres` to change implant hardware appearance at runtime.

**HUD visibility (D-170):** `client/scripts/autoloads/hud_groups.gd` manages z-index layering. Modes: `GAMEPLAY` (z=0), `INSERT` (z=10), `FULLSCREEN` (z=20), `MODAL` (z=30). App paths are hierarchical: `implant/map`, `implant/wiki/gttr`, etc. Opening any `implant/*` app occludes gameplay; closing returns to gameplay. Key API: `open_app()`, `close_app()`, `toggle_app()`, `is_app_active()`. Emits `gameplay_occluded` signal so renderers can pause.

**GameplayRenderer base class:** `client/scripts/rendering/gameplay_renderer.gd` — extends `Node2D`. Subclasses override `_gameplay_process()` and `_gameplay_draw()`. Connected to `HudGroups.gameplay_occluded` to pause when the implant is fullscreen. Used by `CursorRenderer`, `EntityRenderer`, `FogEntities`, `SoundIndicatorRenderer`, `WorldRenderer`.

### GDScript conventions

**Autoload parse-order rule:** Autoload scripts (`client/scripts/autoloads/`) compile before global `class_name` scripts are registered. Referencing a `class_name` type directly in an autoload causes a parse-time "not declared" error. Pattern:
- Declare fields untyped: `var my_field = null` (comment the intended type)
- Do **not** reference `class_name` types at the top level or in `_ready()` of autoloads
- In method bodies called at runtime (e.g. `apply_snapshot`), use `load()` inline — by then the script is cached and `load()` returns the cached resource without reloading: `var CVD := load("res://scripts/rendering/character_visual_descriptor.gd")`
- Do **not** cache the `load()` result in `_ready()` — `_ready()` fires during autoload init, before the target script is in the resource cache, causing an actual file reload that breaks self-references in scripts using their own `class_name`

`game_state.gd` (`character_visual_descriptor` field) and `sim_bridge.gd` (`harness` field) follow this pattern.

### File conventions
- Decisions: records in `governance/{decisions,questions,rejected}/<domain>.md` (see `governance/README.md`; query via `pql decisions`)
- Decision IDs: `D-NNN` (confirmed), `Q-NNN` (open questions), `R-NNN` (rejected)
- **Claim IDs before writing:** `pql decisions claim D <domain> "title"` — prevents ID collisions across parallel branches
- Diagrams: `.d2` source + `.png` renders in `docs/diagrams/{category}/`. Create or update diagrams via `/d2-diagram` when D-records are added or modified.
- Discussion rounds: numbered sequentially, archived to `docs/discussions/` when complete
- Briefings: one per agent, updated after decision-producing rounds
- Tickets: managed via `pql ticket`/`pql plan` CLI or `/ticket` skill (`T-NNN` ids)