# cumulus: design This is the design approved on 2026-10-01, after six rounds of questions. It's the reference while cumulus is being built: when a decision changes, this file changes with it. ## What cumulus is A keyboard-driven brainstorming app for the terminal, in Rust with ratatui. The aim is "the idea node graph to end them all": quick idea dumps, mind maps, whiteboard-style planning and linked notes, in one tool. It runs on Windows and Linux, with vim keys first and full mouse support. ## Scope **v1** - The canvas: nodes, branches, cross-links with every style, folding and focus, zoom, the `K` card, the mouse. - The Outline and Note views, splits and the document bar. - The key engine: medium vim, which-key, help and status-bar hints. - Visual, move and connect modes; text editing with vim normal mode. - The command line, with completion and history. - Portals, with the jump list, backlinks and breadcrumb. - Rapid entry and the Inbox. - RON documents with autosave, reload, backups and undo; file names that follow the root's title. - The startup rules and `cumulus new`. - TOML config, key and theme files, with named styles and styles set by tags. **v1.1**: the Board view · the Search picker across documents · `:tidy` and align · branch out · export (Markdown, plain text) and import (indented lists). **Later**: peeking into portals and pulling a document back in · branches that keep themselves tidy · the Links map · backlinks inside a document · picking single nodes in visual mode with keys (Ctrl+click does it with the mouse) · `Alt+hjkl` · opening a body in `$EDITOR` · persistent undo · sessions · operator + motion and macros · a tutorial document · checkbox, link and date fields · Graphviz and Mermaid export · a Settings view · vim tab pages. **Not planned unless asked**: `f` hint jumps · a minimap · straight (braille) lines. ## Decisions **Documents and structure** - Each document has one main root, and the document's name is the root's title. Loose top-level nodes float around it. - A tree plus cross-links: each node has at most one parent, and cross-links join any two nodes, at most one link per pair. - A node holds a title (one line, never empty), a body, tags and a color. A new node left empty disappears. - A portal node shows another document's root, live (its title, color and node count), and leads there. Portals always land on the root. - Backlinks are stored in the target document and synced on save, so they travel with the files. - Files live anywhere: there's no workspace folder. Portal paths are relative, with `/` on every OS. - Each file carries a random `uid`, so "where you left off" survives renames and a portal can tell when its file was replaced by another document. - File names follow the root's title, and a rename fixes the portals pointing at the file. A folder's default document keeps its name (`ideas.cum`). **Canvas** - Free placement: a new node appears next to its parent, and nothing moves unless you move it. Moving a node brings its branch along. - Folding: each branch is Open, Auto (open while the cursor is inside) or Closed (a jump inside opens it until you leave). New branches start Open; a focus toggle makes Open branches act like Auto. - Zoom levels: Normal (boxes), Far (one line per node: the same width, half the height) and Overview (colored dots: a quarter of the width, a third of the height). Far keeps the width because one-line titles collided when distances were halved both ways (changed during stage 2). Body text never shows on the canvas: `K` pops it up, and the Note view shows all of it. - Right-angle lines with proper junctions (`├ ┬ ┼`); lines pass under nodes. - A node's color goes on its border. Each node can pick its border, and the theme's named styles and tag rules can set color and border together. - Connections can set arrowheads (off, end, start, both), a line (solid, dashed, dotted, thick, double), a color (a palette color or the node's own) and a label, or use a named style. Branches start solid without arrowheads, in their parent's color, so a node's color flows down the lines to its children (dim when the parent has no color). Cross-links start as dim dashed arrows. **Keys** - Medium vim: counts, operators with node targets, registers (with `"+` for the system clipboard), marks (capital marks across documents), `.