alchemist-accessibility/accessibility/docs/scratch.md

# SCRATCH — current working state

**Read this first on any handoff.** Living document: update it whenever state changes, before ending a turn.

Last updated: 2026-08-02 · Currently: **Phases 0–5 COMPLETE. Handed off for
playtesting.** Remaining work is polish, mod settings and distribution.

**Game is playable start-to-finish by ear** from main menu through the intro
conversation into gameplay, plus journal, character, actions and inventory —
verified by the testbed, **34/34 checks**.

**Not set up yet, or unsure how the two trees relate?** →
[00-dev-setup.md](00-dev-setup.md).

### Run the testbed (do this after any change)
```
cd "D:/code/Sulphur Memories Alchemist 0.4.2 sanctified"
rm -rf ~/AppData/Roaming/LOVE/Alchemist        # start from a clean save
"C:/Program Files/LOVE/lovec.exe" . --a11y-test
```
It drives the game by code via `love.event.push`, navigating by *reading* focus
rather than counting keypresses. Every bug listed below was caught by it.

⚠ **The check COUNT varies between runs (23–26); this is expected.** Several
blocks are conditional — the config-menu section only runs if `selectByText`
lands on "Options", and mouse-hover can move menu focus at startup (see trap 2).
**What matters is `0 failures`, not the total.**

---

## What this project is

Blind-accessibility mod for *Sulphur Memories: Alchemist* 0.4.2 (LÖVE 11.5, Lua/LuaJIT), extracted to
`D:\code\Sulphur Memories Alchemist 0.4.2 sanctified`. All mod code lives under `accessibility/`.
Design goal: **change as little game code as possible** so the mod re-applies cleanly to new versions.

Full research is in `accessibility/docs/` — read `README.md` there for the map.

---

## Confirmed decisions (do not relitigate)

| # | Decision |
|---|---|
| D1 | Dev uses system LÖVE at `C:\Program Files\LOVE\` (`lovec.exe` for console output). Distribution deferred. |
| D2 | Tracker hierarchy: category (`Ctrl+PgUp/Dn`) → kind (`PgUp/Dn`) → instance (`Shift+PgUp/Dn`), `Home` = distance+direction. |
| D3 | **Small explicit patches** to game files are allowed where they simplify things — but every state descriptor also carries a `probe` spec so we can flip to zero-edit `debug.getupvalue` mode if the game ships fused on Steam. `render` is shared by both backends. |
| D4 | Six tracker categories confirmed and coverage-verified: Creatures / Items / Exits / Interactables / Terrain features / Alchemy. |
| — | Screen reader: **NVDA**. Running the game via `lovec` during dev is approved. |
| — | User is blind — all verification must be describable in text; don't rely on screenshots. |

## Still-open questions (in `04-open-questions.md`)

**Answered:** Q1 (dev LÖVE), Q2 (tracker hierarchy), Q3 (augment, not relay),
Q4 (speak everything queued, cancelled by explicit action), Q5 (wall tones on
step, stop-and-replay — confirmed working by ear), Q7/Q10 (patches allowed,
probe backend kept open for Steam), Q9 (NVDA, lovec approved).

**Still open:** Q6 (integrate our keys into the game's rebinding UI, or keep a
separate scheme) · Q8 (full keyboard-reachability audit as an explicit
deliverable?). Neither blocks Phase 4.

---

## Key facts worth not rediscovering

- **`console.print(msg, colorTemplate)`** in `modules/console.lua` is the *single* chokepoint for all game log text. Repeated identical messages coalesce into `"msg (x3)"` via a `times` counter. Buffer entries expire after 3s — useless as history, so we keep our own.
- **`level.getCursorMessage()`** returns the description under the examine cursor (actor first, then top visible tile). The game already has a full arrow-key examine mode: `states/ingame_observe.lua`.
- **`inventoryCursorPopup.set(...)`** — one patch narrates focus in `inventory`, `craft`, `refine` and `trade`. ⚠ `levelCursorPopup` is deliberately **not** patched: it fires from an animation-completion callback and lands a keypress late. `ingame_observe` polls `level.cursorX/Y` instead.
- **All 28 states already implement `keypressed`.** The gap is narration, not reachability.
- **`modules/tile.lua:234`**: `tile.tryInteract = (self.loot or self.tryInteractFunction)`. ⚠ This is **not** a "worth tracking" signal — `wall` has a flavour-only `tryInteractFunction`. Structural tiles (`blocksMovement and blocksVision`) must be excluded first. See the D4 correction in `05-decisions.md`.
- **Template counts:** 231 tiles, 40 actors, 344 items. Parent inheritance is *already flattened* by `modules/tile/preprocess.lua` during `love.load`, so read fields directly.
- **6 un-nameable mechanical templates to exclude:** `blank`, `throw_blocker`, `movement_blocker`, `fire_detector`, `wall_features_position_dummy`, `ladder_down_hidden`.
- **`debug.getupvalue` works** on this Lua build — verified reading `selectedOption` / `optionsList` from a state's `keypressed`.
- **Tolk constraint:** `ffi.load("Tolk")` uses the OS loader, so DLLs must sit next to `love.exe` — they can *never* live inside a `.love` archive.
- `tolk.lua` calls `Tolk_Load()` at require time with no error handling, and `Love2talk.lua` leaks `backend` as a global. Always `pcall` the require.

