MeshTerm/CLAUDE.md

MeshTerm — working notes for Claude

MeshTerm is a full-screen terminal companion for MeshCore LoRa mesh devices. The UI is a prompt_toolkit session rendering Rich content (meshterm/ui/), tools register into a menu (meshterm/tools/), services run in the background (meshterm/services/), and everything heard is recorded to SQLite (meshterm/persistence/).

Run the tests with python -m pytest -q. Screens must stay readable at each platform's readable_cols — 72 regular, 53 PicoCalc (see Platforms below); the dual-platform gallery test (tests/test_gallery.py) is the enforcement point, and every picocalc case is a hard gate.

Git workflow

Commit directly on main — do not create topic branches unless explicitly asked (this is a solo repo; branches just create divergence to merge back later). Commit freely, but never git push unless explicitly asked in that moment.

UX standards

These are binding. Every new screen, dialog, row, or hint follows them; when you touch an old one that doesn't, bring it along. The enforcement points live in code — build through them instead of hand-rolling:

• ui/menus.py — back_rows, exit_rows, menu_rows, lane_row, section_heading, confirm_discard, fit_cells.
• ui/widgets.py — highlighted_hash (THE key widget — shows a key, lights its hash), format_ago (prose ages), _format_age (column ages), channel_glyph, _NODE_GLYPHS, heard-age heat colouring.
• ui/theme.py — name_style/node_style (per-node hues, hash-derived), snr_style, the you white.

Lexicon — one term per concept

Term	Meaning
node	any device on the mesh — a radio broadcasting packets; roles: client, repeater, room server. The umbrella term
contact	a node your device knows: discovered (heard broadcasting, not yet added) or added (in the contact list, messageable). Every contact is a node; not every node is a contact
heard	received from ("last heard", "first heard") — never "seen" in UX text
key	the full fixed-length value — a node's public key, a channel secret
hash	the short derived id — a key's first path-hash-mode bytes (the slice highlighted_hash lights), a channel hash, a path hop
path	an ordered hop spec you compose or force (a1,3d,…)
route	the concrete node sequence a trace walked or will walk
via	prefix for a packet/message's relay chain
Back	leave the current screen/list (the only exit word on rows)
Quit	leave the app (main menu, device splash) — nowhere else

Node vs contact — the boundary: node is the hardware/participant sense — the map, mesh walk, heard-nodes, relay hops, graph vertices, and node types (client/repeater/room/ sensor) all speak "node". Contact is the saved-identity sense — the Contacts screen, the courier recipient, anything you address. The reception/persistence layer (observations.node, HeardNode, heard_nodes(), trace_hops.node) stays "node"; the sortable list you pick from is contactlist.py (ContactListScreen/ContactRow/ ContactsSort/contacts_table). The contacts tool lists the device's added contacts.

Relative ages: format_ago for prose ("now", "5m ago", "never" — never "now ago"), _format_age for aligned columns ("now", "5m").

Screens and lists

• Every select list ends with the exit group from back_rows() / exit_rows(): exactly one blank Separator(" ") line, then the bare word Back (no arrow, no icon). Editors with staged changes show ✓ Apply n staged changes over ✗ Back — discard staged changes.
• Grouped-list section headings use section_heading("Label") → ── Label ── accent. That is also what makes a heading sticky (it pins to the top row while its section scrolls, and the ^PgUp/^PgDn jumps step by it), so build them through it — a hand-rolled Separator is no landmark. Prose written directly under a heading (a description of what the section holds) is its preamble and pins with it, in order, as each row scrolls off; prose after the section's first row labels nothing and never pins.
• Label + description command rows go through menu_rows (two cell-aligned lanes, description muted). Editor rows (setting/value/description) go through lane_row.
• A row that opens further prompts ends with …; a row that acts immediately doesn't.
• Empty states are lowercase muted, optionally — explanation, never parenthesized.
• Body section headings inside screens: accent title, optional muted · note.

