# Phase 2: Season 1 Vertical Slice (Soil) - Context

**Gathered:** 2026-05-09
**Status:** Ready for planning

<domain>
## Phase Boundary

Ship the complete Season 1 (Soil) vertical slice end-to-end on real authored content, with no aesthetic polish required. Player launches → presses **Begin** (gesture-gate calls `AudioContext.resume()`, AEST-07) → places a seed in an empty tile of a 4×4 garden → watches it grow (state survives refresh) → harvests one Season-1 fragment → reads it in a Memory Journal → meets Lura at the gate via Ink-authored dialogue → closes the tab → returns to a *letter from the garden* describing what bloomed → the Playwright e2e smoke proves the whole loop. The simulation advances by elapsed real time (capped at 24h, refusing negative deltas), saves fire on `visibilitychange`/`beforeunload`/Season transitions, and story progression gates on tick count (not wall time).

Phase 2's first commits land the foundations Phase 1 deliberately deferred: the **`BigQty` wrapper around `break_eternity.js`** (per CLAUDE.md "from day one of feature code"), the **Zustand 5 store** wiring scenes ↔ React UI, and the **tick scheduler / monotonic clock** (the only owner of wall-clock access; sim modules stay pure).

**Out of scope for Phase 2 (deferred to later phases):**
- Watercolor post-process, painted plants, solo cello, ambient buses (Phase 3)
- Season transitions, die-off, Roothold prestige, cross-pollination (Phase 4)
- Place-memory vignettes, Memory Storms, the Nameless Man's full arc (Phase 5)
- The Below, ecosystem planting, the Loom, the Archivist (Phase 6)
- Final binary choice + credits/coda rest state (Phase 7)
- Audio sliders (UX-04), keyboard nav (UX-06), browser-zoom guarantees (UX-07), color-redundant icons (UX-08), tab-title bloom (UX-09), Lura-not-numbers UX (UX-12) (Phase 8)
- Visual regression for the asset library (PIPE-04, Phase 8)

**Phase 2 owns 24 REQ-IDs:** CORE-02, CORE-03, CORE-11, GARD-01, GARD-02, GARD-03, GARD-04, MEMR-01, MEMR-02, MEMR-03, MEMR-04, MEMR-05, MEMR-06, STRY-01, STRY-06, STRY-07 (vacuous in S1), STRY-10, AEST-07, UX-01, UX-02, UX-10, UX-11, PIPE-02, PIPE-07.

</domain>

<decisions>
## Implementation Decisions

### Garden Geometry & Input
- **D-01:** Garden is a **4×4 fixed grid (16 tiles)**. Intimate walled-garden feel; matches cozy/contemplative tone and Phase 2's minimum-viable bias. Later Seasons add new surfaces (the Below, etc.) rather than enlarging the grid.
- **D-02:** Seed placement is **click-empty-tile → inline seed picker** (small popover anchored to the clicked tile, listing currently-unlocked plant types; single tap commits). No persistent seed sidebar — honors UX-01 "no UI clutter".
- **D-03:** **2–3 plant types** ship in Season 1 — enough that the player exercises real choice and different plants gate different fragments via MEMR-06. Each plant has its own growth duration and fragment pool.
- **D-04:** **Infinite seed supply from start** — anti-FOMO. The meaningful constraint is *time* (growth duration, tile count), not seed inventory. Simplest sim/store shape; cleanest cozy framing.
- **D-05:** **First plant available from start; remaining 1–2 unlock by fragment-count thresholds** harvested. Drip-feed of progression without ceremony. Specific thresholds are Claude's discretion within reason.
- **D-06:** Empty tile look in Phase 2 = **faint outlined tile + subtle hover state** (Phaser primitive draw, no asset work). Phase 3 paints the watercolor treatment.
- **D-07:** Post-harvest tile **returns immediately to empty** with a brief acknowledgement beat (small text snippet, gentle particle, or pause beat — Claude's discretion on form). No "spent" cooldown state in the sim or save schema.