` to repeat. - Tab and `Ctrl-i` jump forward, as in vim, so `a` adds a child. - `dd` deletes a node with its branch; `x` deletes just the node, and its children move up. - A count on `dd`, `yy`, `>>` or `<<` takes in the next siblings: `3dd` deletes this node and the next two, with their branches, as vim's `3dd` takes three lines. Which-key says how many as you type (`2d3`: 6 nodes). - Rapid entry is what happens after `o`, `O` or `a`: Enter starts the next sibling, Tab / Shift-Tab indent and outdent the idea being typed, and Enter on an empty idea stops (the empty idea goes away). Esc switches to vim keys inside the text; a second Esc leaves. Inside a title, `o` and `O` start a new sibling too. - `>>` puts the node under the one above it, as its last child; `<<` takes it out a level, right after its old parent. Both place the node below its new neighbors, and keep its branch with it. - `C` (connect mode) edits the connection to another node. Aimed at your own parent, it styles or cuts the branch line; cutting makes the node loose. - `M` (move mode) moves the branch; `M` again switches to just the node. - `gh gj gk gl` move through the tree in every view; plain `hjkl` follow each view's layout (on the canvas: the nearest node that way). - Folds: `za zo zc zR zM`, plus `zf` (Auto) and `zi` (focus). - `q` stays free for macros; quit with `:q`, `:qa` or `ZZ`. - Which-key works like skyshift's; the leader menu pops up at once. The status bar shows key hints, and `?` opens searchable help. - Keys can be changed in `keys.toml`, in vim notation. **Editing text** (settled in stage 6) - A title is typed right in its box on the canvas (zoomed to Normal while it's edited). The box grows with the text, the terminal's cursor sits in it, and the border takes the insert color while you type. - The cursor's shape follows the mode, as in vim: a bar while typing (and in the command line), a block on the letter with vim keys, and the terminal's own shape elsewhere. - The document follows the text as you type, so every view stays current. The whole edit is one undo step (in rapid entry, one per idea); inside the text, `u` and `Ctrl-r` undo and redo the edit's own changes. - A title left empty comes back as it was, with a note saying so; a new idea left empty goes away. - Registers are shared by the whole app, as in vim: text yanked in one title pastes into another. `"+` is the system clipboard (part 8c). - `.` inside the text repeats the last change there, typing included. - As in vim: `cw` changes to the end of the word, `dw` stops at the end of the line, `j` and `k` move by lines of text rather than wrapped rows, Esc steps back onto the last letter typed. - Tab and Shift-Tab only move a new idea; on an existing title they say that `>>` and `<<` do it. - The mouse while editing: a click in the text moves the text cursor; a click anywhere else keeps the text, finishes the edit and does what a click does; a double-click on a title starts editing at that letter. - A portal's title is its document's name, so it isn't edited in place: rename that document instead. - Bodies are edited in the Note view and in the `K` card, with the same editor: Enter starts a new line, Tab types four spaces. `cc`, `C` and `s` start typing on an empty line too, as in vim (bodies are often empty). **The rest of vim** (settled in part 8c) - Visual mode takes in what lies between where it started and the cursor: on the canvas, every node on show that the rectangle from one end's box to the other's touches; in the outline and the Note view, the nodes in between in reading order. `V` takes each with its whole branch; `v` in a `V` selection (and `V` in a `v` one) switches, and the same key again stops. Ctrl+click adds or takes out one node; Ctrl+drag on empty canvas adds every node its rectangle touches. The selection is drawn thick in the theme's visual color, and the status bar counts it. - Operators take exactly what's selected (the user's pick): `d` deletes the selected nodes, and with `v` their unselected children move up, as with `x`; `y` yanks them with their shape among them; `>` and `<` move nodes that share a parent; `M` moves them on the canvas (with their branches, or just them after `M` again); the pickers set every one of them, as one undo step. - A register holds text or nodes, and either pastes anywhere: nodes pasted into a text give their titles, text pasted on nodes becomes nodes. `yy`, `yab`, `yib` yank nodes; every delete (`dd`, `x`, `dib`, `d` on a selection) keeps what it took, so `dd` then `p` moves a branch. `p` pastes as the node's last children and `P` as its next siblings (the user's pick after trying part 8c: `p` goes under the node as `a` adds, `P` below it as `o` adds), keeping the yanked layout, where a new node would go; a count pastes copies. Links between the pasted nodes come along, and so do links to nodes still there when they go back into the document they came from. - `"+` is the system clipboard. Nodes go there as Markdown, the user's format: a heading per node (`##` for the nodes yanked, `###` for their children, `####` for anything deeper), its tags as a list between two `---` lines, then its body. While the clipboard still holds what cumulus put there, `"+p` gives back everything (colors, bodies, links, the layout); text from elsewhere becomes nodes (Markdown headings, or a node per line nested by its indent). `clipboard = "unnamedplus"` makes every yank, delete and paste use the clipboard, as vim's setting does. - `.