| name | shell-fragment |
| description | Add, split or reorder a file in src/assets/shell/ — the front-end, written as ordered fragments sharing one scope. Where it goes in the list is load-bearing, state.js holds only what more than one fragment touches, no fragment may carry a placeholder, and `just check-shell` boots them in order so a fragment that throws fails the build instead of opening a blank window. Use when the user wants front-end code added or a fragment moved or split. |
| argument-hint | [fragment] |
| user-invocable | true |
Shell fragments
The front-end is 28 files under src/assets/shell/, joined in APP_SHELL_SCRIPT_PARTS order and served as one file. They are one scope, not modules — the page has no module loader — so a fragment alone is not a valid program, and where it sits in the list decides what it can see.
Process
1. Read the fragment order and shared scope
Open the ordered asset list, the neighboring fragments and state.js before placing anything.
2. Put each value in its owner
Keep one-fragment state local and move only values multiple fragments touch into state.js.
3. Add or split the fragment in load order
Declare every load-time dependency earlier, keep bootstrap last and leave no placeholder.
4. Add the interface contract
Record every new class and component in the design system in the same edit.
5. Add the front-end check
Boot the changed behavior through its subject file in scripts/check-shell/.
6. Check the joined program
Run just check-shell — it boots the fragments in their real order, which is the proof this pass owes. Never the complete suite: the build that called this pays for that once, at its end.
The rules the list carries
- The flowchart pair leads.
flow-model.js then flow-canvas.js: everything else calls into them.
state.js comes next, and holds only what more than one fragment touches. State one fragment reads belongs in that fragment. This is the rule that rots fastest: it is always easier to put a variable in state.js than to decide where it lives.- The last fragment ends with the bootstrap call that must run after everything else is defined.
- A fragment declares before it is used, in file order. A function called while another fragment is loading has to be defined in an earlier file —
renderLibrary runs as library-search.js loads and calls escapeAttr, which is in minimap.js, and that only works because of where the two sit.
Adding one
- Write it. One subject per file, named after the subject.
- Add
include_str! to APP_SHELL_SCRIPT_PARTS in lib.rs, in the position its dependencies demand — after anything it calls at load time, before anything that calls it at load time.
just check-shell. It boots them joined, in order, against a stand-in page, so a fragment that throws as it loads fails the build rather than opening a blank window on somebody's machine.- A test in the
scripts/check-shell/ file for whatever the fragment claims, or a new file there where the subject is new. /sync-tests names what is missing.
New interface needs a row
A fragment that builds something new, with classes of its own, is not finished when it works. just check-classes fails on a class design/components.md does not account for. Add the row — the class family, this fragment as what builds it, and a snippet of its markup — and the thing appears in the gallery at leaftext.com/gallery.html without anyone remembering to put it there. See /design-tokens.
Same for the values it paints with: no color, size, spacing or duration typed into src/assets/reading/. just check-literals names the line.
Never put a placeholder in a fragment
No {{TOKEN}}. The script is served as a file, so there is nothing to substitute into it — that is what lets the page be 4% of its size limit instead of 82%.
Something only the host knows reaches the fragments another way: the theme bootstrap publishes it on window.__lt before any of this runs. The vendored runtimes' URLs go that way, because the asset scheme differs by platform.
Watch the size
The page is handed to the web view as one string with a ~2 MB ceiling; past it the app will not start. The script is out of that string now, so a fragment costs nothing there — but app.js is still one download and one parse before the first paint, so a fragment that only one view needs should load when that view opens, the way the graph and editor runtimes do.
Splitting or reordering
- Splitting is free as long as the pieces keep their relative order.
- Reordering is not: run
just check-shell and read what it says. A silent reorder that happens to work today is a blank window tomorrow.
- Two script tags would be two scopes. There is one, and the theme bootstrap's own, which runs first and shares nothing.
Anything this pass finds that it is not here to do is a ticket, written before the hand-back — /ticket, its row in ../docs/README.md, /pm.
Reference
src/lib.rs — APP_SHELL_SCRIPT_PARTS, the order.scripts/check-shell/ — the checks, one file per subject; scripts/check-shell.mjs beside them runs them in order.docs/02-development/01-architecture.md — what each fragment is for.
