# MAINLINE

> *Digital consciousness stream. Matrix aesthetic · THX-1138 hue.*

A full-screen terminal news ticker that renders live global headlines in large OTF-font block characters with selectable color gradients (Verdant Green, Molten Orange, or Violet Purple). Headlines auto-translate into the native script of their subject region. Ambient mic input warps the glitch rate in real time. A `--poetry` mode replaces the feed with public-domain literary passages. Live messages can be pushed to the display over [ntfy.sh](https://ntfy.sh). **Figment mode** overlays flickery, theme-colored SVG glyphs on the running stream at timed intervals — controllable from any input source via an extensible trigger protocol.

---

## Contents

- [Using](#using)
  - [Run](#run)
  - [Config](#config)
  - [Feeds](#feeds)
  - [Fonts](#fonts)
  - [Color Schemes](#color-schemes)
  - [ntfy.sh](#ntfysh)
  - [Figment Mode](#figment-mode)
- [Internals](#internals)
  - [How it works](#how-it-works)
  - [Architecture](#architecture)
- [Extending](#extending)
  - [NtfyPoller](#ntfypoller)
  - [MicMonitor](#micmonitor)
  - [Render pipeline](#render-pipeline)
- [Development](#development)
  - [Setup](#setup)
  - [Tasks](#tasks)
  - [Testing](#testing)
  - [Linting](#linting)
- [Roadmap](#roadmap)
  - [Performance](#performance)
  - [Graphics](#graphics)
  - [Cyberpunk Vibes](#cyberpunk-vibes)
  - [Extensibility](#extensibility)

---

## Using

### Run

```bash
python3 mainline.py                      # news stream
python3 mainline.py --poetry             # literary consciousness mode
python3 mainline.py -p                   # same
python3 mainline.py --firehose           # dense rapid-fire headline mode
python3 mainline.py --figment            # enable periodic SVG glyph overlays
python3 mainline.py --figment-interval 30 # figment every 30 seconds (default: 60)
python3 mainline.py --refresh            # force re-fetch (bypass cache)
python3 mainline.py --no-font-picker     # skip interactive font picker
python3 mainline.py --font-file path.otf # use a specific font file
python3 mainline.py --font-dir ~/fonts   # scan a different font folder
python3 mainline.py --font-index 1       # select face index within a collection
```

Or with uv:

```bash
uv run mainline.py
```

First run bootstraps a local `.mainline_venv/` and installs deps (`feedparser`, `Pillow`, `sounddevice`, `numpy`). Subsequent runs start immediately, loading from cache. With uv, run `uv sync` or `uv sync --all-extras` (includes mic support) instead.

### Config

All constants live in `engine/config.py`:

| Constant | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| `HEADLINE_LIMIT` | `1000` | Total headlines per session |
| `FEED_TIMEOUT` | `10` | Per-feed HTTP timeout (seconds) |
| `MIC_THRESHOLD_DB` | `50` | dB floor above which glitches spike |
| `FONT_DIR` | `fonts/` | Folder scanned for `.otf`, `.ttf`, `.ttc` files |
| `FONT_PATH` | first file in `FONT_DIR` | Active display font (overridden by picker or `--font-file`) |
| `FONT_INDEX` | `0` | Face index within a font collection file |
| `FONT_PICKER` | `True` | Show interactive font picker at boot (`--no-font-picker` to skip) |
| `FONT_SZ` | `60` | Font render size (affects block density) |
| `RENDER_H` | `8` | Terminal rows per headline line |
| `SSAA` | `4` | Super-sampling factor (render at 4× then downsample) |
| `SCROLL_DUR` | `5.625` | Seconds per headline |
| `FRAME_DT` | `0.05` | Frame interval in seconds (20 FPS) |
| `GRAD_SPEED` | `0.08` | Gradient sweep speed (cycles/sec, ~12s full sweep) |
| `FIREHOSE_H` | `12` | Firehose zone height (terminal rows) |
| `FIGMENT_INTERVAL` | `60` | Seconds between figment appearances (set by `--figment-interval`) |
| `NTFY_TOPIC` | klubhaus URL | ntfy.sh JSON stream endpoint |
| `NTFY_RECONNECT_DELAY` | `5` | Seconds before reconnecting after a dropped SSE stream |
| `MESSAGE_DISPLAY_SECS` | `30` | How long an ntfy message holds the screen |

### Feeds

~25 sources across four categories: **Science & Technology**, **Economics & Business**, **World & Politics**, **Culture & Ideas**. Add or swap feeds in `engine/sources.py` → `FEEDS`.