---

## Current status

### Done
- Full architecture research → `docs/01-architecture.md`
- Hooking strategy → `docs/02-hooking-strategy.md`
- Phased plan → `docs/03-implementation-plan.md`
- Open questions → `docs/04-open-questions.md`
- Decisions + category coverage proof → `docs/05-decisions.md`

### Done — Phase 0 (bootstrap) · commit `5c581ed`
- `git init`, pristine tree committed and tagged **`vanilla-0.4.2`** (commit `bbb70d0`,
  1838 files, `accessibility/` deliberately excluded so the tag is genuinely clean).
- love2talk vendored to `accessibility/vendor/love2talk/` — see `VENDORED.md` there
  for the five local modifications.
- **DLL elevation problem solved.** `Tolk.dll` etc. live in `accessibility/lib/` and
  are loaded by *absolute path* via `love.filesystem.getSource()`, with
  `SetDllDirectoryA` pointing at that folder so Tolk can find its own screen-reader
  clients. No admin rights, no copying into `Program Files`. Tracked in git via a
  `!accessibility/lib/*.dll` un-ignore.
- `accessibility/speech.lua` — pcall-guarded, frame-queued, `logToConsole = true`.
- `accessibility/init.lua` — patch registry + `states.switch` / `states.update` hooks
  + startup self-test.
- `accessibility/stateNames.lua` — spoken names for all 28 states.
- **One line added to `main.lua`.** Nothing else in the game touched.

**Verified working** via `lovec.exe .`:
```
[accessibility] TTS initialised
[accessibility] TTS: available
[accessibility] speech channel: yes
[speech]! Main menu
```

### Done — Phase 1: console history + review keys · + wall tones
- `accessibility/history.lua` — unbounded (1000-entry ring) history. Mirrors the
  game's `(xN)` coalescing so speech matches the screen. Review cursor **holds
  still while new lines arrive** and only follows the tail when not being used.
- `accessibility/hotkeys.lua` — global key layer in front of `states.keypressed`.
- `accessibility/patches/console.lua` — wraps `console.print` (calls the real one
  *first*, so a mod bug can't swallow an on-screen message) and `console.clear`.
- `accessibility/walltones.lua` — see below.
- `accessibility/tests/test_history.lua` — 16 assertions, all passing.
  Run with: `lua accessibility/tests/test_history.lua` (pure Lua, no LÖVE needed).

**Auto-speak policy (Q4, answered):** speak everything, queued and joined in order
at end of frame. Any keypress that reaches the game counts as an explicit action
and silences the pending backlog (`hotkeys.onGameKey` → `speech.silence`).

**Verified in-game** by the testbed (console capture + `(x2)` fold + review keys)
and by Talon at the keyboard (wall tones).

### Keymap so far

| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| `[` / `]` | Previous / next console history line |
| `Shift+[` / `Shift+]` | Oldest / newest line |
| `\` | Repeat current line |
| `Shift+\` | Copy current line to clipboard |
| `/` | Scan all 8 neighbours, clockwise from north (terse) |
| `Shift+/` | View watch: cycle off / announce when you stop / announce every step |
| `;` | Where am I — level, in-game time, coordinates |
| `Ctrl`+numpad 1–9 | Probe that direction without moving (`Ctrl+kp5` = standing on) |
| `Ctrl+PageUp` / `Ctrl+PageDown` | Tracker: previous / next **category** |
| `PageUp` / `PageDown` | Tracker: previous / next **kind** |
| `Shift+PageUp` / `Shift+PageDown` | Tracker: previous / next **instance** |
| `Home` | Tracker: distance, direction and path length to current instance |
| `Ctrl+Home` | Tracker: walk to current instance (the left-click path) |
| `'` | Health and active effects |
| `,` | Current selected action |

Game keys worth knowing: **`x`** enters examine mode (not `e`), `f` finds exits
while examining, `j` journal, `i` inventory, `c` character, `a` actions menu.

Reserved for the tracker (Phase 3): `PageUp`/`PageDown`, `Home`, with Ctrl/Shift.

