Numinous v0.5.0-alpha.3

Numinous 0.5.0 alpha 3

The App's audio settings can now be inspected without a window or sound card.

Run numinous settings for Master, Radio, Room Sound, Effects, and mute, or
numinous settings --json for the same values with saved/default provenance.
The command uses the App's shared bounded preferences reader. Missing files
use first-run defaults; valid legacy files retain shared migration defaults;
damaged or unreadable files return an error. It changes no files and stays
independent of Journey and scores.

These values describe App launch preferences. They do not claim device
availability, observe a running mixer, or change pre-master sound exports.
The existing App Settings controls remain the place to change them.

Updating an unmarked loose archive remains refused to protect its contents.
The error now names the recovery: download a fresh archive or use the
installer with NUMINOUS_HOME set to a separate empty directory, keeping
the existing tree intact.

The prior packaged seals remain: unknown bare Studio names are refused,
zero-reading proofs have no melody, oversized optional audio keeps its notes,
and Mandelbrot keeps its continuous multicolor edge on a quiet ground.

Sensory Alpha remains active. General text scaling, physical pacing
qualification, native Overture playback, and Vibe remain on the roadmap.
Human playtests are optional feedback and do not gate this release.

Numinous v0.5.0-alpha.2

Numinous 0.5.0 alpha 2

Rooms stay readable when the window gets small, and exported collections keep
all their rooms.

Readable rooms and complete pictures

Room titles now fit beside Journey progress. Audio status has its own row,
and spectrum bars stay inside the header instead of erasing mathematical
marks. Long Show title cards fit their viewport. Composition regressions
cover every catalog title at compact size and explanations at medium widths.

Percolation's shortest crossing now has a distinct character in the terminal
and MCP picture, with brighter ink in pixel renders. An independent exhaustive
small-grid comparison verifies that its compact search state preserves the
shortest answer.

Contact sheets resize their tiles to include the entire catalog within the
image bound. Captions stay inside their own tiles, and the command reports
the dimensions it actually wrote.

Bounded creation handling

Share exports reject invalid size and phase before creating output folders
or files. Gallery discovery retains only the newest displayable creations
as it scans, with stable timestamp ties and preserved remix lineage, rather
than loading the entire archive before applying its display cap. Existing
bounded file readers and link exclusions remain in place.

The previous corrections remain: unknown bare Studio names are refused,
Mandelbrot keeps its multicolor detail and quiet ground, and oversized
optional MCP audio keeps its notes and Show continuation.

An active milestone

Sensory Alpha remains active. General Cabinet and HUD scaling, the closed
physical display pacing set, and remaining photosensitivity decisions stay
open. Native Overture playback and Vibe follow in roadmap order. Human
playtests are optional feedback and do not gate this release.

To compare this round, resize an App room and inspect its title, progress,
audio status, and explanation. Try dense Percolation in the terminal and
export a contact sheet with a few columns. The machine regressions cover
these cases without requiring a human playtest before the next change.

Numinous v0.5.0-alpha.1

Numinous 0.5.0 alpha 1

Sensory Alpha begins with light that preserves what the rooms draw.

Distinct marks across the rooms

The shared raster now separates faint guides, secondary detail, main shapes,
and hot highlights. Every catalog and hidden-room accent stays within a
validated lightness band and keeps graphical contrast against the near-black
stage. The terminal retains its original characters; the pixel face now
preserves their different weights. Mandelbrot keeps its continuous multicolor
field and quiet ground.

Hilbert lights a neighborhood along the thread. Percolation leaves closed
sites dark, lights the connected cluster, and exposes a shortest crossing.
Wireworld separates conductor, electron head, and tail. Visible pixel touch
responses across the catalog survive the color-free renderer. App footer and
audio labels retain readable main-idea ink.

Rule 30 now grows its named rule, with variations moving the initial seed.
The player's dial still chooses other rule bytes. Its former automatic rule
gallery mislabeled the picture and strobed between different field densities
at the fastest speed; the named rule now stays put as the history grows.

Catalog regressions check the mark roles, increasing lightness, mono visibility,
and remaining dichromacy distinctions. The current source-bound color audit
and flagship image goldens follow this intentional rendering change. Audio
golden metrics retain their existing contract.

An active milestone, with honest boundaries

The package minor names active Sensory Alpha work. Understanding Alpha's
qualifying study remains open independently. Human playtests are optional
feedback and do not gate this release or Sensory Alpha's machine exit.