### Time Density (Growth + Offline)
- **D-08:** First-plant active-play growth = **~2–5 minutes** (sprout → ready). Cozy but watchable; lets a playtester complete the full loop in ~10 minutes while still feeling idle. The 24h offline cap is meaningful, not just theoretical.
- **D-09:** **Per-plant durations vary** (short / medium / longer) within the ~2–5min band. Lets the player make real time-vs-yield tradeoffs and gives each plant a tonal identity. Specific durations per plant are Claude's discretion; document chosen values in PLAN.md.
- **D-10:** **Auto-harvest during offline; manual in active play.** While the player is away, plants that ripen are auto-harvested and queued into the offline event log; the *letter* narrates them. In active play, the player still chooses when to harvest. Cleanest idle-game shape and gives the letter content to describe.
- **D-11:** **24h offline cap is surfaced silently in the letter's voice** — no numeric "you were gone for 28 hours" copy. The simulation hard-caps the elapsed delta at 24h (CORE-03 + CORE-11); the letter may lightly acknowledge a long absence in voice, but never shows the cap as a system message.

### Lura's Season 1 Arc
- **D-12:** Lura is present as **discrete visits at the gate** — not a persistent chat thread. Matches the bible's framing; each visit is its own Ink scene; bounded content target for Phase 2.
- **D-13:** **3 beats in Season 1: arrival · mid · farewell.** Tight prologue arc; small authoring surface; load-bearing for tone.
- **D-14:** Beats are **gated by fragment-count thresholds** — beat 1 fires after the **1st** harvest; mid-beat after the **4th**; farewell after the **8th**. Counts come from sim ticks, not wall time, so STRY-10 holds (system-clock manipulation cannot fast-forward through beats). Specific thresholds may shift slightly during playtest but the model — fragment-count thresholds — is locked.
- **D-15:** Beat-fire UX = **subtle gate indicator + player-initiated visit.** When a beat unlocks, a soft cue at the gate signals it (glow, mark, or small text); the player walks over (clicks the gate) when they choose. The conversation opens as a **React DOM dialogue overlay** (DOM, not canvas — supports MEMR-05-style selectable text from day one). Honors A Dark Room rule.
- **D-16:** All Lura dialogue is authored in **Ink (`.ink`) under `/content/dialogue/`**, compiled to JSON via `inklecate` (already in devDependencies), runtime-loaded via `inkjs` (already in dependencies). Per STRY-06 + ROADMAP.md.

### Letter-from-the-Garden (UX-02)
- **D-17:** Letter is composed from an **authored skeleton + templated insertions**. Hand-authored Ink passages in voice with named variable slots (e.g., `{plants_bloomed}`, `{fragment_titles}`, `{lura_was_here}`); specifics flow in from the offline event log. Best balance of voice control (Lura-anchor tone is preserved by author) and reactivity (each return reads true to what happened).
- **D-18:** Letter authoring lives in **Ink (`.ink` files in `/content/dialogue/`)** — same authoring layer as Lura's beats. Single narrative-rendering path for Phase 2; reuses STRY-06 stack; no second loader path.
- **D-19:** Save schema gains a small **`offlineEvents`** block: per-plant counts of plants bloomed, list of auto-harvested fragment IDs, and a flag for any newly-unlocked Lura beat queued for first-visit. Compact and bounded; sufficient for the slot vocabulary; cleanly fits inside the existing `V1Payload` shape (see `src/save/migrations.ts`). Phase 2 must update `V1Payload` to include this block — it's a Phase-2 schema *extension*, not a `migrate_v1_to_v2`, because Phase 1's v1 has not shipped any production saves yet.
- **D-20:** Letter triggers on return when **absence ≥ 5 minutes**. Below 5 minutes, the player simply resumes (no letter). At/above the threshold, a **full-screen React DOM overlay** delivers the letter; **one tap dismisses to the live garden**. Threshold avoids letter-spam during active tab-flicking; full-screen treatment honors the tonal weight.