**Poetry mode** pulls from Project Gutenberg: Whitman, Dickinson, Thoreau, Emerson. Sources are in `engine/sources.py` → `POETRY_SOURCES`.

### Fonts

A `fonts/` directory is bundled with demo faces (AgorTechnoDemo, AlphatronDemo, CSBishopDrawn, CubaTechnologyDemo, CyberformDemo, KATA, Microbots, ModernSpaceDemo, Neoform, Pixel Sparta, RaceHugoDemo, Resond, Robocops, Synthetix, Xeonic, and others). On startup, an interactive picker lists all discovered faces with a live half-block preview rendered at your configured size.

Navigation: `↑`/`↓` or `j`/`k` to move, `Enter` or `q` to select. The selected face persists for that session.

To add your own fonts, drop `.otf`, `.ttf`, or `.ttc` files into `fonts/` (or point `--font-dir` at any other folder). Font collections (`.ttc`, multi-face `.otf`) are enumerated face-by-face.

### Color Schemes

Mainline supports three color themes for the scrolling gradient: **Verdant Green**, **Molten Orange**, and **Violet Purple**. Each theme uses a precise color-opposite palette for ntfy message queue rendering (magenta, blue, and yellow respectively).

On startup, an interactive picker presents all available color schemes:
```
  [1] Verdant Green    (white-hot → deep green)
  [2] Molten Orange    (white-hot → deep orange)
  [3] Violet Purple    (white-hot → deep purple)
```

Navigation: `↑`/`↓` or `j`/`k` to move, `Enter` or `q` to select. The selection applies only to the current session; you'll pick a fresh theme each run.

**Note:** The boot UI (title, status lines, font picker menu) uses a hardcoded green accent color for visual continuity. Only the scrolling headlines and incoming messages render in the selected theme gradient.

### ntfy.sh

Mainline polls a configurable ntfy.sh topic in the background. When a message arrives, the scroll pauses and the message renders full-screen for `MESSAGE_DISPLAY_SECS` seconds, then the stream resumes.

To push a message:

```bash
curl -d "Body text" -H "Title: Alert title" https://ntfy.sh/your_topic
```

Update `NTFY_TOPIC` in `engine/config.py` to point at your own topic.

### Figment Mode

Figment mode periodically overlays a full-screen SVG glyph on the running ticker — flickering through a reveal → hold (strobe) → dissolve cycle, colored with a randomly selected theme gradient.

**Enable it** with the `--figment` flag:

```bash
uv run mainline.py --figment                   # glyph every 60 seconds (default)
uv run mainline.py --figment --figment-interval 30  # every 30 seconds
```

**Figment assets** live in `figments/` — drop any `.svg` file there and it will be picked up automatically. The bundled set contains Mayan and Aztec glyphs. Figments are selected randomly, avoiding immediate repeats, and rasterized into half-block terminal art at display time.

**Triggering manually** — any object with a `poll() -> FigmentCommand | None` method satisfies the `FigmentTrigger` protocol and can be passed to the plugin:

```python
from engine.figment_trigger import FigmentAction, FigmentCommand

class MyTrigger:
    def poll(self):
        if some_condition:
            return FigmentCommand(action=FigmentAction.TRIGGER)
        return None
```

Built-in commands: `TRIGGER`, `SET_INTENSITY`, `SET_INTERVAL`, `SET_COLOR`, `STOP`.