Stable Sensory Alpha qualification still needs the closed physical display
pacing set, perceptual regression coverage, general Cabinet and HUD scaling,
and the remaining photosensitivity and color-vision decisions. Physical timing
receipts measure machines, not playtest participants. The optional GPU post
stack retains its existing promotion gate.

Next feedback round

Try Percolation's sparse and dense fields, touch the Hilbert curve, and follow
Wireworld's electron. Compare CPU images and terminal views with NO_COLOR.
Check that guides stay quiet while the mathematical shape remains legible,
and that the App's footer and sound badge remain readable. Retest Mandelbrot's
multicolor field, fast room changes, reduced motion, and saved reading size.

The previous long-audio correction remains: an oversized optional MCP WAV
keeps notes, explicit omission, and Show continuation. App room-change audio
and separate saved levels are already built; current native device qualification
remains open. Native Overture playback and Vibe remain ahead.

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.34

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 34

Read at your own size, without losing your place.

A reading size that stays with you

Settings > Reading Text selects 100, 125, or 150 percent of the study reader's
responsive body size, using Left/Right on that Settings row. A-/A+ buttons and
minus/plus keys change it while reading;
equals also enlarges. Prose, equations, and references reflow around the source
position at each depth. Navigation stays fixed, and every depth remains freely
available. Size survives room and language changes and the next launch.

Older preferences keep their language, mute, window, era, and audio levels,
starting at 100 percent. Brackets still change volume while the reader is open.
Changing reading size leaves room tuning, phase, accepted inputs, Journey, and
audio playback intact. General Cabinet and HUD text scaling remains open.

Desktop Cabinet lists now page around the selected row when the whole list
cannot fit at its minimum readable size. Settings rows stay above the footer,
and keyboard and controller navigation can reach every row.

Next feedback round

Open the App's study reader on Lissajous. Try all sizes in a small and large
window, change size partway through Mathematics, and return between depths.
Try English and the Japanese draft, close and reopen the reader, and relaunch
to check the saved size. Check Settings in a medium window, including the
Reading Text row near the end. Brackets should still change volume while
minus/plus change reading size.

The alpha 33 long-audio correction remains available: Mandelbrot with
audio: true keeps notes and an explicit omission when its WAV cannot fit;
the audio-enabled Overture can continue through the long cue.

Native room-change sound and the separate persisted audio levels still need
feedback from a windowed session with sound. Broader Sensory Lift qualification,
native Overture playback, and Vibe remain ahead. Understanding Alpha's stable
exit remains open.

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.33

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 33

A long room voice keeps its notes instead of closing the agent door.

A useful answer when the WAV cannot fit

Mandelbrot's full mathematical voice lasts 48 seconds. Asking for it over MCP
used to fail the whole reply at the encoded audio limit, losing the notes and
the Overture cue, then suggesting a shorter sound the tool could not request.

listen_room, watch_show, and sing_expression now keep the successful
result when a WAV is too large. Notes, Show looks, receipts, and continuation
remain available. audioOmission states the reason, duration, rate, exact
requested bytes, and unchanged limit. Show carries it under segment.sound
and declares the field in schema version 3. Full and compact replies both
explain the omission. No sound was delivered or claimed heard.

The size check uses core's exact WAV length before synthesizing PCM. Short
WAV attachments and MIDI retain their existing behavior. Full-length files
remain available through the CLI:

numinous sonify mandelbrot --layer mathematical --t 0 --out mandelbrot.wav

PLAY.md explains how to carry another room's phase, variation, and hand, or a
Studio expression's window and scale, into its local pre-master export.

Next feedback round

Retest listen_room on Mandelbrot with audio: true, including compact mode.
Follow an audio-enabled watch_show Overture through every returned next.
The long cue should keep its notes and remain playable. Keep the complete
Mandelbrot WAV with the command above, and try a short room's audio attachment.

The alpha 32 round confirmed the multicolor Mandelbrot CPU picture and the
bare-name Studio refusal. Native fades, room-change sound, and the separately
persisted Settings levels still need feedback from a windowed session with
sound. Broader Sensory Lift qualification, native Overture playback, and Vibe
remain on the roadmap. Understanding Alpha's stable exit remains open.

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.32

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 32

A smoother instrument, a richer fractal, and the first correction from the
alpha 31 playtest.