` repeats the last change made with keys in normal or visual mode: the command with its count and register, plus everything typed in the text edit it started (`aMulch` then Esc adds another Mulch). A value picked in a picker repeats on the cursor's node. A change made on a selection repeats on the cursor's node (`d` as `x`, or `dd` after `V`; `>` as `>>`). - `/` opens a search in the middle of the screen, as Telescope does (the user's pick): what's typed at the top, the matches below it, fuzzy, best first (titles before tags before bodies), with the letters that matched standing out, and the note of the match you're on beside them. Case only matters once there's a capital (smartcase). Enter goes there, Esc goes back; `n` and `N` then go through the same matches, going round, and `:find` searches straight away. - Each pane keeps a jump list, as vim's windows do: `gg`, `G`, marks, a search, `gd`, a link followed in the Note view and switching documents are jumps. `Ctrl-o` goes back (into another document, opened again if it was closed), `Ctrl-i` or Tab forward. `''` still goes back to before the last jump. - Capital marks (`mA`, `'A`) lead into any document, opening it if it isn't open; they're kept in the data folder's `memory.ron`, and the small ones (`ma`) are kept there with each document, so both last from one run to the next. - `gd` follows the cursor's cross-link; with several, a list of them pops up beside the node. `:marks`, `:jumps` and `:registers` list them; Enter goes to the mark or the place, or pastes the register. **Connect mode and portals** (settled in part 8d) - `C` starts connect mode on the cursor's node: the cursor goes to another node as usual (`hjkl`, `gh`…, `n` after a search, a click), the node being connected is drawn thick in the visual color, and a dashed arrow in that color follows the cursor. Enter links them (a line already there stays) and connect mode is done, with the cursor back on the node `C` started from (the user's pick). `d` removes the line between them: a link goes; a branch (aimed at the node's parent, or at a child) is cut, and the child comes loose with its own branch. `>` puts the node under the one aimed at, as its last child, where it is on the canvas (a link between the two goes: the branch takes its place). - The `` keys style the line as you watch: `a` and `l` go through the arrowheads (off, end, start, both) and the kinds of line (solid, dashed, dotted, thick, double); `c` and `s` pick a color (or the node's own) and a named line style; `t` a link's label, where typing a label that isn't listed makes it. A line that isn't there yet is made, as a link. Everything connect mode changes is one undo step, and Esc takes it all back. - From visual mode, `C` connects every selected node (with `V`, each branch's top) to the one the cursor goes to. Connect mode works in every view, and stays in its document. - A portal shows its document live: the root's title, its color (when the portal has none of its own) and how many nodes it has, in the box's corner (`?` and faded when the document isn't there). The portal remembers the title, in case the file goes. Enter or `gf` goes through it, to the root: a jump, so `Ctrl-o` comes back. The breadcrumb then starts with the documents the pane came through (`Garden plans » Kitchen › Herbs`); going back up one of them takes the trail back there. - `p` opens the command line with `:portal ` typed (the user's pick): a path as `:e` takes it, relative to the document's folder, with the same completion. An existing document gets a portal under the cursor's node, where `a` adds a child; when nothing's there, what was typed is a new document's title, made next to this one as `:new` makes it. A portal to its own document, or to a file that isn't a document, is refused. - Backlinks are put right whenever a document is opened or saved: each document its portals lead to gets exactly one backlink per portal (an open one in its buffer, written at once unless it has changes of its own to save with them; a closed one in its file, unless another cumulus has it). The root shows how many (`« 2`), the Note view lists them on the root, and `gu` goes up to them (the user's pick): one straight there, on the portal, several in a list, the document the pane came from first. `:backlinks` always lists them. - File names follow the root's title: when the title changed since the file was read or written, the next save renames it (`-2`, `-3`… when the name is taken; a folder's default document keeps its name). The portals pointing at it take the new path (in the documents its backlinks name, and any open one), as do the backlinks in the documents it leads to, the recent documents, the capital marks and the jump lists. - A portal whose file isn't where it says looks in that folder for its document by uid (a file moved or