dsh-splash

A DSH startup splash: a Penrose triangle light-sweep over a living isometric diamond ocean, a progress bar driven by real boot milestones, a 7.2s skippable intro, and a theme dock with ten palettes.

Visual harness: preview/preview.html?mode=static (runs the real client bundle against fake services; open it in a browser).

Intro and themes

• The default 7.2s is a fixed minimum timeline, not a timer-driven boot bar: choose 3.8s / 7.2s / 10s in the theme dock, or exit early with the Skip button / Esc.
• The theme entry lives in the conversation header utilities (the app's top navigation bar, next to the folder / more / panel buttons); during the splash a Theme button also appears at the bottom-left. The panel floats above the splash: ten palettes derived from Monument Valley (E:\mv-refs\palette.json) and Geometric Islands (E:\web\Geometric Islands\style.css), intro length, Cinematic / Real progress pacing, a preview action, and localStorage persistence. Palette and pacing changes are live while the splash is on screen; intro length applies to the next launch.
• Palettes drive the background, frame, progress bar, text, ocean tiles/grid, and the three Penrose faces; dark palettes also flip text/border contrast.
• Cinematic progress follows the intro timeline (ease-out) but is clamped by real readiness: it can be slower than reality, never faster, and only reaches 100 when both the intro and startup finish.

What is preserved

• 24s Penrose rotation; the three faces cycle through the palette's light/mid/dark colours over the same 24s.
• The circle holds an isometric diamond ocean: a double-sine wave displaces the point grid; each diamond mixes the palette's low/high colours by its average height and is stroked in the grid colour.
• The circle emerges over the intro's first ~1.6s and slowly zooms; the brand fades in at 1.5s.
• 640ms fade-out after the intro/startup, then canvas, styles, timers, and listeners are released.

Real progress, not a timer

Five weighted milestones sum to 100:

Phase	Weight	Source
Page load	5	document.readyState === 'complete'
Client plugin graph	50	ctx.get('modules').manifest.plugins.length + fiber states from ctx.loader.entries()
Host connection	17	ctx.get('connection').state (connecting → connected)
Workspace / session baseline	18	phase === 'ready' on ctx.get('workspaces').list and ctx.get('sessions').list
First paint + fonts	10	two post-mount rAFs + document.fonts.ready (800ms cap)

Only the displayed value eases toward the target (1 - e^(-dt/110)). In the default cinematic mode the target is min(real readiness, timeline); the timeline only makes the bar slower and can never pass real readiness. The Real mode uses the raw target. Stage copy shows real counts such as Loading plugins 37/94; when the app is ready but the intro timeline is still running, the stage reads "Entering".

shell.overlay only exists after the React app mounts. The plugin therefore paints its own DOM on document.body during apply (covering the kernel's "Loading plugins…" page), then re-parents that exact node into the shell.overlay seat when the frame mounts. One DOM tree, no flash, and the plugin-loading half of boot is still visible.

Install into a local profile

The package is an ordinary DSH client plugin: the host half is an empty Cordis plugin, and dsh.client tells dsh-client-modules to serve lib/client.js as the browser bundle. dsh.bundle.patch also lets it install as a bundle.

Local link

dsh plugin --profile desktop add "link:C:\path\to\dsh-splash"

Then append a loader row to the profile's cordis.patch.yml:

- id: dsh-splash
  name: dsh-splash

DSH HMR watches the profile patch and recomposes; the browser receives the new module graph over /plugins/events. Reload the page (Ctrl+R) to see the splash.

Published

dsh plugin --profile desktop add dsh-splash

As of 2026-11-04, npm latest is 0.1.0; the 0.2.0 long-intro/theme-dock work is currently the local link: dev build. Publishing 0.2.0 makes this command pick it up.

Installing through the DSH plugin market applies the package's cordis.patch.yml, so no manual row is needed.

Rollback

Remove the dsh-splash row from cordis.patch.yml, then:

dsh plugin --profile desktop remove dsh-splash

Development

dsh-splash/
  package.json          # dsh.client / dsh.bundle declarations
  cordis.patch.yml      # loader row inserted by a bundle install
  lib/index.js          # host half: empty plugin, just an entry for the Loader
  lib/client.js         # browser half: __ModuleLoader__ factory bundle
  preview/preview.html  # real bundle + fake React/services visual harness
  test/dom-smoke.mjs    # Node DOM smoke test (progress, adopt, fade)

Rules that matter:

1. The host half must exist. dsh-client-modules scans enabled Loader entries; without a row there is no browser bundle. An empty apply() suffices.
2. The client entry is exports["./client"] and must be a window.__ModuleLoader__.load({ id, factory }) bundle. factory(require) may require only platform baseline modules (react, react/jsx-runtime, @deepseek-ai/dsh-client-ui-primitives, …). Non-baseline requests belong in dsh.client.external.
3. Register into shell.overlay, never root. It is a root-scoped list slot: additive, click-through by default, and the entry opts into pointer events.
4. After editing lib/client.js, HMR reloads the plugin by file revision; reload the page if it does not. During development use ?dsh-splash=force on an already-mounted page or ?dsh-splash=off to disable.
5. Test:

node test/dom-smoke.mjs

This executes the real lib/client.js under a Node DOM shim and verifies cold-boot detection, real loader counts, monotonic progress, shell.overlay adoption, fade-out, and cleanup.

Configuration

Development-only switches:

Entry	Effect
?dsh-splash=off	Do not show this load
?dsh-splash=force	Show even when the page is already mounted
?dsh-splash-min=3800	Intro minimum in ms (default 7200)
?dsh-splash-palette=island-night	Force a palette for this load
?dsh-splash-progress=real	Use raw real progress (default cinematic)
window.__DSH_SPLASH__ = { minVisibleMs, palette, progress, force, disabled, debug }	Programmatic form

minVisibleMs is the intro timeline; it never fabricates progress.

Known boundaries

• The splash is page-level. There is no injectable moment between native window creation and page scripts; that gap remains owned by the desktop shell.
• shell.overlay exists only after mount, hence the two-stage body → seat adoption. If the seat disappears during a layout reload, the node is returned to body rather than lost.
• A startup failure is covered for at most 20s, then the splash fades so the error page is reachable. The bar never fakes 100%.
• The 7.2s intro is a default, not a lock: the theme dock offers 3.8s / 7.2s / 10s, and the Skip button / Esc exits immediately. Theme settings live in this page origin's localStorage; they do not sync across devices.
• The animation is code-drawn, not a video. A 15–18s video-style intro would need an optional video asset or a native launcher window; that is a separate step.
• Missing ctx.loader, connection, workspaces, or sessions capabilities are skipped after a short grace period instead of hanging the splash.

License

MIT