**Free scancodes** (game binds none of these): `[ ] \ ; ' , / - =`, `h k l m n o
p u v w`, `F1`–`F12`, `pageup pagedown home end insert`, `kp0 kp. kp+ kp- kp* kp/`.

**Game-claimed scancodes — never bind these unmodified:**
`. 0-9 \` a b backspace c d delete down e escape f g i j kp1-kp9 kpenter lalt
lctrl left lshift mouse3 q r ralt rctrl return right rshift s space t tab up x y z`

⚠ **`keybindings.getCommand()` dispatches on scancode alone and ignores
modifiers.** Ctrl and Shift are *held* modifiers in game (`moveCamera`,
`repeatAction`/`adjustByFive`). So `Ctrl+Up` is seen by the game as plain "up" —
a movement. Never bind a modifier combo over a game-claimed scancode. Combos over
*unclaimed* scancodes (e.g. `Ctrl+PageUp`) are safe. Always consume our keys.

### Wall tones (Q5, answered: on step, 3D-positioned, radius 5)

Key design point, in `walltones.lua`: **direction and distance are decoupled.**
The game's listener sits at the camera, 4 units above the plane, with an *inverse*
distance model. Placing a tone at its wall's real position would (a) make far
walls quieter — the opposite of what was asked — and (b) collapse the pan toward
centre, since the 4-unit vertical offset dominates a 2-unit horizontal one.

So: the source is placed at a **fixed radius** from the listener in the wall's
direction, at the listener's own height (pure horizontal pan, constant
attenuation), and **volume is computed explicitly** from distance. Positioned
relative to the listener via `love.audio.getPosition()`, so panning stays correct
even while the camera is panned away.

Step detection **polls** `playerActor.x/y` each frame instead of hooking movement
— free, and covers walking, pathing, portals and pushes by construction.

Volume follows the usual proximity convention: a near wall is loud
(`nearVolume`), one out at `radius` is quiet (`farVolume`). Set
`config.louderWhenFurther = true` in `walltones.lua` to invert it.

Respects `FoV`/`rememberedFoV` — never leaks unseen map geometry.

### Done — Menu narration (Phase 4, pulled forward) + testbed

Pulled forward because menus were a **blocker**: Talon could hear the screen name
but not the selected option, so the game could not be started at all.

- `accessibility/menus.lua` — descriptor driver. Supports both D3 backends
  (`probe` via `debug.getupvalue`, `patched` via injected announce calls); the
  per-screen `render` is shared. Includes the probe self-test.
- `accessibility/states/{main_menu,settings_menu,load_game,new_game,narration}.lua`
- `accessibility/testbed.lua` — drives the game by code. `lovec.exe . --a11y-test`

**Verified end to end: main menu → new game → name entry → intro narration →
gameplay, 8/8 checks passing.** Console patch smoke-tested including the `(x2)`
fold and review keys.

#### Three real bugs the testbed caught

1. **`love.keypressed` was bound to the pre-wrapper function.** `states.setup()`
   does `love[callback] = love[callback] or states[callback]`, capturing **by
   value**, and it runs before us. `main.lua` defines `love.load/update/
   mousepressed/mousereleased/quit` but NOT `keypressed`/`textinput` — so those
   were frozen to the original. Replacing the `states` table field alone did
   nothing. **Fix: reassign `love.keypressed`/`love.textinput` after wrapping.**
   `states.switch`/`states.update` were fine — looked up on the table at call time.
   ⚠ Any future callback we wrap needs the same treatment.

2. **Focus moves with no keypress.** `main_menu.mousemoved` assigns
   `selectedOption` straight from cursor position, so wherever the mouse rests
   silently overrides selection — including at startup. **Fix: poll focus in the
   update hook** rather than announcing only on keypress. `announceScreen` now
   speaks only the screen name and lets the poll add focus a frame later
   (`justSwitched` makes that first one non-interrupting so it appends).

3. **Probes may need chaining.** `narration.keypressed` doesn't touch
   `displayData`/`currentPage`/`currentLoadedLine` — it only calls
   `continueNarration()`, so they are upvalues of *that* function. The descriptor
   reaches `continueNarration` as an upvalue of `keypressed`, then reads through
   it. Expect this pattern in other states.

#### Also learned
- `states.lua` loads states via `require("states/"..name)` — a **SLASH**.
  `require()` caches on the exact string, so `require("states.main_menu")` would
  load a *second independent copy* with its own upvalues. Always match the slash.
- **Plain movement is silent** — `actions/move.lua` only prints when a move fails
  (bound, immobilized). Walking proves nothing about the console patch; drive
  `console.print` directly to test it.

### Done — dialogue narration + wall tone retrigger fix

**`ingame_dialogue` descriptor.** Speaks speaker + message on a *node* change, but
only the response on a *selection* change (re-reading the whole speech every time
you move between responses would be unusable). Responses can also be picked
directly with number keys 1–0, which the game already supports.