Light that shows the mathematics

Mandelbrot now has a continuous multicolor escape-time field, shared by the
CPU renderer and the native GPU path. Violet, indigo, teal, amber, and rose
ease into a uniform near-black outer field. The set's interior stays dark.
The former bright blue cutoff bands are gone. Closed-form tests for the main
cardioid and period-two bulb avoid redundant iteration inside the set.

Pickover keeps the map's mathematical bounds as its viewport. Small orbits
stay small instead of being magnified to fill the screen. Its unchanged
flash sweep passes through the App's measured speed ladder to 8x. Cellular
Automata, Julia, and Lambda Map remain disclosed as exceeding that proxy at
8x; the measurement does not certify flashing area or music-driven motion.

GPU startup tries primary graphics backends before initializing OpenGL. This
fixes a locally reproduced AMD driver teardown crash; CPU fallback remains.

Motion and sound together

Room changes fade through the dark stage. Drag dials and Studio knobs glide
on critically damped springs while grading and saved values remain exact.
Reduced motion makes input immediate and uses a shorter plain fade. Rapid
changes wait briefly at the stage to keep arrivals separated.

Room scores and game cues share a modest reverb and a soft master limiter.
Notes bloom, pluck, or swell through shared envelopes, and loop releases wrap
without cutting their tails. Room changes wash the outgoing score into its
tail. Radio keeps its track and position, with a dry mix.

Settings now has separate Radio, Room Sound, and Effects levels under Master.
They persist alongside existing choices. Older preferences load with the new
levels at their default, and compact Settings keeps its controls visible.

Honest Studio feedback

A bare unknown name such as zzzzz is refused on plot, sing, and keep, with a
hint for introducing a parameter inside a formula. It no longer becomes a
flat plot, an A3 drone, or a save door. Named parameters such as sin(b*x)
remain supported, as do constants, rhythms, and field variables.

Core Show direction, the Front Hall, and the caller-paced Overture are also
included. Native Overture playback and Vibe remain on the roadmap. The broader
Sensory Lift's physical platform qualification remains open, and Understanding
Alpha has not reached its stable exit.

Update and play

numinous update

For this feedback round, try Mandelbrot at rest and while diving, move between
rooms quickly and with reduced motion, listen to room changes and repeated
notes, and adjust each sound level in Settings. On MCP, retest zzzzz and a
real parameter formula. PLAY.md carries the packaged controls and known limits.

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.31

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 31

A clearer front door, random route maps, and a consistent visual language.

Explore a route problem

Route Lab's Maps page offers reproducible random networks. Choose node count,
extra connections, and maximum road cost, then apply the displayed seed or
generate a new one. Core guarantees connected maps with distinct roads and
positive integer costs. Replacing a map is undoable and clears stale search;
an opened creation requires a deliberate remix first.

Shortest-path search has independent START and END controls. Pick either point
with the arrow buttons or directly on the map. RUN SEARCH records the calculation;
STEP and BACK reveal and revisit its decisions. The current recording keeps
its own endpoints when you change the next choices.

This point-to-point question sits beside the existing delivery round trip,
which chooses an order through required stops and returns to its depot.

Find your way in

The README now introduces Numinous, gets you playing, and explains Watch, Play,
and Create. Two representative screenshots replace the longer front-page
gallery. The full gallery lives in the visual guide; bundled Studio experiment
ids live in the Studio guide; Route Lab's screenshot and detailed controls live
in its own guide. Each is linked from the README.
Links to guides and images outside the archive point to the repository, so
downloaded players can reach them too.

One visual language

Route Lab's native editor and thumbnails use the same teal accent as the room,
replacing their separate amber palette. Map labels and nodes also stay within
that accent instead of using an unrelated magenta. Search decisions remain
distinguishable through shape, brightness, dashed connections, and multiple
strokes.

Mandelbrot's CPU image keeps non-escaping samples on the shared near-black stage.
The exterior uses accent brightness bands, replacing its gray fill. The GPU
image already keeps that dark interior; the CPU screenshot is still a separate
escape-time rendering.

Existing solver algorithms, project formats, and saved creations remain
compatible. Random generation and endpoint controls use the existing workbench.
Understanding Alpha's exit remains open.

Update

numinous update

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.30

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 30

Share a route question and reopen its exact network in the native App.

A question you can pass forward

Route Lab's Keep page offers SHARE beside KEEP QUESTION. SHARE exports the
chosen question, authored roads, closures, deliveries, depot, and order as one
portable .project file. Sharing does not add a local saved question. Each
export uses a new file and preserves the source creation's existing lineage.