**System dependency:** Figment mode requires the Cairo C library (`brew install cairo` on macOS) in addition to the `figment` extras group:

```bash
uv sync --extra figment   # adds cairosvg
```

---

## Internals

### How it works

- On launch, the font picker scans `fonts/` and presents a live-rendered TUI for face selection; `--no-font-picker` skips directly to stream
- Feeds are fetched and filtered on startup (sports and vapid content stripped); results are cached to `.mainline_cache_news.json` / `.mainline_cache_poetry.json` for fast restarts
- Headlines are rasterized via Pillow with 4× SSAA into half-block characters (`▀▄█ `) at the configured font size
- The ticker uses a sweeping white-hot → deep green gradient; ntfy messages use a complementary white-hot → magenta/maroon gradient to distinguish them visually
- Subject-region detection runs a regex pass on each headline; matches trigger a Google Translate call and font swap to the appropriate script (CJK, Arabic, Devanagari, etc.) using macOS system fonts
- The mic stream runs in a background thread, feeding RMS dB into the glitch probability calculation each frame
- The viewport scrolls through a virtual canvas of pre-rendered blocks; fade zones at top and bottom dissolve characters probabilistically
- An ntfy.sh SSE stream runs in a background thread; incoming messages interrupt the scroll and render full-screen until dismissed or expired
- Figment mode rasterizes SVGs via cairosvg → PIL → greyscale → half-block encode, then overlays them with ANSI cursor-positioning commands between the effect chain and the ntfy message layer

### Architecture

`mainline.py` is a thin entrypoint (venv bootstrap → `engine.app.main()`). All logic lives in the `engine/` package:

```
engine/
  __init__.py           package marker
  app.py                main(), font picker TUI, boot sequence, signal handler
  config.py             constants, CLI flags, glyph tables
  sources.py            FEEDS, POETRY_SOURCES, language/script maps
  terminal.py           ANSI codes, tw/th, type_out, boot_ln
  filter.py             HTML stripping, content filter
  translate.py          Google Translate wrapper + region detection
  render.py             OTF → half-block pipeline (SSAA, gradient)
  effects.py            noise, glitch_bar, fade, firehose
  fetch.py              RSS/Gutenberg fetching + cache load/save
  ntfy.py               NtfyPoller — standalone, zero internal deps
  mic.py                MicMonitor — standalone, graceful fallback
  scroll.py             stream() frame loop + message rendering
  viewport.py           terminal dimension tracking (tw/th)
  frame.py              scroll step calculation, timing
  layers.py             ticker zone, firehose, message + figment overlay rendering
  figment_render.py     SVG → cairosvg → PIL → half-block rasterizer with cache
  figment_trigger.py    FigmentTrigger protocol, FigmentAction enum, FigmentCommand
  eventbus.py           thread-safe event publishing for decoupled communication
  events.py             event types and definitions
  controller.py         coordinates ntfy/mic monitoring and event publishing
  emitters.py           background emitters for ntfy and mic
  types.py              type definitions and dataclasses
  themes.py             THEME_REGISTRY — gradient color definitions

effects_plugins/
  __init__.py           plugin discovery (ABC issubclass scan)
  noise.py              NoiseEffect — random character noise
  glitch.py             GlitchEffect — horizontal glitch bars
  fade.py               FadeEffect — edge fade zones
  firehose.py           FirehoseEffect — dense bottom ticker strip
  figment.py            FigmentEffect — periodic SVG glyph overlay (state machine)

figments/               SVG assets for figment mode
```

`ntfy.py` and `mic.py` have zero internal dependencies and can be imported by any other visualizer.

---

## Extending

`ntfy.py` and `mic.py` are fully standalone and designed to be reused by any terminal visualizer. `engine.render` is the importable rendering pipeline for non-terminal targets.

### NtfyPoller

```python
from engine.ntfy import NtfyPoller

poller = NtfyPoller("https://ntfy.sh/my_topic/json")
poller.start()

# in your render loop:
msg = poller.get_active_message()  # → (title, body, timestamp) or None
if msg:
    title, body, ts = msg
    render_my_message(title, body)  # visualizer-specific
```

Dependencies: `urllib.request`, `json`, `threading`, `time` — stdlib only. The `since=` parameter is managed automatically on reconnect.

### MicMonitor

```python
from engine.mic import MicMonitor

mic = MicMonitor(threshold_db=50)
result = mic.start()   # None = sounddevice unavailable; False = stream failed; True = ok
if result:
    excess = mic.excess    # dB above threshold, clamped to 0
    db = mic.db            # raw RMS dB level
```

Dependencies: `sounddevice`, `numpy` — both optional; degrades gracefully if unavailable.

