The Current with a look (SCR-001, score stage 1) — 2026-10-07

Class C: it changes what rise_present accepts. Recommendations are recorded as defaults for the owner's sign-off (§6). It designs stage 1 of the score roadmap (approach C: the Current as a thin envelope over the curator context) and reserves stage 2's field so stage 1 does not close it off. Building it (SCR-002 onward) follows the roadmap's own default: after the first reader observations (V1). Ground: origin/main = 52d5f847.

1. What a Current is today

rise.current.v1 (src/core/rise-current.js): schema, id, title, optional theme (one of the nine), origin, and 1–16 segments of { id, text, visual?, dives?, literal? } where visual is still, attractor or genesis. The validator refuses any field it does not know. The guide a model reads (src/live/adapters/current-guide.js) is built from the validator's own constants around a real example a test validates.

2. Stage 1a: look, and nothing else

The field. An optional top-level look: the id of one of the looks (RDR-020, src/core/looks.js) that the Composer may draw.

Which looks a Current may name. A look draws engines (look.engines); the card draws only engines the catalogue marks composer (FND-009), today attractor and klee (Genesis). A look is admissible in a Current only if every engine it draws is a Composer engine:

Look	Draws	In a Current
Plain	no field	yes: passages default to still
Garden	klee	yes: passages default to genesis
Signal	attractor	yes: passages default to attractor
Gallery, Nocturne, Flame, Iris, Revel, Inlay	Turrell, harmonograph, Living Flame, Ostensoria/Apparitio, fractal	no: not verified in the card
Vigil	a held focal	no: focals are not a Composer surface

The list is derived, never kept by hand: verifying an engine for the card (its composer flag) admits every look made only of Composer engines, which is the addressable-catalog design's "admit only verified mappings". An inadmissible look is refused (CURRENT_LOOK), never approximated: a model that asked for Revel must not receive an attractor that claims to be Revel.

How a look lowers. Through the same partial it applies in Reader setup, as far as the card can honour it:

Part of the look	In the card
Theme	the Current's theme when it names none; an explicit theme wins. The Settings sheet's "As written" is that effective theme
Field	the default visual of every passage that names none; a passage that names its visual keeps it
Typeface and size	the reading's own presentation, as in Reader; the reader's Text size row and Settings typeface still win
Sound	not lowered in 1a. A bed under speechSynthesis cannot be ducked honestly; Ask (SCR-004), which plays in the Reader, may lower it
Intensity row	unchanged rule: shown only where a passage draws the attractor

The schema id stays rise.current.v1. look is additive, and the validator refuses unknown fields, so a reader without look refuses such a Current rather than misreads it; RISE ships as one deployment, Worker and card together. A version bump would add a migration and buy nothing.

The guide gains one rule, generated: the admissible looks with each look's own line (looks.js), and the example gains "look": "signal"; the existing test that validates the example then holds the guide to the validator.

3. Stage 1b: collection, sound, pace

Each lands alone, with its own witness, after 1a has run in the host.

Field	Where	Value	Gate	Prerequisite
collection	per segment	an admitted imagery collection id from the curator context; the passage shows a sourced still from it	the curator-context membership gate; no URL, no bytes	the card's CSP admits the museum image hosts; the curator context served to the host as an MCP resource, so the model reads ids rather than guesses them
sound	top level	an id from the one sound list (RDR-024: silence, 5 atmospheres, 8 music, 11 feelings, 3 tones)	the list's own ids	a ducking path for a bed under the browser voice
pace	top level	slow, natural or brisk, lowered to the reading track's words per minute within the looks' pace ranges	the three names	applies to a paced (silent) reading only: when a voice speaks, the voice is the clock, and a model's pace must not fight the sentence timing narration depends on

4. Stage 2: the field program is reserved

An optional program: a full rise.experience-program.v1 whose sources are the Current's own segment ids, validated in the Worker by the Scriptorium's two gates (validateExperienceProgram and the curator-context membership gate). With program present, the per-passage visual is refused (one author of the visual track) and look contributes only its theme, typeface and size. Until SCR-005 builds it, the validator keeps refusing program like any unknown field; nothing in 1a or 1b may use that name.

5. What SCR-002 will hold with tests

• look admitted only from the Composer view; each inadmissible look refused with CURRENT_LOOK and its reason; the admissible set computed from LOOKS and ENGINE_CATALOG, equal to Plain, Garden and Signal today.
• Lowering: theme precedence; default visual for unnamed passages, kept for named ones; the look's typeface and size on the session, overridden by the reader's settings; no sound in the card.
• The guide lists exactly the admissible looks with their lines; the example with look validates.
• program still refused.

6. Owner questions, with the defaults in place

1. Only Composer-verified looks (three today), refusing the rest, rather than all ten approximated. Default: verified only.
2. An explicit theme beats the look's. Default: yes.
3. No schema bump (look is additive under v1). Default: yes.
4. Stage 1a after V1 (the roadmap's default): unchanged; SCR-002 waits for the reader observations unless the owner moves it.

Answers (Mateo, 2026-10-07). 1: "all ten looks properly and safely integrated": every look is admitted, each lowered through its own field, not approximated (the card frames RISE's own page, so its renderers and policy apply). Inlay in the card keeps its imagery, colours and heavy face but shows the spoken sentence as ordinary text, without its word mask, since the card is always voiced. 2 and 3 stand. 4: build now; SCR-002 does not wait for V1. Built in SCR-002: the Worker admits the ten ids (RISE_CURRENT_LOOKS), the card lowers them (src/core/current-look.js), and the guide names each look with a hint that promises no sound.

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Published from docs/product/discussions/2026-10-07-current-with-a-look.md. Edits made here are overwritten on the next push to main.