renamed by hand), and keeps the path it finds. **Tidying and lining up** (settled in part 9a) - `=` then `m`, `c` or `g` (the user's pick: leader menus), or `:tidy [map|chart|grid]`, lays out the cursor's branch: its top node stays where it is, and every node under it gets a place, folded away or not (the user's pick: unfolding later shows it tidy too). One undo step. What's outside the branch stays put, even under it, and the message says how many nodes the branch covers now. - A mind map puts each node in the middle of its children (the user's pick), with their branches stacked to the right. An org chart puts the children's branches side by side below, each node in the middle above its own. A grid makes a block of cards beside the node (the user's pick), filled left to right, about as many columns as rows; a card's own branch goes along with it, as a mind map. - The lines follow: a parent whose children are all below it sends its branches down to a shared bend, and a new child of it goes beside the last one. In a grid, a card behind another in its row isn't joined by a line: the bit showing between the two cards would look like it joins them. - In visual mode, `a` then `h`, `l`, `k`, `j` or `c` lines the selection up: left, right, top or bottom edges, or middles in a column, on the box around them all. Each brings its branch along (with `V`, each branch goes by its top). `=` tidies each selected branch. - `:` in visual mode opens the command line on the selection (the status bar keeps counting it): `:align` and `:tidy` take it, and so do `:color`, `:border`, `:style`, `:tag` and `:fold`, setting every selected node as one undo step, the way the pickers do. **Branching out** (settled in part 9b) - `o` (the user's pick), `:branchout [file]` or the right-click menu moves the cursor's branch into a document of its own: next to this one, named after the branch's title (`-2` when that's taken), or at the path given. Its top node becomes the root, in the middle of the canvas, and the nodes keep their ids, so the links among them, the marks on them (small and capital) and the jump lists still find them. - A portal to the new document takes the branch's place (the same spot in the tree and on the canvas, the same branch line), as one undo step: `u` brings the branch back, and the new file stays on disk, as after `:new`. The pane then goes to the new document, on its root, as through the portal (the user's pick): `Ctrl-o` comes back, and the breadcrumb starts with the document it came from. - Portals inside the branch move along (the user's pick), still leading where they did from the new file's folder, and their documents' backlinks follow. Links between the branch and the rest of the document can't follow (links stay inside a document): the message counts them. The root can't branch out (it's the whole document), and neither can a portal (its document is one of its own already). **Export and import** (settled in part 9c) - `:export md` writes the document as Markdown headings, in the clipboard's format (the user's pick): `#` for the root and each loose node, `##` for their children, and so on down to `######`; the tags as a list between two `---` lines, then the body. `:export txt` writes an outline: a title per line, two spaces a level, its tags after it, and its body under it a level further in, each line after a `| ` (the user's pick). - The file goes next to the document and is named after it (`garden.md`), or where `:export md file` says (`.md` or `.txt` is added). As vim's `:w` to another file does, it leaves a file that's there alone unless it's `:export!` (the user's pick). - Typed in visual mode, `:export` writes just the selection (the user's pick), named after its first branch (`raised-beds.md`): with `v` exactly the nodes chosen, with `V` their branches. - `:import file` reads Markdown headings, a bulleted list or indented lines (what both exports write, and what the clipboard reads), and the nodes go under the cursor's node as its last children, laid out as a mind map, as one undo step (the user's pick). `#tags` at the end of a line are its tags, and lines after a `| ` are the body of the node above. Looks and cross-links stay out of both exports. **Searching every document** (settled in part 9d) - `/` (the user's pick), or `:search text` straight to the best match, searches every document cumulus knows of: the open ones (the one shown first), the ones opened lately, the `.cum` files in this document's folder, and every document their portals and backlinks lead to, however far (the user's pick; up to 200 documents). The open ones are searched as they are, the others as their files have them. - It's the `/` popup: one list, best first whatever the document (titles before tags before bodies), each match with its document's name at the end of its row (the user's pick), and the note of the one you're on beside them. Enter