### Begin Screen (AEST-07 + UX-01)
- **D-21:** **Tasteful placeholder; Phase 3 paints.** Phase 2 ships a clean, restrained Begin screen — typographic title + a single "Begin" affordance, calls `AudioContext.resume()` on tap. No painted canvas illustration. Phase 3 swaps in the watercolor gesture-gate without touching the gating logic.
- **D-22:** **Begin screen shows on first run only.** Subsequent loads skip directly to the live garden; `AudioContext` enables on the first interaction (any tile click or gate click counts as a user gesture). "First run" is determined by save existence (no save → first run; save present → returning player). Acknowledged tradeoff: returning players have a brief silent moment until their first interaction; deemed acceptable for cozy-pacing.

### Memory Journal (MEMR-04, MEMR-05)
- **D-23:** Journal affordance **reveals after the player's first harvest**, then is persistent. Pre-harvest, no journal icon at all. Most A-Dark-Room-consistent; the UI grows as the player progresses.
- **D-24:** Journal layout = **full-screen modal overlay** with fragments grouped by Season; a back affordance returns to the live garden. DOM-rendered text per MEMR-05 (selectable, copy-pasteable).
- **D-25:** Newly harvested fragments (in active play) **surface immediately in a full-text reveal modal**; dismissing files them into the journal under their Season. Off-line auto-harvested fragments are surfaced via the *letter* (D-17 .. D-20) and re-readable in the journal afterwards. Creates a memorable beat-per-harvest in active play; preserves the cozy/quiet feel of the offline return.

### Visual Placeholders (Phase 2 only)
- **D-26:** Plants render as **simple Phaser-primitive shapes per growth stage, tinted by plant type**. Sprout = small dot, mature = stem, ready = bloom shape; tint differentiates plant types. No PNG asset work in Phase 2; the architectural firewall stays clean (no asset deps in `src/sim/`). Phase 3 swaps in painted sprites.
- **D-27:** Ready-state cue = **subtle glow / pulse on ready tiles** (Phaser shader pulse or alpha cycle). Reads at a glance without text; works regardless of plant type; Phase 3 paints over with a warmer light treatment.

### Phase 2 Settings UI Scope
- **D-28:** Settings menu in Phase 2 ships **save-management surfaces only** — Export to Base64 (CORE-09 UI), Import from Base64 (CORE-09 UI), Restore previous snapshot (CORE-08 UI). Persistence-result toast (CORE-05 UI) folds in. **Audio sliders + keyboard nav + browser zoom + color-redundant icons stay in Phase 8** (UX-04, UX-06, UX-07, UX-08).
- **D-29:** Settings access = **small icon in a corner of the main view + keyboard shortcut**. Persistent (returning players need to find Export/Import for save recovery); restrained enough not to clutter the cozy surface. Same pattern as the Memory Journal affordance.
- **D-30:** `navigator.storage.persist()` outcome surfaced as a **one-time soft toast in voice on first save if denied; nothing if granted** (e.g., *"the garden may forget, if your browser asks it to"*). Honors UX-01 + cozy tone; respects CORE-05's "surfaces the result respectfully if the browser declines."

### Foundations That Must Land in Phase 2 (per CLAUDE.md)
- **D-31:** **`BigQty` wrapper around `break_eternity.js`** is Phase 2's first task. Lands in `src/sim/numbers/` (or similar firewall-respecting location). All economy values from this point forward go through `BigQty`. Even if Season 1's actual scaling never demands `break_eternity`, the wrapper is in place day-one of feature code per CLAUDE.md.
- **D-32:** **Zustand 5 store** is the bridge between the Phaser scene and React UI surfaces (Begin screen, Memory Journal, Settings, Letter, Lura dialogue). Sim writes to the store; React reads from it. Sim never imports the store directly — Phase 1's ESLint boundaries (CORE-10) enforce this. Exact slice shape is Claude's discretion.
- **D-33:** **Tick scheduler / monotonic clock** is the *only* owner of wall-clock access. Sim modules in `src/sim/` stay pure (no `Date.now`, no `setInterval`); the scheduler injects `currentTime` into sim updates. Tick rate is Claude's discretion (likely 4–10Hz for sim updates, decoupled from `requestAnimationFrame`-driven render). Negative deltas are refused at the scheduler boundary (CORE-11); single offline catch-up clamps to 24h (CORE-03 + CORE-11).
- **D-34:** **Save extension for Phase 2** updates `V1Payload` (in `src/save/migrations.ts`) to include the Phase-2-needed fields: garden tiles with plant state, plants array with growth-state + plantedAt-tick, harvested fragment IDs (already declared), `lastTickAt` (already declared), Lura-beat progress flags, `offlineEvents` block (D-19), settings (already declared). This is a Phase-2-scope schema *extension* (not a v1→v2 migration) because Phase 1's v1 envelope has shipped no production saves; the synthetic v0→v1 demo migration in `migrations[1]` continues to work.

