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lightcraft/docs/control-protocol.md
T
Brandon ThomasandClaude Opus 5.5 2218ca5a4c Issue #78: GPU export: respect device limits, fall back to CPU on GPU errors
A GPU render no longer hands back an image it cannot vouch for:
- set the wgpu device-lost callback (wgpu never reports a lost device as an
  error, so a driver reset went unnoticed); readback waits with a timeout and
  checks the poll result and map callback instead of blocking forever
- each render runs in OutOfMemory/Validation/Internal error scopes; errors
  fail that render (OOM and limit failures for that render only, device
  errors for the process) and it is redone on the CPU
- every buffer is checked against the device limit when created (no
  validation error, no process-wide disable); LIGHTCRAFT_GPU_LIMITS=webgpu|<MiB>
  creates the device with lower limits to reproduce small adapters
- the output buffer is cleared and the per-pixel kernel writes alpha 255:
  any unwritten pixel (work silently dropped, the issue's all-black export)
  fails the render; an all-black result is re-rendered on the CPU
- renders submit per stage and every 16 M invocations, the per-pixel stage
  runs in ~4 MP bands: no long submission for a slow iGPU's watchdog to reset
- ui.inspect perf.gpuReason / perf.gpuFallback, app.gpu reason/lastFallback,
  System Info and Settings say why the GPU is off (e.g. llvmpipe skipped) and
  why the last render fell back

Tests: crates/gpu/tests/fallback.rs (limit, mid-render limit, validation
error, dropped work, black photo), engine export falls back to the CPU image,
banded 3000x2000 GPU/CPU equivalence.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
2026-10-05 05:06:24 -04:00

6.0 KiB
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Control protocol

lightcraft --control 7980 (or LIGHTCRAFT_CONTROL_PORT=7980) starts a JSON-lines server on 127.0.0.1:7980 (loopback only). One request per line, one reply per line, in order:

→ {"id": 1, "method": "engine.execute", "params": {"command": "photo.rate", "params": {"rating": 4}}}
← {"id": 1, "ok": true, "result": null}
← {"id": 2, "ok": false, "error": "unknown command `nope`"}

Requests are answered on the UI thread between frames (timeout 60 s). The MCP server's connect mode (mcp.md) is a thin layer over this channel. Implementation: crates/ui-egui/src/control.rs (methods) and apps/lightcraft/src/control_server.rs (transport).

Methods

Method Params Result
engine.execute (alias ui.menu.invoke) {command, params?} Run any engine or UI command (see engine.commands)
engine.commands — Engine + UI commands: id, label, menu, shortcut, params doc, enabled
ui.menu.list — Menu entries (flat: id, label, menu path, shortcut, enabled)
ui.menu.tree — The menu bar as shown (File … Help): items {id, params?, label, shortcut?, enabled, checked?}, separators, submenus — the model behind the native macOS menu bar and the in-window menus
ui.inspect — UI state, window, canvas/image rects, scroll: {grid, filmstrip} (scroll offsets in points, null until drawn), active photo, selection, perf (frameMs = layout, logicMs = per-frame logic before it, updateMs = both, maxUpdateMs, fps, render queue …, gpu = adapter in use, gpuReason = why renders don't use the GPU, gpuFallback = latest render redone on the CPU and why — see docs/gpu-pipeline.md), status, memory (bytes per cache, see library.memory; plus stage caches and textures), export: {running: {total, done, current} | null, last}
ui.widgets {filter?} On-screen widgets {id, rect: [x, y, w, h]} (screen points)
ui.clickWidget / ui.dragWidget / ui.hoverWidget {id, count?, fx?, fy?} / {id, toX?, toY?, dx?, dy?, steps?} / {id, fx?, fy?} Real egui input on a widget (hover: the pointer rests on it, e.g. for preset/profile previews)
ui.move / ui.click / ui.drag {x, y, count?, button?} / {x, y, toX, toY, steps?} Raw pointer input, screen points
ui.pointer {events: [{kind: down|drag|up, x, y}], alt?, shift?, cmd?} Gesture in normalized image coordinates (Detail view)
ui.key {key, cmd?, shift?, alt?, ctrl?} Key press
ui.text {text} Text input
ui.scroll {dx, dy} Mouse wheel
ui.set partial UI state, e.g. {"view": "detail"} Resulting UI state
ui.dialog.confirm / ui.dialog.cancel — Close the open dialog
ui.resize {width, height} Resize the window
ui.screenshot {path?, headless?} {path, width, height} once the frame (with finished renders) is captured. headless: true draws the UI on the CPU (no compositor needed); a windowed capture that gets no frame within 2 s falls back to headless automatically
engine.execute {command: "app.export", params} export params (see docs/mcp.md), plus preset, dir / path, ids, background Writes the files and returns {files}; with background: true (what the Export dialog and menus use) it returns {background: true, total} at once and the batch runs on a worker thread — poll ui.inspect → export
ui.render {id?, size?, path?} Render a photo (PNG to path), {width, height}
app.quit — Close the app

When the library can't be saved

With a persistent library, every command that changes something is written to the catalog journal (fsynced) before it replies. If that write fails (disk full, volume gone, permissions), the command replies ok: false with "saved in memory but not written to disk: <reason>; LightCraft will retry". The change itself is applied (and undoable) and stays queued: the next command, and the app's frame loop every couple of seconds, retry the write, so nothing is lost once the disk is writable again — unless the app quits first. Meanwhile ui.inspect → unsaved is {ops, error} (else null), library.info reports unsavedOps / unsavedError, and the top bar's cloud icon shows a warning (widget indicator:unsaved). Queries and commands that change nothing still succeed. A failed compaction (snapshot) is not a failed command — the log is kept whole — and only shows in library.info → lastError.

Headless rendering (no window, no GPU)

The egui UI can be rasterized on the CPU (crates/ui-egui/src/softpaint.rs, driven by crates/ui-egui/src/headless.rs): same tessellation, gamma-space premultiplied blending and scissor clipping as egui's GPU backends, so the image matches the window (minus GPU dithering).

  • In the running app: {"method": "ui.screenshot", "params": {"path": "a.png", "headless": true}}. The UI is drawn into an offscreen context from the app's logic tick, which keeps running when the window is occluded or the display sleeps/locks. Windowed screenshots fall back to this after 2 s.
  • Without any app window: lightcraft-cli snapshot runs a whole app session headlessly and answers the same control requests (same handler) from a JSON-lines script:
lightcraft-cli snapshot --demo -o grid.png --size 1600x1000 [--scale 2]
lightcraft-cli snapshot --library DIR --script tour.jsonl -o shot.png

tour.jsonl holds one request per line (# comments allowed), e.g. {"method": "ui.set", "params": {"view": "detail", "right": "edit", "openSections": ["optics"]}} then {"method": "ui.screenshot"}. Replies are printed to stdout. A ui.screenshot without path writes -o (then OUT-2.png, OUT-3.png, …); ui.settle {timeoutMs?} waits until no renders are in flight. Each request runs frames until it is answered and its injected input (clicks, keys, drags) has played out. Widget ids for ui.clickWidget come from ui.widgets (e.g. button:upright-auto). A 1600×1000 demo snapshot takes ~1–2 s (debug build).