Titles

• Sentence case, always ("Trace — YUL-Poly", "Nodes", "Path width", "Admin login").
• No emoji in any screen or dialog title — icons live in menu/list rows. (A terminal that draws an emoji narrower than Rich measures leaves a content-sized dialog's border short.)
• — (em dash) introduces the subject/qualifier: Feature — subject. · chains status atoms: Map · z12 · 34 nodes · 2.1 km across.

Footer hints

• ≤72 cells. Sentence shape: navigation keys, then action keys, Esc last.
• Esc verb by surface: Esc back leaves a screen · Esc close dismisses a read-only floating view · Esc cancel abandons a prompt/dialog · Esc keep leaves a value picker unchanged · Esc quit only at the main menu.
• Enter verb by action: Enter open when the row pushes a screen or dialog · Enter select when it picks a value or action row · Enter set in a value picker. A more specific committing verb (Enter adopt path, Enter add) is fine; a synonym of the generic three (pick, choose, commit) is not. The filter atom is always type to filter.
• Key notation: ↑↓ move (include the verb), ^R/^End for Ctrl chords, ⌫ for backspace, ⇧ for shift.

Dialogs

• Modal popups over the pushed backdrop (never full-screen replacements).
• Buttons are reverse-video chips ( Label , selected style): safe way out on the left, the committing verb on the right and default, so Enter commits and Esc backs out. Two escalating caution tiers theme the frame: danger=True (amber) for a disruptive choice — discard edits, reboot, show private key — and destructive=True (the reserved red) for irreversible data loss, so a delete confirm reads red like its typed_confirm sibling. Bulk or irreversible deletions gate behind typed_confirm (also red); a single-record delete is a red Cancel/Delete confirm.
• Confirms are Cancel/Verb button dialogs, not Yes/No. Prompt lines that ask for input end with a colon.
• Dialog title is short; the question/instruction goes in prompt.

Marks and icons — one glyph per concept

• Status marks (single-width, themed): ✓ ok · ✗ err · ⚠/? warn · ● unread/ unacked (err) · ○ acked/empty (muted). Never ✔, ✖, ✅, ❌ as status.
• Node types (shared with the map): ★ you (yellow) · ● node · ▲ repeater · ■ room · ◉ sensor · ○ unknown.
• Concept icons: 📡 advert · 🕒 clock/sync · 🔄 reboot · 💾 backup · 📂 restore · 🔑 channel/credential key · 🔐 identity/auth secret · 🗑 clear/delete · ✎ compose/edit · ⚙ parameter · # count · ▶ run · ⚡ explore/probe · ★ best/winner · ⭐ watch · 📤 send now · 📨 courier/queue · 💬 chat · 🔔 notify · 🔕 mute (notifications off) · 📱 QR · 🔗 link · ↻ re-read · ↕ reorder · ⇄ reverse (flip a path's direction) · 🏆 trophy case/record · ⌨ command line · 🚪 quit. Packet-class icons (feed/viewer lane): 📢 advert · 📊 telemetry · 📦 packet · 💬 message · ✅ ack. Raw payload classes (PAYLOAD_ICONS): 📻 channel text · 💽 channel data · 📩 direct message (overheard) · 📥 request · 📮 response · 🎭 anon request · 🧭 path · 🎯 trace · 🧩 multipart · 🧰 control · ❔ unknown — raw advert/ack reuse 📢/✅.

Colour

• Node names are always coloured: name_style(name, key) palette hue, derived from the node's key (its first byte — any known prefix agrees) so a rename keeps the colour. One rule on every platform; only the resolution changes (see Platforms). A surface holding only a name resolves it first (make_name_key_resolver); a node no key can place — an unresolved sender, a bare hash standing in as a name, an ○ ring — takes node.unknown, THE light grey for an unidentified node, everywhere and on both platforms. Colour is reserved for keyed identities, never seeded from a name's characters. node.unknown is deliberately not muted: muted is chrome and may sit a step darker, while an unidentified node is content you can still act on. Our own node is the pure-white you style; a context colouring (chart quality) may still win. Recency heat colours heard/first-heard ages, never names — seven steps on plain human boundaries (widgets._HEAT_STEPS), each heat.* style named for how old the node it colours is: white under 5 minutes, then yellow, light red, brown, red, light grey, and one cold grey shared by "over a year" and "never heard". A key lane (via highlighted_hash) lights its hash in the same key-derived hue; the rest of the key, and any key standing in as a name, stays muted. UX text says "key" for the lane and "hash" only for the short derived id — never "hash" for a truncated key.
• SNR always through snr_style; timelines oldest→now left-to-right, grey baseline = 0, drawn via ui/braillechart only.