### Claude's Discretion
- Specific growth-duration values per plant type within the 2–5min band (D-08 / D-09).
- Exact fragment-count threshold values for plant-type unlocks (D-05) and Lura beats — the model is locked (1st/4th/8th) but Claude may adjust by ±1–2 during playtest.
- Form of the post-harvest acknowledgement beat (text snippet, particle, pause — D-07).
- Form of the gate indicator when Lura's beat unlocks (D-15) — soft glow, mark, or small text.
- Tick rate / sim cadence (likely 4–10Hz; not 60Hz — sim should be cheap).
- Internal shape of the Zustand store slices.
- Internal shape of the scene/state machine inside Phaser (Boot → Preloader → Garden, or simpler).
- Specific copy of the tasteful Begin screen, the persistence-denied toast, and the post-harvest acknowledgement (all must match the bible voice; user reviews).
- Choice of e2e test fast-forward mechanism (hidden dev hotkey vs URL flag vs sim-clock injection — Phase 2 needs *some* way for Playwright to fast-forward growth in PIPE-07).
- Specific copy of the Memory Journal "no fragments yet" empty state (if shown pre-first-harvest in any flow).
- Whether the offline letter's slot vocabulary is finalized in this phase or expanded incrementally (Lura's variable can be the simplest first slot; more added if needed).

</decisions>

<canonical_refs>
## Canonical References

**Downstream agents MUST read these before planning or implementing.**

### Project-Level Source of Truth
- `.planning/PROJECT.md` — Story bible synthesis, core value ("every idle mechanic must function as a metaphor"), hard thematic constraints, Out of Scope, Key Decisions table.
- `.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md` — 77 v1 requirements with REQ-IDs. Phase 2 owns 24 (see Phase Boundary above for the complete list).
- `.planning/ROADMAP.md` §"Phase 2: Season 1 Vertical Slice (Soil)" — 5 success criteria. The plan must satisfy each.
- `.planning/STATE.md` — current position; Phase 1 verification table; carry-forward concerns.
- `CLAUDE.md` — stack lock, architectural firewall, banner concerns 1–10, hard thematic constraints, code style rules ("BigQty from day one of feature code", externalized strings, stable string IDs, no Date.now in sim).

### Phase 1 Outputs (load-bearing for Phase 2)
- `.planning/phases/01-foundations-and-doctrine/01-CONTEXT.md` — Phase 1 decisions (D-01..D-12) that constrain Phase 2 (save format locked, content pipeline locked, firewall locked, doctrine docs locked).
- `.planning/phases/01-foundations-and-doctrine/01-VERIFICATION.md` — Phase 1 PASS evidence; Phase 2 builds on every green REQ here.
- `.planning/anti-fomo-doctrine.md` — banned UX patterns; review checklist. **MUST be consulted at every UX decision in Phase 2.**
- `.planning/season-7-end-state.md` — the principle-level rest-state contract. Phase 2's growth-curve and Roothold-precursor decisions must not preclude the finite ceiling tied to authored content.

