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0013: Distinguish State Sequences From Continuous Motion

Status: Plain still-versus-motion honesty retained; formal cross-project mode taxonomy superseded by ADR 0035; capability-manifest decision superseded by ADR 0026

ADR 0035 removes Visual Truth Mode, Temporal Presentation Mode, Still, State Sequence, and Continuous Motion as required STAGE vocabulary. Current guidance keeps the narrower rule that stills and hard cuts do not prove production motion.

Context​

Visual review has at least three independent dimensions:

  1. the Visual Truth Mode that produced a state;
  2. the Temporal Presentation Mode available to the reviewer; and
  3. the transport used to observe or export it, such as a desktop frame, stream, GIF, or video.

Earlier STAGE declarations compressed temporal capability into still, motion, or both. That made a common category error easy: a tool could seek several deterministic states, advance them on a timer, display a Play button, encode the result as video, and then describe the output as motion. The frames were real and useful, but the intervals were not produced by animation, simulation, physics, tweens, or ordinary update continuity.

Lanternworks exposed the ambiguity. Its First Light Progression Scenario had five useful named Review Beats and deterministic autoplay. Inspection of the production code and a fresh player build showed that each beat was a complete static projection and playback performed hard cuts. The native toolbar called the feature MOTION, the capability declaration claimed both, and the docs called playback continuous. None of those labels matched the implementation.

Replacing the sequence with Almanac-only interpolation would have made the preview more impressive while weakening its truth. The game had no production motion for that Scenario to exercise.

Decision​

Define Temporal Presentation Mode separately from Visual Truth Mode and export format:

  • Still is one inspectable state. It makes no claim about change, transition, timing, or motion.
  • State Sequence is two or more named states connected by manual or timed hard cuts. It can prove ordering and state readability, but not meaningful in-between frames.
  • Continuous Motion is meaningful frame-to-frame visual change produced by the project's production path under the declared Visual Truth Mode.

A Review Beat is a named state or temporal coordinate. Review Beats may exist in any temporal mode and do not imply continuity between them.

Persistent Almanac operating docs name supported temporal modes. Stable native operations use play-state-sequence for discrete cuts and reserve play-motion for continuous_motion. Active non-still agent observation reports temporal_mode through state provenance when that channel is available. The versioned manifest that first encoded these distinctions was later retired by ADR 0026.

Control, state, and sight remain separate. An entry point may support a temporal mode that an agent cannot observe. Agent-observed modes must be a subset of Almanac capability. Human acceptance remains authoritative.

Exports inherit both source dimensions. A video of authored state seeks is still authored-state-seek truth. A video of timed hard cuts is still a State Sequence. File extension and frame rate cannot upgrade either claim.

Consequences​

  • Reviews can use discrete before/after or progression states without pretending to test animation.
  • Continuous-motion claims now require a real production update path and an observation surface that can show it.
  • A Play button, timer, GIF, stream, or MP4 no longer implies motion evidence.
  • State receipts can be compared with observed output without inferring temporal semantics from UI labels.
  • Projects can remain honest when no production motion exists instead of inventing preview-only interpolation.
  • Existing 0.1 through 0.3 declarations remain valid compatibility records; projects upgrade only when the distinction matters.

Dogfood Result​

Lanternworks renamed the toolbar mode to STATE SEQUENCE, removed play-motion claims, added temporalMode to its native v3 state receipt, and enforced one beat for Still Scenarios and at least two beats for State Sequence Scenarios. The full 213-test EditMode suite, 17-test PlayMode suite, development player build, native player observation, and emitted receipt all passed.

No fake interpolation was added. Continuous Motion remains absent until a real Lanternworks production behavior provides something truthful to inspect.

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