Layout

• Wrapped labelled rows hang under their value block (two-column grid), never column 0.
• Dialogs anchor slightly above true centre, sized for their populated state.
• Radio traffic: single transmissions or a user-chosen sample count with cooldown pacing — never bursts.

Platforms

One codebase, two flavours: regular (desktop/ssh, 72 cols, truecolor, emoji) and picocalc (the PicoCalc's 53×26/53×40 framebuffer console, 16 palette slots, a 512-glyph font, no emoji). A frozen Platform spec (meshterm/platforms.py) resolves once at boot; consumers bind at platform-switch time via platforms.on_platform — never branch on the platform per frame, and never from meshterm.platforms import PLATFORM.

• Never emit a raw emoji or bare hex colour into picocalc output. Icons go through theme.glyph() (the compact map); everything else is caught by the render-boundary fold (theme.fold_text, applied in tui/render.render_to_ansi and MapCanvas.to_ansi_lines) — but the fold is the safety net, not the design.
• The glyph contract is ui/fontset.py — the installed console font's exact codepoint inventory, device-verified. A character outside it is a test failure, not a tofu box found on-device. The font itself is built by scripts/calculinux-console-font.sh; the two files move in the same commit.
• The 16-slot palette is theme._VT_SLOTS (programmed via /etc/vtrgb; same script). MESH_THEME_16 speaks color(0..15) only; backgrounds stop at slot 7. Both themes define identical style names.
• Bold is brightness on the VT: bold on a 0–7 foreground is slot N+8, so a dim-slot style must state its intent — not bold (keep the declared colour) or bold (the promotion is the point, only title.muted), never silent. Rich merges a row's base style into every span, so a silent one changes colour inside a selected row. Same trap outside the theme: MapCanvas drops emphasis entirely where bold is brightness, since its colours arrive quantized and it can't know which bank they landed in.
• On picocalc, the node hue and the heat gradient quantize — same rule, coarser resolution: node_style snaps the key's hue to its sixth of the wheel (theme._NODE_SLOT_HEXES, the six chromatic bright slots) and heat to the heat.* steps. Nothing loses its colour for being on the console. Marks whose hue is fixed rather than derived go through a theme name so the slot is chosen deliberately (the node types' type.*; a raster resolves the same entry via theme.mark_rgb) — a naive downsample greys the repeater's violet. Footer hints are replaced by the F-key lane (ui/tui/fkeys.py): five FPair slots per screen, F1–F5 primary and F6–F10 their paired opposites (physical Shift+F1..F5), labels ≤7 cells. Screens override fkey_lane for their own verbs; slots 3/4 are the customary free pair. A chip names an action, never a key — Page ↑, not PgUp; Latest on a transcript; Reset on the map, whose Home refits and whose paging zooms. The lane is the footer here, so it obeys the hint line's rule — never advertise a key that would do nothing. Empty and dim are different claims: leave the slot empty when the action isn't a thing on this screen (Retry in a channel), and clear enabled/opp_enabled to draw it dim (label kept, fill dropped) when it's a thing that just isn't available this paint. Dimming is presentational — handle stays the authority and no-ops.
• meshterm specimen prints the whole visual language through the real funnels — the acceptance card on-device, a preview under --platform picocalc on the desktop.
• Dev loop: meshterm --mock --platform picocalc in a 53×40 window; the gallery and tests/test_theme16.py carry the contracts.