security-game/MEMORY.md

MEMORY

Session memory for durable decisions, gotchas, and commands. Implementation history lives in DONE.md, user-facing changes in CHANGELOG.md, the live task list in TODO.md, and the canonical implemented-features list in docs/development-status.md.

Decisions

• Local-only reference override (2026-11-03, owner): development-only photo research ignores the licence gate. Downloads live in tmp/research/ (gitignored): DDG image search, street-view frames, neighbouring buildings — never committed, never shipped. Promotion into docs/screens/refs/ always passes the sidecar licence + privacy gate and CREDITS.md.
• Project agent skills (2026-11-03): two tracked skills live in .agents/skills/: gig-line-blender-asset-contract and gig-line-release-qa. They are guidance only, add no runtime dependency and are referenced from tools/README.md. The third-party blender-skills pack remains gitignored.
• TV Studio shares the Hollywood location (owner): the Late Night TV Studio is the same El Capitan Entertainment Centre block at 6840 Hollywood Blvd (which houses Jimmy Kimmel Live!), restaged for a late-night arrival. VENUE_SPECS["tv_studio"] is a 30.0 m variant of the 29.6 m Hollywood facade. One reference board serves both venues; never create a separate TV Studio board.
• Jimmy Kimmel Live = starting point: the Hollywood first shift and the TV Studio arrival both begin at the El Capitan block. Stated in docs/hollywood-boulevard-map.md and docs/gameplay.md.
• Street-view limitation: Google Street View panoramas need a Google API key or manual browser capture, so the local reference sets use DDG street-level photos instead.
• Image-recitation filter: Gemini image models reject well-known branded facades (Comedy Store wall) as generation anchors (IMAGE_RECITATION). Workaround: anchor on a less-branded frame of the same block, or generate text-only when the reference adds no geometry.
• OpenRouter image-to-image: /v1/images is text-to-image only; the working path is POST /v1/chat/completions with a content array carrying a base64 image_url. Response images arrive as message.images[].image_url.url (fallback: a data URI inside the message text). Implemented in generate_textures.generate_image(reference_path=...) and scene_concepts.py generate/anchor; provenance sidecars are .refgen.json.
• Facade/venue material picks (2026-11-03): the Masonic/El Capitan facade uses the photo-anchored limestone_ashlar field (warm tint Color(0.85, 0.81, 0.74)) with stone_steps for trim; the Joke Shop uses dark_stucco; the marquee canopy/sign box stay black_metal by design (fictional "GIG LINE" marquee, not the red El Capitan Theatre marquee next door). The TV Studio reuses masonic_facade. Committed Comedy Store refs were removed in favour of the local-only tmp/research/comedy-store/ set; the three-up board's photo panel is a historical public-domain frame.
• Godot 4.7.2 --import gotcha: with a stale .godot/ cache, new image files never import (no .import created) and preload() of the new texture fails every dependent script with the misleading Could not resolve external class member "spec". Fix: import in a scratch copy with .godot/ removed, then copy back the .png.import and .godot/imported/*.ctex/.md5.
• Blender skills pack (local aid): MIT blender-skills at .agents/skills/blender-skills/ (94 skills + shared references/), gitignored, kept out of Godot's scanner by .agents/.gdignore. Keep the pack flat when updating (cp -a <pack>/.claude/skills/. ...). Pi gates project .agents/skills behind project trust.
• NPC model sourcing (ADR-0015): CC0 acceptable for shipped assets; CC-BY only with attribution in CREDITS.md; no service assets with redistribution restrictions. The procedural generator is the primary path. Quaternius and MakeHuman were evaluated as references only, not shipped bases (Quaternius: 62-bone T-pose rig mismatch; MakeHuman: needs retopology + custom rig + clothing).
• Gaussian splatting (unversioned): offline/development-only until an ADR proves licence, privacy, Compatibility/Web cost and mesh collision. Accepted photo channels: team captures, permissioned user/volunteer photos, clearly licensed downloads; every set needs a provenance/consent sidecar. No runtime splat dependency in 0.10.0.
• 0.10.0 balance protocol: docs/balance-acceptance.md defines targets/denominators for the 36 venue/difficulty/phase cells, seeds 1–100, and access/emergency error rates. Gotcha: _read_npc_truth() is type-derived, not behaviour-derived; the emergency-fairness review must account for that oracle mismatch.
• Character mesh cap: eight library variants use 8,000 tris / 8,000 glTF vertices (CHAR_MAX_TRIS/CHAR_MAX_VERTS in tools/blender_assets.py); the frozen npc_base fallback keeps 6,000/4,000. Measure after any geometry change; never silently lower the cap back to 5,000.
• Engine baseline: Godot 4.7.2 stable (official editor ~/.local/bin/godot). The system's godot-runner cannot load arbitrary project paths (compiled without path overrides); use the official editor binary.
• GDScript/architecture: cross-file references use explicit preload() constants (not class_name) so scripts compile in headless --script runs; the test runner is a custom minimal harness (not GUT, which needs the editor plugin); no autoload signal bus — ShiftCoordinator owns the EventBus instance passed to subsystems.
• Skinned NPCs (v0.6.0): NpcAvatar._build_skinned_body() loads npc_base.glb; procedural _build_body() is the fallback. Bone pose rotation is the absolute local orientation, not an offset — compose with get_bone_rest(i).basis or the body snaps to a broken pose. Five tint slots via SurfaceMaterials.npc_slot(); keep _rig.scale uniform on the skinned path.
• NPC facing: the avatar's visual front is +Z; Godot look_at() aims -Z (made NPCs walk backwards). Use NpcAvatar.yaw_towards(dir) and set rotation.y; never look_at() on avatars. Head-turn offsets use +basis.z for the same reason.
• Release blockers (still open): macOS unsigned, AI image provider terms/commercial rights not cleared, storefront/rating approval pending, external playtests and full hardware matrix pending. Recorded in CREDITS.md, PRIVACY.md, docs/accessibility.md, docs/known-limitations.md.

