@woosh/meep-engine 3.1.0 → 3.3.0

package/src/engine/physics/PLAN.md

@@ -1,1094 +1,1120 @@
-# Physics engine — state of play
-
-Tracker for what's built, what's pending, and what's deferred.
-
----
-
-## Context
-
-Deterministic JS rigid-body physics engine for the meep ECS. Target: game
-scenarios with up to millions of mostly-sleeping bodies, deterministic replays
-for netcode and reproducible debugging, broad shape coverage for common game
-collisions. Pure JS — no WASM, no SIMD, no worker threads.
-
-Architectural references for design choices:
-- **Jolt** — pre-allocated body pool, active-list iteration, two-tree
-  broadphase (static + dynamic).
-- **Bullet** — `btPersistentManifold` cache layout with up to 4 points.
-- **Box2D / Catto** — sequential impulse with warm-starting, Sutherland-Hodgman
-  face clipping for box-box.
-
----
-
-## Done
-
-### Foundations
-- `RigidBody`, `Collider`, `BodyKind`, `RigidBodyFlags`, `ColliderFlags`,
-  `SleepState`, `PhysicsEvents`.
-- `BodyStorage`: SoA pool, generation-tracked stable IDs, dense awake list,
-  min-heap free for deterministic ID reuse.
-- `PhysicsSystem`: full public API surface (gravity, force/impulse with and
-  without application point, torque, velocity setter, wake/sleep, contact
-  filter callback).
-- Binary serialization adapters for `RigidBody` and `Collider` (transient
-  runtime state deliberately excluded).
-- `PairUint32Map`: open-addressed Robin Hood + Fibonacci hash for the
-  pair → manifold-slot index (the one new collection added to `core/collection/`).
-
-### Pipeline (`PhysicsSystem.fixedUpdate`)
-1. Velocity integration (semi-implicit Euler, linear + angular, gravity,
-   damping, world-frame inverse-inertia for torque)
-2. Per-collider broadphase refit with fat AABB (Box2D-style velocity-padded
-   slack)
-3. Pair generation: per-leaf query against both BVHs (static + dynamic),
-   canonical `(min, max)` pairs, dedup via manifold touched flag
-4. Wake propagation for sleeping bodies in the pair list
-5. Narrowphase cross-product over collider lists
-6. Sequential-impulse solver (Catto-style, warm-start, friction, Baumgarte)
-7. Position integration (linear + quaternion)
-8. Sleep test (per-body velocity² below threshold for ≥ 0.5 s)
-9. Manifold diff → `ContactBegin` / `Stay` / `End` event dispatch
-10. `manifolds.advance_frame()` — roll touched bits, evict grace-expired slots
-
-### Shape coverage
-| Pair | Path | Manifold |
-|---|---|---|
-| sphere-sphere | closed-form | 1 point |
-| sphere-box | closed-form (handles centre-inside-box) | 1 point |
-| capsule-sphere | point-on-segment closed-form | 1 point |
-| capsule-capsule | segment-segment closest pair | 1 point |
-| capsule-box | iterative segment-vs-OBB (primary) + cap-centre sphere-vs-OBB at each endpoint | up to 3 |
-| box-box face-face | SAT + Sutherland-Hodgman clipping | up to 4 |
-| box-box edge-edge | SAT + segment-segment closest-pair | 1 point |
-| sphere / box / capsule × concave (heightmap, mesh) | closed-form `*_triangle_contact` per triangle via decomposition dispatcher | up to a few points per triangle (deepest wins) |
-| other convex × concave | per-triangle GJK + EPA via decomposition dispatcher | 1 point per triangle |
-| anything else | GJK + EPA, MPR fallback on EPA non-convergence | 1 point |
-
-### Non-convex shapes
-- **`is_convex` flag** on `AbstractShape3D.prototype` (default `true`).
-  Overridden to `false` on `HeightMapShape3D`, `MeshShape3D`, `UnionShape3D`.
-  `TransformedShape3D` inherits via getter that reads the wrapped subject.
-- **`HeightMapShape3D`** — orientation-vector + `Sampler2D`-backed terrain
-  shape. Heights sampled via `sampleChannelCatmullRomUV` (matching the
-  terrain system's geometry construction). Compute_bounding_box,
-  contains_point, signed_distance, nearest_point_on_surface all
-  implemented; `support` throws (non-convex by construction).
-- **`Triangle3D`** — buffer-flyweight convex shape. `bind(buffer, offset)`
-  repoints at 9 consecutive floats in an external Float64Array. Zero
-  allocation per emission; used by the decomposition path.
-- **Triangle decomposition machinery** under
-  `engine/physics/narrowphase/decomposition/`:
-    - `TRIANGLE_FLOAT_STRIDE = 10` per triangle (`vA.xyz`, `vB.xyz`,
-      `vC.xyz`, `feature_id`).
-    - `heightmap_enumerate_triangles(out, offset, shape, ...aabb)` —
-      Arvo-projects the convex's AABB into heightmap-local, intersects
-      with the footprint to derive a cell range, emits 2 triangles per
-      cell with stable feature_ids.
-    - `mesh_enumerate_triangles(out, offset, shape, ...aabb)` — linear
-      O(N) scan over `MeshShape3D.indices` with tight per-triangle AABB
-      filtering. feature_id = triangle index.
-    - `aabb3_transform_oriented_inverse(out, world_aabb, pos, rot)` (now in `core/geom/3d/aabb/`) — 8-corner
-      projection of a world AABB into a body's local frame.
-    - `decompose_to_triangles(...)` — dispatcher switching on shape
-      type marker.
-- **Narrowphase concave dispatch** in `narrowphase_step.js`: detects
-  `is_convex === false`, computes convex's world AABB, projects to
-  concave's local frame, decomposes, per-triangle GJK + EPA with
-  one-sided face-normal rejection and contact-normal dedup. Concave-vs-
-  concave dynamic pairs are explicitly refused.