### Research Layer
- `.planning/research/SUMMARY.md` — stack at a glance, banner concerns, Phase 2 rationale (vertical slice that could plausibly ship as a free standalone prologue).
- `.planning/research/STACK.md` — stack rationale; especially the React-19-DOM-overlay vs Phaser-canvas split, Zustand 5 bridge, Howler.js, Ink/inkjs, idb + lz-string.
- `.planning/research/ARCHITECTURE.md` — three-layer firewall (sim → application → presentation); tick scheduler shape; save format `{schemaVersion, payload, checksum}`.
- `.planning/research/PITFALLS.md` — 14 critical pitfalls. Phase 2 directly hits #1 (story-ends-but-loop-doesn't — vertical-slice prologue must not foreclose Season 7's rest state), #2 (system-clock cheating — STRY-10 + CORE-11), #4 (tab throttling — CORE-02 + UX-10), #6 (Web Audio user-gesture — AEST-07 + Begin screen), #7 (offline catch-up — CORE-03), #10 (content/code divergence — MEMR-02 + MEMR-03 + STRY-09), #12 (anti-FOMO — UX-13 holds for every decision in Phase 2).
- `.planning/research/FEATURES.md` — must-have / should-have / defer / anti-feature classification. The "should-have" classification for Season 1 is the input to Phase 2's content authoring scope.

### Phase 1 Code Surfaces Phase 2 Will Consume
- `src/save/index.ts` — public barrel of the save layer (Phase 2 imports ONLY from this file).
- `src/save/migrations.ts` — `V1Payload` shape and migration registry. **Phase 2 extends `V1Payload` per D-34.**
- `src/save/envelope.ts` + `src/save/codec.ts` + `src/save/db.ts` + `src/save/snapshots.ts` + `src/save/persist.ts` — internal modules; Phase 2 does not import these directly.
- `src/content/loader.ts` + `src/content/schemas/index.ts` — Vite-native content pipeline. Phase 2 adds Season 1 fragment files under `/content/seasons/01-soil/` and Lura's Ink scenes under `/content/dialogue/`.
- `src/content/index.ts` — public barrel of the content layer.
- `src/game/main.ts` + `src/game/scenes/Boot.ts` — Phaser entry. Phase 2 expands the scene tree (Boot → Preloader → Garden, or simpler).
- `src/App.tsx` + `src/PhaserGame.tsx` — React shell + Phaser bridge. Phase 2 adds the Begin screen, HUD, Settings, Memory Journal, Lura dialogue overlay, and Letter overlay as React components beside the `<PhaserGame>` mount.
- `eslint.config.js` (Phase 1's flat config with `eslint-plugin-boundaries`) — enforces sim ↔ render/ui firewall. Phase 2 code MUST pass lint.
- `package.json scripts.ci` — `npm run ci` is the CI gate; Phase 2 plans must keep `npm run ci` green at every commit.

### Content Conventions
- `content/README.md` — content authoring conventions (stable string IDs, frontmatter shape, file location norms).
- `content/seasons/00-demo/fragments.yaml` — demo fragment from Phase 1. **Phase 2 removes this file** when Season 1 (`/content/seasons/01-soil/`) is authored.

### Phase 2 New Outputs (will be created during this phase)
- `/content/seasons/01-soil/` — real Season 1 fragments (Markdown + frontmatter, per MEMR-02). Fragment count and per-plant pool sizes are part of Phase 2 planning.
- `/content/dialogue/season1/` — Lura's 3 Ink scenes (arrival, mid, farewell) + the *letter from the garden* Ink passage with templated slots.
- `src/sim/numbers/big-qty.ts` (or similar) — `BigQty` wrapper around `break_eternity.js` (D-31).
- `src/store/` — Zustand 5 slices (D-32).
- `src/sim/scheduler/` — tick scheduler / monotonic clock (D-33). Single owner of wall-clock access.
- `src/sim/garden/` — garden tile state, plant state machine, harvest logic (sim-only, no DOM, no Date.now).
- `src/sim/narrative/` — Lura beat-gating logic (sim-side; reads fragment-count from sim state, not narrative-string content).
- `src/render/garden/` — Phaser scene rendering tiles, plants, ready-state pulse, gate.
- `src/ui/begin/`, `src/ui/journal/`, `src/ui/dialogue/`, `src/ui/letter/`, `src/ui/settings/` — React DOM overlays.
- `tests/e2e/` — Playwright smoke (PIPE-07) covering load → dismiss begin → plant → fast-forward → harvest → journal-shows-fragment → reload → fragment-persists.