Gotchas / Known Issues

• Two character builders — do not confuse them. tools/blender_assets.py is the real builder for the eight library characters, 18 gear pieces and props (it has the 0.9.4 face/hand sculpting in _face()/_hands_and_shoes()); tools/npc_pipeline.py builds only assets/models/generated/npc_base.glb, the frozen plain-primitive fallback. Reading npc_pipeline.py to judge the library's face/hand detail is wrong.
• Pose capture fixed (2026-11-04): the harness was missing set_physics_process(false)/ set_process(false) on the avatar, so the FSM (_advance_fsm + _move_toward_target) ran every tick, reset arrived/velocity and made theater_pose() revert to idle/rest. Disabling both fixes it (sit vs idle diff 5.63, walk vs idle 2.29). The earlier "moving the Rig child does not render" probe was a red herring — it set the position inside _shoot() in the same frame as root.get_texture().get_image(), so it never rendered a frame. Lesson: pose/portrait harnesses must freeze the avatar's process/physics before driving _animate().
• Capture/pose harness gotchas: scripts that read captured-mouse input must run windowed (smoke_props.gd); the NPC FSM rewrites rotation.y every physics tick, so pose/portrait captures set the yaw after set_physics_process(false); visible=false does not keep the crowd out of a portrait frame (park the rest of the crowd away instead).
• Blender: bisect_plane and thin bevels leave zero-area triangles (Godot "non-finite normal in LOD generation"); _clean() + a weld after bisect fixes them and the audit rejects them.
• Image models have per-model size floors/caps (Seedream needs 1920+; GEN_SIZE=2048, do not lower; gpt-5-image-mini caps lower). generate_image applies model-specific sizing; concept generation defaults to --request-size 1536.
• Local photo research tooling: DDG rate-limits by IP (HTTP 202) — the refcollect.py token bucket (0.5 req/s, burst 3) plus retry/backoff handles it; some DDG frames are AVIF mislabeled .png/.jpg (convert with ffmpeg; refcollect.py sheet skips unreadable). Commons API needs a descriptive User-Agent and rate-limits thumbnail downloads (fetch all metadata in one titles=A|B|C query).
• Frozen decisions: do not re-open override_access; do not bind wand to W; do not remove the radio easter egg.
• GDScript: no static signals; lambdas capture locals by value (mutating a captured local does not affect the outer variable — use member functions for accumulators).
• Reference cycles: FSM holds its owner via WeakRef, ShiftCoordinator is RefCounted; if a new subsystem introduces a cycle, repeat the WeakRef pattern.
• Headless (dummy renderer) logs Parameter m is null from mesh_get_surface_count — benign, does not occur with a real GL driver.
• macOS export requires rendering/textures/vram_compression/import_etc2_astc=true (universal build demands ETC2 ASTC).
• Typed spawn signal: handlers must accept the 4th event: Dictionary arg or Godot will not call them.
• GDScript inference trap: a var typed as a base class (radial: CanvasLayer) exposes script members as Variant; type it as the script type (ActionRadial). --check-only --script cannot see the Save autoload — use a real boot (--quit-after 180) to verify full-scene compile.
• Do not snapshot right after changing a transform in the same frame — capture_screenshots.gd needs a state/frame gap or the capture uses the old camera orientation.
• EventScheduler probabilities are per simulated second, not per call; never poll it per frame.
• Light falloff: omni_attenuation = 0.0 is constant, not physical, falloff in Godot 4.7 — all local lights use 1.0.
• glTF baseColorFactor is LINEAR — writing sRGB makes props pastel; srgb_to_linear() is applied in build_glb. A new/changed .glb needs godot --headless --import before load() sees it.
• Rebuilding a character GLB also requires re-baking its AO (tools/bake_ao.py -- --only <name>). blender_assets.py build writes the GLB only; the old <name>_ao.png then maps onto the new geometry and produces large dark cheek/jaw blotches. Bake the AO, re-import, and refresh the stale .godot cache (scratch-copy import) before judging a face/body change.
• Save.SETTINGS_FILE is declared and unused; settings persist through load_settings()/save_settings().
• Crowd reactions emit event_bus.crowd_changed; GameManager._connect_crowd() must reconnect after every coordinator.setup() (same class of bug as the radio-dispatch reconnect).
• Packaging: NSIS uses -D defines (never /D) and resolves relative defines against the script directory (pass $PWD-absolute paths); installed exe must be space-free; ICO must be classic BMP entries (PIL emits PNG-compressed ICOs NSIS can't load). appimagetool runs system appstreamcli — pass --pedantic.
• Credentials: ~/.git-credentials holds the Gitea creds; .env holds only OPENROUTER_API_KEY.
• assets/textures/game_ready/ is not imported (no .import) — use the imported assets/textures/skyline.png path.
• Godot 4.7 writes *.gd.uid files — kept out of git status via .git/info/exclude.
• Collaborators occasionally leave uncommitted work in the shared tree; check git status before committing and leave foreign changes untouched.