goes there, opening its document if it's closed: a jump, so `Ctrl-o` comes back. - `n` and `N` then go through every match, from document to document (the user's pick), going round, as vim's `:cnext` goes through a `:vimgrep`'s list: the matches as they were when you searched. `/` and `:find` still search the document shown, and `n` after them stays in it. **The board** (settled in part 9e, the user's design) - The board shows the document as lists and blocks, the way Scratch nests blocks inside a loop: each node without a parent (the root, and each loose node) is a column, with its title in the column's top border; its children are cards in it, one under the other; and a card with children on show wraps them in a "C": a `├` at its bottom left, a bracket down the left past its cards (two cells further in), and a foot closing it. Blocks nest as deep as the tree does. The columns by tag or by color the first design had are dropped (the user's pick). - A card is a node's box, and a column a node's box with the title in its top border, drawn exactly as the canvas draws them (the user asked for them to match): its border as its style says (rounded for the root, dashed for a question, double…), in its color, thick in the accent color for the cursor; the tags in its color and the badge in its bottom border. The borders go through the canvas's line layer, so a block's "C" is in its card's own line and color, joined where they meet (`├`, `┣`, `╠`). Folds fold here too: a folded block is a card with `+N`, and a folded column says `+N` in its bottom border. - `j` and `k` go down and up a column in reading order (into the blocks), `h` and `l` to the column beside, onto the card nearest the cursor's height. Titles are typed right in their cards, and `vb` or `:board` shows it. - Move mode (`M`, the user's pick) moves the card instead: `h` and `l` to the end of the column beside, `j` and `k` past the cards around it, into a block (as its first card going down, its last going up) and out of one at its end; a column's own node trades places with the column beside (the root's stays first). Enter is done, one undo step. Every move goes through the tree. - A drag moves a card, or a column by its title, live, as the canvas does (the user's pick); the whole drag is one undo step. The row of titles, the gaps between columns and the space past the last one are among the columns (the user's pick): there it becomes a column, before the column under the mouse on its left half, after it on its right half, after the one to the left in a gap. Anywhere else it goes into the column under the mouse, as a card, by the row: on a card's top half before it; on its bottom half after it, or into its block as the first card; on a block's foot, after the block; below the cards, last. So a card dragged out becomes a column, and a column dragged into another one becomes a card, its cards its block. The root's column stays first and can't be dragged (the user's pick: it's the document's root). - The board holds still around a drag: the columns keep the widths they had, and the room a dragged column took stays empty while it isn't one (dropping it there makes it that column again). Otherwise the columns beside would slide under the mouse, and the card would chase them. - In visual mode the board selects in reading order, as the outline does. **Views, panes and popups** (settled in stage 7) - The Note view is made of parts: the title, the tags, the body, each link (out, then in) and each child. `j` and `k` step through them, with a bar marking the one you're on; Enter, `i` or `A` edits it (`I` from its start, `cc` `S` anew), or goes to that link (a jump: `''` comes back) or child. `h` and `l` turn the page: the sibling before or after. Node keys (`dd`, `za`, `o`…) act on the note's node. The note follows the cursor, starting at the title of each node it comes to. - The outline has a row per node: its fold marker (`▾` `▸`), tree lines in the parent's color (as branches are on the canvas), its tags, `¶` when it has a body, `+N` for what a fold hides. `zb` shows every body under its title, where its children hang, to read the document like a page. `j` and `k` go row by row, `h` and `l` to the parent and the first child; a click on a marker folds. Titles are edited in their row, rapid entry included. Rows wider than the view scroll sideways (`zh` `zl`, the wheel sideways), and the cursor's title comes back into view when the cursor moves. - Move mode in the outline and the Note view moves the node through the tree: `j` and `k` swap it with its siblings (`J` and `K` five places), `h` takes it out a level, `l` puts it under the one above. - The status bar has two lines: the mode, the view, the breadcrumb (or a message in its place) and the keys typed so far; then the key hints for what you're doing. `w` hides the hint line along with which-key. - Help (`?`, `?