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The desktop background is the verb-and-hotkey panel, not a wallpaper collection STACK.md specified a curated public-domain impressionist collection with swww as the daemon, and the manual repeated it as something not in the image yet. Neither was ever built: no image shipped and swww was installed and never started. Ruled 2026-08-31 (alloy 3fcb51e4): the shop background surface printing the console verbs and the sway keybindings is the permanent default, not a first-boot default a picker cycles away from. A running machine ships no keybinding reference anywhere else, and the panel's value is that it is read without being sought. swww stays installed so a user can set their own picture. No collection ships and none is planned.
Co-Authored-By
Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session
https://claude.ai/code/session_01MptwXZ8k65v19rFmdGAyki
Author: Max Johnson <me@maxj.phd> · 2026-08-31 13:56 UTC
Signed with PGP, not checked
Commit: 254a08cf2ae2f3257b17e4251ae99dcac0cad645
Parent: 5c1d0c9
2 files changed, +45 insertions, -18 deletions
M docs/STACK.md +35 -11
@@ -152,24 +152,48 @@
152 152
153 153 Rejected: neovim (modernity comes from importing a config framework, the pattern Alloy rejects), vim/kakoune (older or ancestral), Gram/Zed/cosmic-edit (graphical editors, off-thesis). Users who want a different editor install it themselves.
154 154
155 + ## The desktop background
156 +
157 + **A shop surface printing the console's verbs and the sway keybindings.** Decided
158 + 2026-08-31: this is the permanent default, not a first-boot placeholder that a
159 + picker cycles away from.
160 +
161 + The background is a `shop --layer background` surface, output-sized, with
162 + `KeyboardInteractivity::None` and an empty input region, so it is a panel that
163 + cannot be clicked or focused. It prints the 17 `alloy` console verbs and the 58
164 + sway `bindsym` lines. A running Alloy machine ships no keybinding reference
165 + anywhere else, and a reference nobody looks at is the state this replaces. The
166 + panel's value is that it is read without being sought, which is a property a
167 + picker would take away.
168 +
169 + Consequences worth stating: the machine's first impression is a reference card
170 + rather than a picture, and that is the intended impression for a terminal-first
171 + system whose thesis is that the machine tells you what it can do.
172 +
155 173 ## Wallpapers
156 174
157 - **Curated collection of public-domain impressionist paintings.** Reliably muted, atmospheric, never garish. Aligns with the design language on three axes: tonally restrained (no chrome-fighting saturation), atmospheric depth (mirrors the surface-elevation affordance vocabulary), and the impressionist obsession with *light as information* rhymes with the "color reserved for information" rule.
175 + **No curated collection ships, and none is planned as the default.** An image
176 + background is a thing the user sets, not a thing Alloy provisions.
158 177
159 - All major impressionist works are clean PD (Monet, the latest, died 1926). Sourcing priority goes to institutions that explicitly waive reproduction-photo rights:
178 + **swww** stays installed (Rust, daemon + CLI, IPC-driven, soft-fade transitions,
179 + per-output) so that setting one takes two commands and no package install:
160 180
161 - - **Met Open Access** (CC0)
162 - - **Art Institute of Chicago** (CC0; strong impressionist holdings)
163 - - **Rijksmuseum Rijksstudio** (free high-res)
164 - - **National Gallery of Art (Washington)** (open access)
181 + swww-daemon &
182 + swww img ~/Pictures/wallpaper.jpg
165 183
166 - Avoid Google Arts & Culture as a *source* (mixed rights); use it for discovery only. The wallpaper picker shows painter + title + year + source institution.
184 + Rejected as the default: a curated public-domain impressionist collection, which
185 + this document specified until 2026-08-31. Nothing was ever built for it, no image
186 + ever shipped, and swww was installed but never started, so dropping it costs an
187 + edit rather than a rollback. It remains a defensible opt-in if a picker verb is
188 + ever wanted, and the sourcing work it named (Met Open Access, Art Institute of
189 + Chicago, Rijksmuseum, National Gallery of Art, all CC0 or open access) is
190 + recorded here for whoever picks that up. It is not on the roadmap.
167 191
168 - **Daemon: swww** (Rust, daemon + CLI, IPC-driven, soft-fade transitions, per-output). CLI-driven cycling is enough for a terminal-first system; a picker, if it ever lands, is an `alloy` console verb (metadata/curation in the console, surface management in the daemon over IPC), not an authored GUI. Soft fade on cycle is the tonally correct transition for impressionist art.
192 + Also rejected, as daemons: wpaperd, cosmic-bg (sway compatibility unverified),
193 + swaybg (C, no cycling or transitions).
169 194
170 - Rejected: wpaperd (Rust, more structured cycling-as-daemon-concern; second pick if picker descopes), cosmic-bg (Rust, System76, sway compatibility unverified, not worth the detour while swww exists), swaybg (C, no cycling/transitions; boring fallback only).
171 -
172 - Honest gap: none of these handle ICC color management; that's a Wayland compositor-level concern still being finalized.
195 + Honest gap: none of these handle ICC color management; that is a Wayland
196 + compositor-level concern still being finalized.
173 197
174 198 ## Terminal
175 199
@@ -48,18 +48,21 @@
48 48 is set to. Choosing between the two tables needs a system-wide setting that
49 49 does not exist yet, since the greeter runs before any user is known.
50 50
51 - ## Wallpaper
51 + ## The background
52 52
53 - The default background is a flat colour from the palette. Alloy ships **swww**
54 - for image wallpapers but starts no daemon and provisions no images:
53 + The intended default is a panel: a terminal surface behind your windows that
54 + prints the `alloy` verbs and the sway keybindings, so the reference is on screen
55 + without being asked for. It is not in the image yet. Until it lands the
56 + background is a flat colour from the palette.
57 +
58 + Alloy ships **swww** if you would rather have a picture. It starts no daemon and
59 + provisions no images:
55 60
56 61 swww-daemon &
57 62 swww img ~/Pictures/wallpaper.jpg
58 63
59 - Add those to `~/.config/sway/config` if you want them at login. The curated
60 - wallpaper collection the design docs describe (public-domain impressionist
61 - paintings, chosen because they are tonally restrained and treat light as
62 - information) is not in the image yet.
64 + Add those to `~/.config/sway/config` if you want them at login. Alloy does not
65 + ship a wallpaper collection and does not plan to; the picture is yours to pick.
63 66
64 67 ## Night colour temperature
65 68