</canonical_refs>

<code_context>
## Existing Code Insights

### Reusable Assets (from Phase 1)
- **Save layer is complete and stable** (`src/save/`). Phase 2 imports `wrap`, `unwrap`, `migrate`, `snapshot`, `listSnapshots`, `requestPersistence`, `exportToBase64`, `importFromBase64`, `openSaveDB`, `LocalStorageDBAdapter`, `crc32hex`, `canonicalJSON` from `src/save/index.ts`. The `V1Payload` interface is the contract; Phase 2 extends it (D-34).
- **Content pipeline is Vite-native** (`src/content/loader.ts`). Phase 2 drops Markdown fragments under `/content/seasons/01-soil/fragments/*.md` and they're picked up by the existing glob; schema violations fail the build.
- **ESLint boundary rule** (`eslint.config.js`) enforces `src/sim/` ↔ `src/render/`/`src/ui/` firewall. Phase 2 sim code must be pure.
- **Vitest + Playwright** are already wired (`vitest.config.ts`, `playwright.config.ts`). Phase 2 adds tests; the CI script (`npm run ci`) already runs them.
- **CRC-32 checksum + canonical JSON** for save integrity.
- **`fake-indexeddb`** is pre-installed for test environments.
- **Asset provenance gate** (`scripts/validate-assets.mjs`) — Phase 2 ships placeholder shapes via Phaser primitives, no PNG assets, so the gate is not exercised. (D-26.)

### Established Patterns (from Phase 1)
- **Single public barrel per layer** (`src/save/index.ts`, `src/content/index.ts`). Phase 2's `src/store/`, `src/sim/`, `src/render/`, `src/ui/` should each expose a `index.ts` barrel; cross-layer imports go through barrels only.
- **Stable string fragment IDs** (e.g., `season1.soil.lura_01.greeting`) — never numeric. Validated by Zod schema in `src/content/schemas/`.
- **Player-visible strings live in `/content/`**, not in TS.
- **Doc-lint pattern** (Vitest assertions over Markdown structure) — Phase 2 may extend for Lura's Ink scenes if structural invariants emerge.
- **Plan-bundle pattern** — each plan in `01-foundations-and-doctrine/` shipped a SUMMARY.md alongside its PLAN.md. Phase 2 plans should follow.

### Integration Points
- **Phaser scene ↔ React overlays via Zustand 5** (D-32). Sim writes; React reads. Phaser scenes should NOT import React; React should NOT import Phaser scenes — both go through the store.
- **Tick scheduler ↔ Phaser game loop.** The sim tick runs at its own cadence (D-33); Phaser's `requestAnimationFrame` drives rendering. The scheduler dispatches sim updates from the Phaser scene's `update()` hook (or an independent loop) but is the only place `Date.now()` is allowed.
- **`visibilitychange` + `beforeunload` save triggers** wire to the save layer's `wrap` + IndexedDB write path. Phase 2 must ensure save serialization is fast enough to complete in `beforeunload`'s tight window.
- **Begin screen → AudioContext.resume()** is the bootstrapping handshake for Howler.js (Phase 3 actually uses Howler — Phase 2 may stub or no-op the audio bus while still calling `resume()`).
- **Ink → inkjs runtime path.** `inklecate` (devDependencies) compiles `.ink` → `.json` at build time; `inkjs` (dependencies) loads the JSON at runtime. Phase 2 establishes this pipeline (it's a no-op stub today per `package.json scripts.compile:ink`).
- **Memory Journal text rendering** must be DOM (React), not canvas (Phaser) — MEMR-05 demands selectable/copyable text.