Two more bugs found and fixed:

4. **Nested `states.switch` announced in reverse.** `ingame.open()` sees
   `world.pendingDialogue` and switches straight to `ingame_dialogue`. Since we
   announce *after* `realSwitch` returns, the inner announcement ("Conversation")
   fired first and the outer ("Game") then interrupted and clobbered it.
   **Fix: after switching, if `states.getCurrent() ~= newState`, stay quiet** —
   a nested switch already announced.

5. **Double numbering.** The game already prefixes response text with its number
   (`"1. (Continue)"`, matching the number key that selects it), so adding ours
   gave `"1. 1. (Continue)"`. Now only added when absent.

**Wall tones — retrigger fix (per Talon: "stop previous tones and play new ones").**
Tones are **2.33 s, mono, 44.1 kHz**. Steps land far faster than that and up to
four directions sound at once, so they stacked into a continuous drone. Now each
direction stops its previous source before starting a new one, so it reads as a
per-step cue layered over footsteps, and the volume you hear always reflects
where you're standing now. `playing` is cleared on level change.

*(Mono matters: OpenAL only spatialises mono sources. Stereo would not pan.)*

### Done — Phase 2: tile examination + surroundings

- `accessibility/describe.lua` — shared spatial formatting. 8-point compass,
  **Chebyshev** distance (the game moves 8-directionally, so Euclidean would
  overstate diagonals), and `tileFacts()` / `tile()`. Verbosity setting
  (`terse`/`normal`/`verbose`) since sweeping 8 neighbours and inspecting one
  tile want different amounts of detail.
- `accessibility/states/ingame_observe.lua` — narrates the game's examine cursor.
- `accessibility/surroundings.lua` — probe/scan/where-am-I without moving.
- `accessibility/patches/popups.lua` — wraps `inventoryCursorPopup.set`, covering
  **inventory, craft, refine, trade** in one patch.

**Q3 answered by default: augment, not just relay.** The game's descriptions
("A wooden chair.") carry no position — fine on screen, useless by ear. We append
distance + direction, and blocked/has-items/water at normal verbosity.

#### Design note: why examine mode is polled, not popup-driven
`levelCursorPopup.set` is called from an **animation-completion callback**, so
unless the player enables the game's `quickExaminationPopup` option the text
lands a full keypress late — in testing you heard the *previous* tile while
standing on the next. The `ingame_observe` descriptor polls `level.cursorX/Y`
instead: same-frame, setting-independent, no game edit. `levelCursorPopup` is
therefore deliberately **not** patched; only `inventoryCursorPopup` is.

*(The level model is a closure instance, not a module, so it can't be patched at
require time — reading its public fields is the decoupled route.)*

#### Testability seam
`hotkeys.isCtrlDown` / `isShiftDown` are overridable fields, not direct calls to
`love.keyboard.isScancodeDown`. Real hardware state can't be faked by
`love.event.push`, so without this seam every modifier-gated hotkey would be
untestable. The testbed swaps them per keypress.

### Done — Phase 3: object tracker

- `accessibility/categories.lua` — flag-first classification into the six
  categories, plus the 6-template exclusion list and reuse of the game's `exit`
  tag.
- `accessibility/tracker.lua` — scan, cache, three-level navigation, announcements.

Verified in the starting house:
```
Interactables, 12 kinds
a bed, 1, nearest 1 tile south-west, 2 of 12
an open door 1 of 1, 2 tiles north-west
an open door, 2 tiles north-west, 2 steps by path      <- Home
```

**Caching:** signature is `level name : player x : player y : turn`. Position
matters because everything sorts by distance; turn matters because creatures move
and containers empty. Scans run on keypress only, never per frame.

**FoV respected** — creatures only when currently visible, tiles when visible or
remembered. The tracker never reveals what a sighted player couldn't see.

**`Home` reports path length, not just offset.** Straight-line distance is badly
misleading indoors: a chest 3 tiles north through a wall can be 20 steps away.
Uses the game's own `calculatePathFromPlayer`.

**`Ctrl+Home` walks there.** The game does support click-to-path: `ingame.mousepressed`
(`states/ingame.lua:661`) builds `calculatePathFromPlayer(cursorX, cursorY)` and
feeds it to `level.bufferInput("move", path, ingame)`, or to `playerInput` directly
when the path is one step. `tracker.walkToSelection` reuses that exact shape with
the tracker's selected tile in place of the cursor, so interruptions, threatened-
player truncation and animation skipping all behave the way a mouse click does.

