Stellar — session handoff, 29 July 2026

Written for the next session. Read this before touching anything.

State: builds clean, 105 tests pass, corpus and app in sync

(export-machine.py stellar --verify exits 0). **Nothing is committed in either

repo.**

1 · Read these first, in this order

2 · Non-negotiable facts

• Content is authored in Press Raven, not in the app. Author: ~/Developer/PressRaven-Corpus/guides/stellar/entries/*.json Guide config (roster, court_spots, point_cycle, mini_games): guide.json Export: python3 ~/Developer/PressRaven/tools/export-machine.py stellar --write Press Raven's own commit runs git add -A, so it commits whatever is on disk.

• Three different things, never conflate them: - Zone — rotational slot (FL/FM/FR/BL/BM/BR ≙ 4/3/2/5/6/1). What overlap is judged against. Identical between base and receive, always. - Spot — a named place on the floor (off-net-left, stack-behind-right). Where she actually stands. 20 of them, in guide.court_spots. - Box — a painted third of the court. Coincides with zone at base, comes apart the moment anybody stretches. Used for the Whiteboard's Part 2 targets.

• You rotate when you win the SERVE, not when you win a point. Winning a rally you were already serving scores and moves nobody. This is enumerated in guide.point_cycle and enforced at export.

• Receive occupies the same six zones as base. Not a style choice — overlap is judged at service contact. Four receive formations shipped violating this and were corrected on 29 July.

• Export invariants that will stop a build (all in export-machine.py): receive ≠ base zones; any pre-contact overlap fault; a near-miss that names the correct answer; unknown or doubled spot ids; a story citing a missing frame; a point_cycle outcome claiming a rotation the rule forbids.

• Debug launch (all SIMCTL_CHILD_*, DEBUG only): STELLAR_START_MODE · STELLAR_START_ROTATION · STELLAR_START_BRANCH (us/them) · STELLAR_START_BEAT (served/branch/point) · STELLAR_START_PART (live)

3 · Work queue

A · Widen Tag the Photo with rules — start here

Approved. **Audit first — this mode has not been opened since the corrections and

reads from data that changed.** Check whether it still works before designing.

Currently "who's in the wrong spot?" (overlap detection). Widen to "what's wrong

with this picture?": overlap faults plus illegal back-row attack, libero

blocking, net touch, centre-line violation. Source: docs/rules-intake.md.

Same recognition skill, larger subject, stops competing with the Whiteboard.

Open question: those faults are actions, not positions, and the court diagram

only shows positions. Decide how an action-fault is depicted before authoring a

bank.

B · Widen The Thread with rules

Approved. The Thread already asks "ours, or not ours?" — extend to "legal, or

not?". Its FormationEntry.Tier already has a .overlap tier that is authored

but thin; a .rules tier is the natural third.

C · The Rally — side-out sequences (task #11, still open)

A run should continue point after point until we win the serve, so she

sometimes waits three points to rotate. Needs:

• A "Meanwhile…" compressed interlude for the rally between beats.
• After each point, she places herself at the resulting base — current rotation if they won, next if we won the serve.
• Re-model outcomes as pointTo + servedBy so the impossible pairings cannot be authored at all (currently we-won / we-won-holding / they-won, which allowed the rally-03 bug).

D · Button semantics — blocked on Sarah

Annotation #10 was truncated mid-sentence. She said "Show me" vs "Play it out" is

confusing and began listing a replacement set; only item 1 (Check) arrived. Ask

for the rest before touching the control row.

4 · Not verified by hand

I built and screenshotted these but never dragged a token through a full turn.

Test before building on them:

• Whiteboard: a complete two-part turn, including two players sharing a box.
• Rally: the candidate-ring completion task (teammates placed, her token off).
• Rally: the rewritten summary screen — never seen rendered.

5 · Open questions for the coach

1. R1 defense keeps RS front-left, skipping the switch. R4 has the same base

and is switched. Deliberate or a drawing slip? Flagged conflicted.

2. R3 / R6 libero serve split — middle serves R3, libero serves R6. Coherent

and rule-consistent, still unconfirmed.

3. Setting technique — the supplied material contradicted itself three times

(arm extension, facing the target, over-setting). Cut rather than resolved.

Which source is hers?

6 · Known soft spots

• The Rally's free-ball / transition / coverage / dig-deep shapes are standard positioning I authored, not read off any handout (confidence 78).
• ~40 lines of voice are modelled, not Stella's. Rally narration, rewritten near-misses, action-slide copy. Read aloud before trusting.
• Spot coordinates are ±a metre. The ordering they encode is rule-constrained and safe; only the depths are soft.
• Beat timings (9s clock, 4s/9s read hold) are untested on an actual 13-year-old.
• "Alignment is determined by the players' feet" — new detail from the rules intake, not yet reflected anywhere in the app.

7 · Repo state

• Stellar has no git remote. git push fails with "No configured push destination". To fix: gh repo create sarahewilkerson/Stellar --private --source=. --remote=origin --push Private matters — art/avatars/ holds seven photos of real 13-year-olds, named.
• PressRaven-Corpus has origin (private GitHub) and commits fine from the Press Raven app.
• Corpus snapshot before the rotation fix: PressRaven-Corpus/.backups/stellar-2026-07-29-pre-rotation-fix (gitignored).
• The corpus mini_games list still advertises the-streak and show-up-or-lose-it, which no longer exist in the app. Harmless — nothing exports from them — but tidy when convenient. **where-am-i and called-shot are now in the same state**, retired from the app this session.

8 · What changed this session

Rotation correction (4 broken receive formations), zone/spot/box model, overlap

validator + 4 export invariants, Whiteboard rebuilt as a two-part turn with

action slides, point cycle in the corpus, The Rally built then reworked to a

completion task, Where Am I? and Called Shot retired.

Full write-up: docs/reviews/2026-07-29-rotation-correction.html.