`, `:help [topic]`) lists every key of the focused view and every `:` command, under which-key's headings. `/` searches (rows that start with what's typed first, then fuzzy matches), and Enter runs the row: a key that waits for more (`m`) is typed for you to finish, and a `:` command that needs an argument opens the command line with it typed. - The `K` card opens beside the node (in the middle when the node isn't on screen). `j` `k` `Ctrl-d` `Ctrl-u` scroll it; `i`, `A` or Enter edits the body right there (`I` from its start), and when that's done the card stays; `K`, `q` or Esc closes it. - Right-click opens a menu of what you can do with the node, each with the keys that do the same; on the empty canvas: a new idea right there (a loose node), zoom in and out. `c` `B` `s` `t` open the color, border, style and tags pickers, which start on what the node has now. In the tags picker Enter puts a tag on or off and the picker stays open; a search that matches no tag, then Enter, adds it as a new one. - Every pane has a box with its view and document in the top border, the focused one in the accent color. A new pane comes first (left or above) and takes the focus, as in vim, and closing the last pane quits (`q`, `ZZ`, `:q`). A click focuses the pane under it; a text edited in the old one is done first. - The document bar is always at the top, the focused pane's document standing out; a click on a name shows that document in the pane. Each pane can show any open document. - Popups (the help, the menu, the pickers, the card) are a mode of their own: keys and clicks go to them, a click outside a list closes it, and they stay above the status bar. **Files and saving** (settled in part 8a) - Documents are RON files ending in `.cum`. Configs are TOML: `config.toml`, `keys.toml` and `themes/.toml`. - Autosave a second after the latest change, so typing isn't saved letter by letter (`autosave = false` for vim-style `:w`). Undoing back to what's on disk counts as no change. The document bar marks unsaved changes `[+]`. Quitting saves first; without autosave, `:q` with unsaved changes refuses (`:q!` drops them), and `ZZ` saves, then closes, as in vim. - Every second, cumulus looks at each file's time and size. A file changed outside cumulus is read again as an undo step (`u` brings back what was on screen); never under a text being edited or a node being moved, which it waits for. If you also had unsaved changes, cumulus asks which to keep (Esc: later; `:w` keeps yours, `:e!` takes the file's). A file with a mistake in it (a hand edit half done) stops autosave until it's fixed or `:w` saves over it; a deleted or moved file waits for `:w` to write it again. - The day's first save copies the file to the data folder's backups first (`backups//2026-10-01.cum`, the last 30 days kept). - A document open in another cumulus opens read-only (`[RO]` in the bar) until that one lets go of it. The lock is the operating system's lock on a file in the data folder, so a crash never leaves one behind. - Undo per document, while cumulus runs: one step per command, per text-editing session, and per node in rapid entry. - Each document reopens where you left it: the cursor, and the canvas's zoom and scroll. The documents picker (`b`) lists the documents opened lately after the open ones. **Screen** - Vim-style splits; panes on the same document share one cursor. - Open documents are buffers, listed in a bar at the top; the status bar is at the bottom. **Project** - A library plus a thin `main.rs`, so build stages can run as examples. - Rust pinned to 1.90.0; nothing needs nightly. ## Data model (`model/`: pure data, no UI, no files) ```rust // Ids and units: newtypes, so they can't be mixed up. NodeId(u32) // unique inside a document, never reused while it's open BufferId(u32) // an open document, like vim's buffer numbers (:ls, :b 3) PaneId(u32) // a split DocUid(u64) // stored in the file, survives renames CanvasPos { x: i32, y: i32 } // cells at Normal zoom, may be negative ScreenPos { col: u16, row: u16 } // a terminal cell Camera { origin: CanvasPos, zoom: Zoom } // converts between the two enum Zoom { Normal, Far, Overview } // Text, checked once when it comes in. Title // one line, never empty Body // any text Tag // lowercase, no spaces, stored without '#' Label // a connection label: one short line ColorName, StyleName // names looked up in the theme // A node and its place in the tree. struct Node { content: Content, tags: Tags, look: NodeLook, pos: CanvasPos, fold: Fold } enum Content { Idea(Idea), Portal(Portal) } enum Fold { Open, Auto, Closed } enum Place { Root, Loose, Child { parent: NodeId, branch: LineLook } } struct NodeLook { color: Option, border: Option, style: Option } enum Border { Rounded, Square, Double, Thick, Dashed, Hidden } // Cross-links. Branch lines use the same LineLook. struct Link { from: NodeId, to: NodeId, label: Option