Two wrinkles, both handled:

* `calculatePathFromPlayer` returns nil for an impassable target, and most things
  worth tracking (creatures, chests, beds) are impassable. We fall back to the
  cheapest of the 8 neighbouring tiles and say "walking next to X".
* Guard on `states.getCurrent() == "ingame"`. In a menu or observe mode the input
  buffer belongs to a different state, and handing it moves would be a bug.

Note `require("states/ingame")` with a slash — that is the module key `states.lua`
uses, and requiring `states.ingame` would load a *second* copy of the state.

**Selection is sticky across rescans.** The scan is rebuilt every turn and both
lists are sorted by distance, so holding a bare index means one step by the player
silently re-points the selection at a different rat. The tracker instead remembers
identity — the actor table for creatures, coordinates for tiles — and re-derives
the indices in `reanchor()` after each rescan. Selection is dropped only when the
thing stops being reported at all (out of FoV, killed, picked up); the existing
clamp then falls back to the nearest.

#### ⚠ Correction to D4 — `tryInteract` is NOT a clean "worth tracking" signal
`wall` carries a **flavour-only** `tryInteractFunction` ("You touch the wall.
It's cold and rough."), so flag-first classification promoted every wall segment
into Interactables — 13 in the starting house, burying the chest and cauldron.
**Fix: exclude structural tiles (`blocksMovement and blocksVision`) before the
`tryInteract` test.** Containers and furniture block movement but not sight, so
they survive. 13 kinds/32 instances → 12 kinds/19 instances.
`docs/05-decisions.md` D4 has been amended.

*(Not a bug: Items/Alchemy are empty in the tutorial house because
`chest_tutorial` literally prints "find nothing of use for now" — it has no loot
yet. Verify against a later area before trusting those two categories.)*

### Done — Phase 4 (most of it): menu descriptors

**16 states now have descriptors** — all registered in `describedStates` in
`init.lua`, all resolving in the startup self-test:

`main_menu` · `settings_menu` · `load_game` · `new_game` · `narration` ·
`ingame_dialogue` · `ingame_observe` · `actions_menu` · `worldmap` ·
`alchemy_table` · `journal` · `character` · `inventory` ·
`menu_text` / `ingame_message` / `menu_message` (shared `_textscreen.lua`)

Verified live: `Journal. Quests, A simple commission, 1 of 1` ·
`Character, 1 of 3` · `Actions. Interact, 1 of 1` ·
`Inventory. All items, empty, slot 1`. **21/21 testbed checks.**

#### Two driver improvements (both prompted by real failures)

- **`menus.getAnyUpvalue`** — finds a file-local across *all* of a state's
  functions plus one level into inner closures. Safe because a Lua file-local is
  a single shared upvalue, so any closure referencing it sees the same variable.
  Needed because `actions_menu` and `worldmap` build their lists in `open()` and
  never mention them in `keypressed`. The generic probe path now falls back to it.
- **`menus.hasUpvalue`** — checks a local *exists* rather than *holds a value*.
  `getUpvalue` can't tell "no such local" from "declared but nil", which made the
  self-test cry PROBE BROKEN on `worldmap` (whose `local options` is nil until
  the screen opens). Self-test now reports `ok (unset until opened)`.

#### Ownership rule: descriptors beat the popup patch
`patches/popups.lua` now **stands down for any state that has a descriptor.**
`inventoryCursorPopup.set` only fires when there *is* an item, so on an empty
slot or empty tab it said nothing — you couldn't tell whether the cursor moved.
The `inventory` descriptor reports item-or-empty plus slot and tab; letting both
speak would double up on every item.

### Done — Phase 4 remainder: crafting screens, slider, config

**21 states have descriptors; 4 patches applied.** 25/25 testbed checks.

**The slider is genuinely generic** — `modules/slider.lua` is a *factory*
(`newSlider(params)`), and one wrapper on it narrates **all four** users:
`craft`, `refine`, `trade` and `ingame_wait` (the wait-N-turns screen). Same
leverage as the `console.print` and `inventoryCursorPopup` patches.

⚠ **But the options screens do NOT use it.** `config_menu` changes values through
`config.increase` / `config.decrease`, so it needed its own descriptor. It
reports tab + option name + value:
`Allow hitting yourself, No, 3 of 11` → right → `…, Yes, …`. The focus key
includes the value, so left/right re-announce even though focus hasn't moved.

`accessibility/states/_itemgrid.lua` is now shared by `inventory`, `craft`,
`refine` and `trade` — all four build a `views/inventoryWindow`. It stays silent
while `confirmationWindowEnabled` is set, so the slider owns speech during
quantity selection rather than the two fighting.

**Ordering note:** `patches/slider.lua` replaces `package.loaded["modules.slider"]`,
so it only affects requires that happen *after* it. Safe because states load
lazily and `applyPatches()` runs before the self-test (the one thing that loads
state files early).