Drop a route .project file into the App or pass its path when launching. The App
validates the bounded document and shows a paused preview. OPEN starts an
in-memory experiment; KEEP deliberately imports the question into the local
project chain. Leaving the preview restores the preceding editing session.
The local Gallery also discovers shared route questions beside Studio creations;
selecting a question opens the same paused receiving flow.

Received and kept question bands and Gallery captions use the bundled shaped
text renderer. Long questions expose paging controls, including PageUp and
PageDown on a keyboard. Sharing receipts preserve file-path case and Unicode
and provide the same bounded paging for long paths.
Dense network previews preserve roads while distinguishing the depot and
deliveries, and compact Gallery hints keep the back action visible.

The same document is usable through the existing CLI and MCP project tools.
Route-containing documents keep their version 2 format. Existing Studio
version 1 documents remain compatible with the project tools; native file
receiving in this release accepts route projects. Questions stay data and do
not execute commands. OPEN opens the embedded route, and KEEP retains its
original closed next call without executing it.

Scope and evidence

Core owns document validation, identity, preview, and persistence. Native
input and composed-frame regressions cover the receiving flow, and real
transport tests follow the portable route's next call. These are functional
and rendering checks. Participant comprehension remains unmeasured, and
Understanding Alpha's exit remains open.

Update

numinous update

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.29

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 29

See why a cheaper connection changes a shortest-path search.

Search on the network

Route Lab draws its caller-paced calculation on the actual roads in ordinary
play and native authoring. Predecessor links show revealed connections, and
the completed path has a separate heavier stroke. The latest improved road
is emphasized.
Junction shapes and labels distinguish tentative, final, unseen, and unreachable
states without relying on color. Dense and compact editor maps retain a
junction inspector for the selected cost and predecessor. Click a node or use
the junction controls to inspect it without advancing or restarting search.

Step backward to revisit an earlier decision. Its later costs and connections
disappear. Edits clear the old calculation. An unseen junction is marked
unreachable only after the source search completes, and the final path appears
only at completion.

The same revealed state across three faces

Core owns the revealed-prefix projection. Plain CLI output reports junction
states, cumulative costs, and predecessors. MCP adds trace.view beside the
existing events and final result. Followable next calls and working snapshots
retain their existing shape; portable route identities and kept questions
remain compatible.

The screenshot matrix covers initialization, cheaper predecessor replacement,
backward stepping, disconnected completion, and dense networks at the supported
window sizes. These are functional and rendering checks; participant
comprehension has not been measured. Understanding Alpha remains active, with
its exit awaiting the registered study.

Update

numinous update

Numinous v0.4.0-alpha.28

Numinous 0.4.0 alpha 28

Build a delivery network, ask a question, and keep the experiment for another visit.

Route Lab

Choose a delivery order and compare its round-trip cost with nearest-neighbor
and the exact minimum. The street walk follows real roads. Close a road,
change its cost, undo a change, or step through recorded shortest-path decisions.
Unreachable deliveries stay visible with repair guidance.

Cabinet CONSTRUCT, or O in Route Lab, opens native authoring. Edit junctions,
roads, deliveries, the depot, and delivery order with pointer, keyboard, or
controller controls. Search playback uses the same solver as the comparisons.
The map is a schematic; the selected-road readout gives its cost.

An experiment you can keep

A portable route capsule preserves the authored network and order. Keep it
with a question in the existing project chain. The Cabinet reopens that exact
network, and CLI or MCP previews supply a followable open or remix call.
Explicit remix records the source as its parent. Ordinary edits retain that
lineage. Reopening starts fresh undo and search playback.

CLI route-lab supports custom JSON networks and capsule export. Project
commands can keep a route, export or import a portable project revision, and
print JSON resume previews. MCP uses the existing route_lab and project tools.
Route-containing projects use version 2; existing Studio version 1 documents and identities
remain compatible.

Polish and interoperability

Studio preserves undefined gaps and isolated points in its graph previews,
keeps long-formula cursors visible, and presents slope and partial readings
before navigation context. Room footers adapt to the available space.
Route Lab explains delivery order, street walk, and round-trip cost consistently
across its three faces.

Portable plugin validation checks pinned official schemas, real YAML parsing,
and production knowledge-export round trips. These are local conformance
checks; real-host discovery and participant usability evidence remain open.
Understanding Alpha remains active, with its exit awaiting the registered study.

Update

numinous update