### Render pipeline

`engine.render` exposes the OTF → raster pipeline independently of the terminal scroll loop. The planned `serve.py` extension will import it directly to pre-render headlines as 1-bit bitmaps for an ESP32 thin client:

```python
# planned — serve.py does not yet exist
from engine.render import render_line, big_wrap
from engine.fetch import fetch_all

headlines = fetch_all()
for h in headlines:
    rows = big_wrap(h.text, font, width=800)  # list of half-block rows
    # threshold to 1-bit, pack bytes, serve over HTTP
```

See `Mainline Renderer + ntfy Message Queue for ESP32.md` for the full server + thin client architecture.

---

## Development

### Setup

Requires Python 3.10+ and [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/).

```bash
uv sync                              # minimal (no mic, no figment)
uv sync --extras mic                 # with mic support (sounddevice + numpy)
uv sync --extra figment              # with figment mode (cairosvg + system Cairo)
uv sync --all-extras                 # all optional features
uv sync --all-extras --group dev     # full dev environment
```

Figment mode also requires the Cairo C library: `brew install cairo` (macOS).

### Tasks

With [mise](https://mise.jdx.dev/):

```bash
mise run test            # run test suite
mise run test-cov        # run with coverage report
mise run lint            # ruff check
mise run lint-fix        # ruff check --fix
mise run format          # ruff format
mise run run             # uv run mainline.py
mise run run-poetry      # uv run mainline.py --poetry
mise run run-firehose    # uv run mainline.py --firehose
```

### Testing

Tests live in `tests/` and cover `config`, `filter`, `mic`, `ntfy`, `sources`, `terminal`, and the full figment pipeline (`figment_render`, `figment_trigger`, `figment`, `figment_overlay`). Figment tests are automatically skipped if Cairo is not installed.

```bash
uv run pytest
uv run pytest --cov=engine --cov-report=term-missing
```

### Linting

```bash
uv run ruff check engine/ mainline.py
uv run ruff format engine/ mainline.py
```

Pre-commit hooks run lint automatically via `hk`.

---

## Roadmap

### Performance
- **Concurrent feed fetching** — startup currently blocks sequentially on ~25 HTTP requests; `concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor` would cut load time to the slowest single feed
- **Background refresh** — re-fetch feeds in a daemon thread so a long session stays current without restart
- **Translation pre-fetch** — run translate calls concurrently during the boot sequence rather than on first render

### Graphics
- **Matrix rain underlay** — katakana column rain rendered at low opacity beneath the scrolling blocks as a background layer
- **CRT simulation** — subtle dim scanlines every N rows, occasional brightness ripple across the full screen
- **Sixel / iTerm2 inline images** — bypass half-blocks entirely and stream actual bitmap frames for true resolution; would require a capable terminal
- **Parallax secondary column** — a second, dimmer, faster-scrolling stream of ambient text at reduced opacity on one side

### Cyberpunk Vibes
- **Figment intensity wiring** — `config.intensity` currently stored but not yet applied to reveal/dissolve speed or strobe frequency
- **ntfy figment trigger** — built-in `NtfyFigmentTrigger` that listens on a dedicated topic to fire figments on demand
- **Keyword watch list** — highlight or strobe any headline matching tracked terms (names, topics, tickers)
- **Breaking interrupt** — full-screen flash + synthesized blip when a high-priority keyword hits
- **Live data overlay** — secondary ticker strip at screen edge: BTC price, ISS position, geomagnetic index
- **Theme switcher** — `--amber` (phosphor), `--ice` (electric cyan), `--red` (alert state) palette modes via CLI flag
- **Persona modes** — `--surveillance`, `--oracle`, `--underground` as feed presets with matching color themes and boot copy
- **Synthesized audio** — short static bursts tied to glitch events, independent of mic input

### Extensibility
- **serve.py** — HTTP server that imports `engine.render` and `engine.fetch` directly to stream 1-bit bitmaps to an ESP32 display
- **Rust port** — `ntfy.py` and `render.py` are the natural first targets; clear module boundaries make incremental porting viable

---

*macOS only (script/system font paths for translation are hardcoded). Primary display font is user-selectable via the bundled `fonts/` picker. Python 3.10+.*