⚠ **Slider not exercised live.** `ingame_wait` is unreachable in the prologue —
`tutorial_bed = { parent = "bed", tryInteractFunction = function() end }`, i.e.
the tutorial bed does nothing *by design*. `craft`/`refine`/`trade` need an
alchemy table and real items. The patch is confirmed *applied* by the self-test;
the testbed has the walk-to-bed machinery ready (`walkTo`, tracker lookup) for
when a real bed is reachable.

### Done — Phase 4 complete + Phase 5: status, popups, damage alerts

**All 23 states now have descriptors. 5 patches. 26/26 testbed checks.**
Final two descriptors:

- **`keybindings_menu`** — two panels (commands / keys) with independent
  selection; `currentlyActiveWindow` says which has focus. Announcing the wrong
  panel's row would be actively misleading, as the lists are unrelated.
- **`research`** — a 2D node graph, not a list. Nodes are icons with **no text
  label**, so the id is the only identifier; the useful facts are
  researched / locked / cannot afford / available. Without the affordability
  part the screen is unusable by ear, since enter on an unaffordable node
  silently does nothing.

**Phase 5 — `accessibility/status.lua`:**

| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| `'` | Health + active effects — `Health 20 of 20. no active effects` |
| `,` | Current action — `Action: Interact` |

Plus **unprompted damage alerts**, polled from `actor.hp`:
`Hit, minus 3, health 17 of 20` (immediate + interrupting), and
`Healed 3, health 20 of 20` (queued — worth knowing, never urgent).

⚠ Damage is **polled, not hooked**. `ingame.checkInterruptions(hpLoss)` exists
but only fires for interruptions during *queued movement* — damage taken on your
own turn never reaches it. Watching `hp` catches every source (combat, poison,
fire, falling) with no game edit.

**`patches/popupstack.lua`** wraps `popupStack.add`, the single entry point for
loot / recipe / lore / map / quest / tutorial / bestiary popups. None of these go
through `console.print`, so they were completely silent before.

**`speech.immediate` now logs too** (`[speech]*`). It bypasses the frame queue,
so it also bypassed the flush-time logger — meaning damage alerts fired but were
invisible in the testbed transcript. Log prefixes: `!` interrupt, `*` immediate,
` ` queued.

### Done — journal page text (bug fix, reported by Talon)

**Symptom:** open the journal with `j`, select an entry, hear nothing useful.

**Cause:** the journal is three widgets at once — the tab row, the list of entry
titles on the left, and the **page** on the right that holds the actual text.
The descriptor read only the first two. So it announced
`Quests, A simple commission, 1 of 1` and stopped, which is an index into
content you could never reach. Page flipping (`left`/`right`) was silent too.

**Fix** — `accessibility/states/journal.lua`:
- Reads `options[selectedOption].pages[selectedPageId]`, a list of text blocks,
  and speaks their `text`. Page size is bounded by what fits on screen, so a
  page is safe to speak as one utterance.
- **Flattens the newlines** in each block. `journalModel.splitTextByPages`
  concatenates the game's own wrapped lines with `\n`, so those are pure layout —
  left in, the reader pauses mid-sentence at every wrap point.
- Says `page 2 of 3` only when there is more than one page.
- Pushes the blocks into the console history, so `[` / `]` / `\` re-read the
  page after the utterance has gone by — the same trick `_textscreen.lua` uses
  for the manual.
- Title leads only when the *entry* changed, tab only when the *tab* changed, so
  flipping pages doesn't bury the page you just turned to under a repeated title.

⚠ **`read()` must be idempotent.** It is called for the same focus from four
places: the per-frame poll, the post-keypress announce, `menus.repeatFocus`, and
the testbed's before/after probes. Any "only say this when it changed" state
inside a descriptor is therefore a trap — the poll consumes the flag and the
real announcement comes out headless. The journal descriptor caches its last
`(key, text)` and replays it whenever the key is unchanged, so the suppression
state advances exactly once per genuine focus change.

**New generic hook: `descriptor.reset`**, called by `menus.announceScreen`.
Change-suppression memory lives in file-locals that outlive the screen, so
without it, reopening the journal on the entry you left it on would read the
page with no title in front of it.

Verified live: `Journal. Quests, A simple commission, 1 of 1, Someone's banging
at my door. Whoever it is, this person is very persistent and doesn't know about
doorbells.` **34/34 testbed checks**, including a new one that asserts the spoken
text actually contains the page body rather than merely being non-nil.

### Done — view watch: what comes in and out of view while walking (Talon request)

**`accessibility/viewwatch.lua`**, toggled with **`Shift+/`** — a natural pair
with `/` (scan around me now): `/` is "what is here", `Shift+/` sets how much of
that happens by itself.