Commands

• Tests: godot --headless --path . --script res://src/test/test_runner.gd
• Boot check: godot --headless --path . --quit-after 120
• Single screenshot: godot --path . -s res://src/test/take_screenshot.gd
• Staged gallery: tools/check_screenshots.sh (re-run the whole script, never a partial capture)
• Blender build: flatpak run org.blender.Blender --background --python tools/npc_pipeline.py -- build (flatpak cwd is /app/blender and cannot read /tmp — use absolute repo paths; .gdignore markers keep Godot from importing .blend/tmp)
• Textures: python3 tools/generate_textures.py (then godot --headless --import); AI mode python3 tools/generate_textures.py --ai; general pipeline python3 tools/asset_pipeline.py
• Character checks: python3 tools/blender_assets.py inspect|audit|fit, python3 tools/npc_proportions.py
• Docs: python3 tools/check_docs.py (every tracked image must be linked from its folder README)
• Reference research: python3 tools/refcollect.py search <q> --slug <block> --limit N (local-only), tools/refboard.py (Commons), tools/three_up.py compose/rows, tools/scene_concepts.py generate/anchor/realism

Open Questions

• Whether the responder avatar should be playable/controllable or purely scripted.
• Localization target languages beyond English.
• macOS notarization approach for broad distribution.

Current State

The playable build covers the three venues, tutorial/campaign/checkpoints, the 0.9.3–0.9.6 polish/texture/integration passes and the Blender + realism asset pipeline (see DONE.md and CHANGELOG.md). The 12-character library (realistic face + four crowd variants) and the Comedy Store map rebuild are complete. Priority (2026-11-04, owner): 1) finish the MakeHuman character, 2) release the finished procedural character development as the 0.10.1 patch, 3) re-evaluate the 3D models, 4) the MakeHuman body targets 0.11.0 — TODO.md is the priority source. Test counts as of 2026-11-04: Godot 277/277, Python 161/161, check_docs OK.