Thing/docs/renderer-parity.md

Eve Renderer Parity

Parity is currently uneven by design. The shared surface contract is forming, but the browser reference is the first renderer that can be used as a practical comparison oracle.

See runtime-app-parity-roadmap.md for the generic Eve app plan across web, Flutter, Fensalir Direct2D, iOS/UIKit, and the Android Flutter device body. Repixelizer is the first style-parity target.

Pixel parity is not byte-identical screenshot parity. Text rasterization, antialiasing, GPU backends, and device scale will differ. The target is recognizable CultUI fidelity: the same partitions, fonts, colors, panel treatments, spacing, image sampling intent, and control anatomy lower cleanly enough that Repixelizer remains itself across runtimes.

The shared fixture/report path lives in parity-testing-harness.md. That harness is the current evidence surface for semantic parity and runtime capture gaps. The nested CultUI surface feature is tracked as fixture embedded-surface, loaded from web/fixtures/cultui-embedded-surface.json, and must be understood by every renderer that claims gamecult.eve.surface.v1 GUI parity. Runtime discovery for the feature is in tools/parity/parity-manifest.json: active GUI runtimes advertise supportedFeatures: ["embeddedDocuments"] and require the embedded-surface fixture. Native Android/Kotlin makes a narrower active claim: it preserves and displays embedded slot identity in its dashboard renderer while Android Flutter remains the responsive screenshot target. Rust proves the same contract at the CultMesh typed document sync layer.

Current State

Renderer	Status	Proof	Gap
Web reference	Active reference/debug renderer	web/ renders local provider advertisements and fixture surfaces through the provider picker; compiles indentation CultUI; lowers partitions, field rows, slider anatomy, and surface.slot; Chrome headless capture emits phone/tablet/desktop PNGs	Needs live Odin/CultMesh provider feed and command round-trip tests
Windows / Flutter	Active shared graphical smoke target	flutter/eve_parity loads exported gamecult.eve.surface.v1 fixture JSON, including embedded-surface, and emits phone/tablet/desktop golden PNGs through capture-flutter-parity.ps1	Needs native window capture and tighter text/style normalization
Linux / Flutter	Active shared graphical smoke target	Nightwing runs the Flutter parity goldens, including embedded surface slots, over SSH and returns phone/tablet/desktop PNGs	Needs native window capture and runner health checks
Android / Flutter	Active shared graphical smoke target	The same Flutter parity app is built as an APK, installed on Periwinkle, and captured at phone/tablet/desktop plus native physical-panel orientations	Needs live provider picker and command transport beyond fixture assets
iOS / UIKit	Active native screenshot target	SSH capture stages selected fixture JSON, EveCanvas renders it, and emits a PNG from /var/mobile/Library/EveCanvas/latest-screenshot.png; embedded-surface is part of the required fixture matrix	Not a plugin projection acceptance target until EveIOS owns adapters; still needs provider picker and command transport
Android / Kotlin device edge	Active lightweight renderer	Native APK consumes CultMesh dashboard/sensor documents and preserves surface.slot / embeddedDocuments identity in the dashboard renderer	Not a plugin projection acceptance target; Android Flutter owns full graphical/plugin parity unless EveAndroid grows adapters
Rust / CultMesh	Document-sync contract runtime	CultLib replicates the gamecult.eve.surface.v1 embedded slot contract through typed document sync	Not a pixel renderer
Fensalir Direct2D	External adapter spike, not active parity runtime	Fensalir has src/Aquarium.EveSurface/EveSurfaceRuntime.cs, reads an Eve broker, lowers into AquariumUiDocument / DirectWriteOverlay, and now has a runtime-pack gamecult.eve.surface.v1 fixture in Eve	Needs runtime-owned command smoke, DirectWrite/Direct2D frame capture, and a clear reason to stay separate from Flutter for desktop UI

Spawned Surfaces

The browser reference runner now exposes local advertisements through the provider picker:

• Repixelizer: loads web/fixtures/repixelizer.provider-advertisement.json and web/fixtures/repixelizer.eve-surface.json.
• Aetheria: loads web/fixtures/aetheria.provider-advertisement.json and web/fixtures/aetheria-world-surface.json.
• Sai VN Surface: loads web/fixtures/sai-vn.provider-advertisement.json and web/fixtures/sai-vn-surface.json.
• Fensalir Direct2D: loads web/fixtures/fensalir-direct2d-surface.json, a recorded gamecult.eve.surface.v1 runtime-adapter surface for the Direct2D lowering path.
• Huginn .cc: compiles web/fixtures/huginn-cc-surface.eve.
• Reactive DSL: compiles web/fixtures/reactive-composition.eve.
• CultUI Inspector: compiles web/fixtures/cultui-slider-inspector.eve and proves partition/field-row/slider-anatomy lowering in the web reference.

The local fallback provider list now lives in web/local-provider-catalog.json instead of renderer code. That catalog is fixture discovery data for the browser oracle; live discovery still belongs to CultMesh/Odin advertisements. The runtime app target is the same picker fed by live gamecult.eve.provider_advertisement.v1 documents through CultMesh/Odin; the browser reference no longer opens live providers by dialing Mimir's deck broker directly.

Start it with:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\start-browser-reference.ps1

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:8891/