Three modes, cycled by the key:

| Mode | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| `settled` (**default**) | Changes accumulate while moving; spoken once the player has stood still for `settleDelay` (0.4 s). |
| `always` | Every step reports its own change. |
| `off` | — |

**Why `settled` is the default and why it diffs against the last announcement,
not the last step.** Talon's question was "announce as they happen, or combine".
Combining is right for a long walk, but only if the baseline is the state at the
last *announcement* — then the summary is a genuine **net** change: something
that came into view mid-walk and left again before you stopped is correctly not
mentioned, and something that stayed in view throughout is mentioned once. A
per-step diff summed up would say both, which is worse than either mode. A
single step is the degenerate case: you are already standing still, so it
reports 0.4 s after the step lands.

**Arrivals and departures are deliberately asymmetric.** Membership is **current
`FoV` only** (never `rememberedFoV` — the question is what you can see from
where you stand). But furniture drops out of FoV constantly indoors as walls
come between you and it, and "the bed is out of view" every other step is pure
noise. So arrivals are reported for every watched category; departures only for
`config.announceGone`, which is **creatures only** by default.

Other decisions:

- Terrain is **not** watched by default (`config.watched.terrain = false`) —
  water arrives dozens of tiles at a time and would drown everything else.
  Classification is otherwise the tracker's (`categories.classifyTile`), so the
  wall-exclusion correction to D4 applies here too.
- Scan is a **box of `radius` 14 tiles** around the player, not the whole grid.
  Sight range is well inside that, and this runs on every step.
- Step detection **polls `playerActor.x/y`**, same as `walltones` — covers
  walking, pathing, portals and pushes with no game function wrapped. The scan
  runs only when the position changed or a settle is due, never per frame
  (invariant 5).
- Entering a new level **re-baselines in silence** rather than reading the whole
  first room; so does any mode change.
- Speech is **queued, not interrupting** — this is background awareness, so
  anything the player asked for outranks it.
- Announces only in `ingame` / `ingame_observe`.

**Testability seam:** `viewwatch.snapshot()` and `viewwatch.diffText(prev, cur,
px, py)` are pure and exposed, so the testbed asserts the wording and the FoV
invariant directly instead of trying to capture speech. **34/34 testbed checks**
(5 new). Verified live during the run — the walk to the bed produced
`In view: a chest, 1 tile south-west. a torch on the wall, 3, nearest 2 tiles
south-west. …`.

### Known gaps (next up)
- **Phase 5**: player status key (HP, statuses, current action), popup
  announcements (`popupStack.add`), damage alerts
  (`ingame.checkInterruptions`), mod settings.
- `ingame` itself has no descriptor.
- **Unverified against real content:** tracker categories Items / Alchemy /
  Exits / Creatures / Terrain (tutorial house has none), and inventory item
  names (inventory is empty in the prologue).
- `worldmap`, `journal`, `character`, `research`, `inventory`, `craft`, `refine`,
  `trade`, `actions_menu`, `alchemy_table`, `keybindings_menu`, `config_menu`,
  `menu_text`, `ingame_message`, `menu_message` still have no descriptors.

### Next — Phase 2: tile examination
Patch `views/levelCursorPopup.set` to narrate the game's existing examine mode,
augmented with distance/direction/passability. Then the surroundings explorer
(`Alt`+numpad to probe a direction without moving). Needs Q3 (verbosity) answered.

---

## Invariants for all mod code

1. Every wrapper calls through to the original and returns its results verbatim (`return realFn(...)` — preserve multiple returns).
2. Speech must never throw. Missing DLL ⇒ silent no-op, game still runs.
3. No behaviour change for sighted players.
4. Never reveal information outside `FoV` / `rememberedFoV` — the tracker must not become a cheat.
5. Grid scans (`xMax × yMax`) happen on keypress or turn change, never per frame.
6. Our keys fall through to the game handler unless we own them.

---

## Modified game files (keep this list exhaustive)

| File | Change | Why |
|---|---|---|
| `main.lua` | +1 line: `require("accessibility").initialize()` after `console.prepare()` | Sole mod entry point. Placed there because templates, keybindings, `states.setup()` and the console canvas are all ready by then, and it's before the first `states.switch()`. |

Verify this list is exhaustive at any time with:
```
git diff --stat vanilla-0.4.2 -- . ':!accessibility' ':!.gitignore' ':!CLAUDE.md'
```
Currently: `main.lua | 1 +`.

### How to run
```
cd "D:/code/Sulphur Memories Alchemist 0.4.2 sanctified"
"C:/Program Files/LOVE/lovec.exe" .
```
`lovec` (not `love`) gives the console, where `[speech]` lines mirror every
utterance — speech is verifiable from the log, not only by ear. `!` after
`[speech]` means the utterance interrupted.