</code_context>

<specifics>
## Specific Ideas

- **Tone discipline:** the user pushed back on Phase 1 ceremony and prefers minimum-viable infrastructure. Apply the same lens to Phase 2: do not build a registry, framework, or DSL where a typed function table will do; do not pre-allocate scaffolding for Phase 4+ Roots/Canopy/Storm mechanics.
- **A Dark Room rule across every UX decision:** Begin screen has no clutter; Memory Journal affordance only appears after first harvest; Settings is a small corner icon; persistence-denied is a soft toast in voice. The UI grows as the player progresses.
- **Letter is a tonal load-bearing surface, not a stat dump.** UX-02 is explicit: "written in voice, not a stat dump." The authored Ink skeleton is what holds the voice; the slots are what make it true to what happened. Reviewer should read the letter Ink as if it were short fiction, not as if it were copy.
- **The vertical slice could plausibly ship as a free standalone prologue.** This is the project's escape hatch against the 7-Season scope risk (banner concern #2). Phase 2 must complete the loop end-to-end so that, in the worst case, this slice could go live alone. That includes: a satisfying first-pass arc shape (Lura's 3 beats), a real letter, working save/restore, working e2e smoke.
- **Architecture firewall is non-negotiable.** Sim is pure; render/UI talk to sim only via the Zustand store. ESLint enforces. Tick scheduler is the *only* place wall-clock enters the sim.
- **Save-schema extension, not migration.** Phase 1's `V1Payload` has not shipped any production saves; Phase 2 extends the v1 payload shape rather than adding `migrate_v1_to_v2`. The first real migration lands in Phase 4 (per Phase 1 D-04). The synthetic v0→v1 demo migration in `migrations[1]` continues to work as the proof-of-chain.
- **Tick-count gating, not wall-time gating, for narrative beats.** STRY-10 is satisfied because Lura's fragment-count thresholds count *harvest events* (which are sim ticks), not minutes elapsed. A player who manipulates their system clock cannot fast-forward through Lura's beats.

</specifics>

<deferred>
## Deferred Ideas

Items mentioned during discussion that belong in other phases:

- **Hybrid Lura presence (gate visits + ambient text-message drip)** — discussed and rejected for Phase 2 in favor of pure discrete-gate-visits (D-12). May be reconsidered in Phase 4+ if the narrative density warrants it.
- **Plant-type unlocks tied to specific authored fragments** — discussed and rejected for Phase 2 in favor of fragment-count thresholds (D-05). Phase 4+ may explore narrative-keyed unlocks.
- **Fully procedural letter from event-log templates** — discussed and rejected (D-17). Phase 2 commits to authored skeleton + slots. If the slot vocabulary turns out to be too small in playtest, expand in Phase 4 (longer Seasons, more event types).
- **Audio sliders (UX-04), keyboard nav (UX-06), browser-zoom guarantees (UX-07), color-redundant icons (UX-08), tab-title bloom (UX-09), Lura-not-numbers UX (UX-12)** — all confirmed for **Phase 8** (D-28). Settings menu in Phase 2 is save-management only.
- **Visual regression for asset library (PIPE-04)** — Phase 8.
- **Roothold prestige currency, Season transitions, die-off, finite ceiling enforcement** — Phase 4 (Season-Prestige Cycle & Season 2). Phase 2 plants nothing in the save schema for Roothold; Phase 4 owns that addition.
- **Cross-pollination, Memory Storms, place-memory vignettes, ecosystem planting, the Below, the Loom, the Archivist, Lura's full multi-Season arc, the Nameless Man** — Phase 4–7.
- **Watercolor post-process, painted plants, painted Begin screen, solo cello + ambient buses + crossfade, reduced-motion toggle (UX-05)** — Phase 3 (Watercolor & Cello Aesthetic).
- **Real production-volume AI assets + locked north-star reference set (Phase 1 IOU AEST-09)** — Phase 5 follow-up. Phase 2 ships zero AI-generated assets (D-26 = primitive shapes); the Phase-1 IOU is unblocked, not unblocking Phase 2.
- **Real `migrate_v1_to_v2`** — Phase 4 (when Roothold / Season-prestige state actually lands). Phase 2 only extends `V1Payload` shape (D-34); no new migration entry is added.
- **Per-plant duration variance via dynamic content authoring (e.g., player-modifiable growth times)** — out of scope; not a v1 capability; not in REQUIREMENTS.md.
- **Compost yielding seeds back** — discussed as a possible scarcity mechanic and rejected (D-04 = infinite seeds). Phase 4's cross-pollination introduces hybrid seeds, which is the proper place for seed-as-economy.
- **Persistent Settings element on Begin screen** — discussed as alt access pattern; rejected in favor of in-garden corner icon + hotkey (D-29).

</deferred>

---

*Phase: 2-season-1-vertical-slice-soil*
*Context gathered: 2026-05-09*