---

## Scratchpad / notes

- `.luacheckrc` uses `std = "min+alch"` with an explicit globals list — add mod globals there to keep lint clean.
- Upstream quirk (not ours to fix): `modules/tile/preprocess.lua` flattens parents in a single `pairs()` pass, so a grandchild may inherit from a not-yet-flattened parent depending on hash order.
- Tolk DLL sources on this machine: `D:\code\cafe`, `D:\code\dragonrpg-mapmaker`, `D:\code\DragonWarriorAccess`.

---

## HANDOFF — read this if you are resuming

### State of play
Phases 0–5 complete. **23 state descriptors, 5 patches, 34/34 testbed checks**,
history unit tests passing, **one line changed in the game** (`main.lua`).

Everything in the original brief is implemented: console speech with
line-by-line review, the object tracker with the requested key scheme, tile
exploration, wall tones, and keyboard+speech access to every screen.

### First thing to do after any change
```
lua accessibility/tests/test_history.lua                        # pure Lua, instant
rm -rf ~/AppData/Roaming/LOVE/Alchemist                         # clean save
"C:/Program Files/LOVE/lovec.exe" . --a11y-test                 # ~4 min, 34 checks
git diff --stat vanilla-0.4.2 -- . ':!accessibility' ':!.gitignore' ':!CLAUDE.md'   # must stay: main.lua | 1 +
```

### The five traps (all cost real debugging time — don't rediscover them)

1. **`love.keypressed` is captured by value.** `states.setup()` runs
   `love[cb] = love[cb] or states[cb]` *before* us. Wrapping the `states` table
   field alone does nothing for `keypressed`/`textinput` — you must also
   reassign `love.keypressed`. `switch`/`update` are fine (looked up at call
   time). **Any new callback you wrap needs the same treatment.**
2. **Focus moves without a keypress.** `main_menu.mousemoved` assigns
   `selectedOption` from cursor position. Hence focus is *polled* in the update
   hook, not announced only on keypress.
3. **Nested `states.switch` announces inner-first.** `ingame.open()` can switch
   straight to `ingame_dialogue`. We announce after `realSwitch` returns, so the
   outer announcement would clobber the inner one — guarded by checking
   `states.getCurrent() ~= newState`.
4. **`states.lua` requires with a SLASH** (`require("states/"..name)`).
   `require("states.main_menu")` loads a *second independent copy* with its own
   upvalues. Always match the slash.
5. **Probes may need chaining or a cross-function search.** Some locals are
   upvalues of an inner function (`narration` → `continueNarration`) or are only
   touched in `open()` (`actions_menu`, `worldmap`). Use `menus.getAnyUpvalue`.
   Use `menus.hasUpvalue` when you need "exists" rather than "has a value".

### Not verified — needs a real playthrough
These are blocked on content the prologue does not contain, **not** known broken:

- **Tracker categories** Items / Alchemy / Exits / Creatures / Terrain. Only
  Interactables is populated in the tutorial house. Diagnostic: the testbed
  prints `tracker contents:` with per-category kind names.
- **Inventory item names** — inventory is empty in the prologue, so only the
  "empty slot" path has run.
- **The quantity slider** (`patches/slider.lua`). Confirmed *applied* by the
  self-test but never exercised: `ingame_wait` is unreachable because
  `tutorial_bed` has an empty `tryInteractFunction` by design, and
  craft/refine/trade need an alchemy table and real items. The testbed already
  has `walkTo()` and tracker-based bed lookup ready for when one is reachable.
- **Popup announcements** (`patches/popupstack.lua`) — loot/quest/recipe popups
  did not fire during the prologue run.

### Known-missing features (deliberate, not bugs)
- **No mod settings UI.** Verbosity (`describe.verbosity`), wall-tone config
  (`walltones.config`) and `speech.logToConsole` are code-level fields only.
- **Q6 unanswered**: our hotkeys are a separate scheme, not registered in the
  game's own rebinding UI. They are therefore not user-rebindable.
- **Q8 unanswered**: no exhaustive keyboard-reachability audit was done. All 28
  states implement `keypressed`, and every screen reached so far was navigable,
  but this was not proven screen-by-screen.
- **Distribution not designed** (D1 deferred). Any shipped build must place the
  Tolk DLLs beside the executable — they cannot live inside a `.love`.

### If a future game version breaks something
Run the game and read the startup self-test. It reports every patch and every
descriptor probe. `PROBE BROKEN: no upvalue 'x'` means that local was renamed —
fix the descriptor in `accessibility/states/<state>.lua`. `ok (unset until
opened)` is normal.

To rebase the mod onto a new game version: commit the new pristine tree on top
of the `vanilla-0.4.2` baseline, then replay the mod commits. The only game-file
conflict possible is the single `main.lua` line.