-
-### Solver
-- Sequential impulse with warm-starting (10 velocity iterations by default).
-- Coulomb friction with disk-clamped tangent impulses.
-- Baumgarte position correction folded into the velocity solve.
-- Full angular Jacobian (`I_w⁻¹ = R · diag · R^T`) and angular impulse
-  application.
-- Public force/impulse-at-point API (`applyForceAt`, `applyImpulseAt`,
-  `applyTorque`).
-
-### Sleep + events
-- Per-island **atomic sleep**: an island sleeps when `max(|v|² + |ω|²)`
-  across all members stays below the threshold long enough; the whole
-  island sleeps in the same frame. Replaces the per-body chatter on
-  weakly-connected piles.
-- **Atomic wake**: members of a sleeping island are threaded into a
-  circular doubly-linked list (`sleep_group_next` / `sleep_group_prev`);
-  waking any one member walks the chain and wakes the rest in the same
-  call. A 100-block stack hit at the base wakes top-down in one frame
-  rather than over 100 frames of broadphase propagation.
-- `DisableSleep` on any island member exempts the whole island.
-- ContactBegin / Stay / End buffer + dispatch through the per-entity
-  `dataset.sendEvent(entity, PhysicsEvents.ContactBegin, ...)` channel — the
-  sole contact-event path, delivered to each entity of the pair when a
-  dataset is attached.
-
-### Islands
-- **Union-find** with path halving + union by min-index over the awake-body
-  + touched-contact graph (`core/collection/union-find/union_find.js`).
-- **`IslandBuilder`** produces deterministic CSR-style output: bodies and
-  manifold slots grouped by island, sorted ascending within and across
-  islands. Static / kinematic bodies are constraint anchors only — they
-  don't merge islands, so disjoint piles on the same floor are separate
-  islands.
-- **Islands feed the sleep test + grouping, not a per-island solver loop.**
-  The TGS contact solver flattens every island's contacts into one
-  Gauss-Seidel sweep (`solver/solve_contacts.js`) — islands share no bodies,
-  so a single flat sweep is identical to per-island sweeps. The partition is
-  still rebuilt every step and consumed by the atomic-island sleep test and the
-  joint/contact island grouping; it is also the natural unit for a future
-  worker-based parallel solve (see Performance / Scale). (Earlier revisions ran
-  the solver per island; the TGS rewrite flattened it — same result, simpler
-  loop.)
-
-### Compound bodies
-- A body has 0..N attached colliders. Each collider has its own world
-  transform and its own BVH leaf.
-- Same-entity colliders, child-entity colliders (via `ParentEntity`), or
-  hybrids all supported.
-- `ColliderObserverSystem` auto-attaches colliders via the dataset when
-  paired with `PhysicsSystem` in an EntityManager.
-- Narrowphase runs the cross-product over both bodies' collider lists per
-  body-pair, accumulates candidates, reduces to ≤4 contacts by
-  depth + spread.
-
-### Public queries
-- `raycast(origin, dir, max_dist, filter?)` — nearest hit across both trees,
-  **refined to the true shape surface** (narrowphase). `result.t` /
-  `result.normal` are exact for sphere / box / capsule / mesh / heightmap
-  colliders (per-leaf analytic ray tests + triangle Möller–Trumbore for
-  concave); composite convex shapes fall back to the broadphase AABB hit. A ray
-  crossing a fat leaf AABB but missing the true shape is correctly a miss.
-- `shapeCast(ray, shape, rotation, result, filter?)` — broadphase swept
-  AABB against both BVHs; per-candidate AABB-slab interval narrowing,
-  coarse step over the narrowed window, GJK bisection to time-of-impact.
-  Output normal is the true contact-surface normal at the kiss point,
-  recovered by re-running GJK + EPA at `best_t` on the winning candidate.
-  Falls back to `-ray.direction` only on EPA degeneracies (NaN / zero
-  depth). Tests cover axis-aligned, off-axis, and oblique cube-vs-cube;
-  sphere-vs-smooth-shape near-tangent has documented angular tolerance
-  bands inherited from EPA on smooth supports.
-- `overlap(shape, position, rotation, output, output_offset, filter?)`
-  — broadphase + per-candidate GJK overlap detection. Writes body_ids
-  into a caller-sized buffer; returns count. Convex query shapes only
-  (concave throws). Concave candidates routed through the per-triangle
-  decomposition path. Designed for speculative kinematic queries on
-  kinematic bodies (character controllers, AOE selection).
-
-### Standalone narrowphase utilities
-- `deepest_pair_penetration(out_normal, shapeA, posA, rotA, shapeB, posB,
-  rotB)` (exported from `narrowphase_step.js`) — runs the **same**
-  `dispatch_pair` the contact solver consumes for one posed shape pair and
-  returns the DEEPEST contact's depth + world normal (B → A). The single
-  source of truth for "minimum-translation between two posed shapes", reused by
-  `compute_penetration` (and available to any other query).
-- `compute_penetration(out_direction, shape_a, pos_a, rot_a, shape_b,
-  pos_b, rot_b)` — non-system geometry primitive: positive penetration
-  depth + outward direction (B → A convention) on overlap, 0 otherwise.
-  **Hardened** — delegates to `deepest_pair_penetration`, so it is correct
-  (not "correct sometimes") for every shape pair the engine can build:
-    - sphere / box / capsule pairs → exact closed-form (box-box via SAT, so a
-      small body resting on a large floor reports the few-cm near-face overlap,
-      NOT the metres-deep "exit through the far side" that MPR's centroid-seeded
-      portal used to return);
-    - general convex pairs → GJK + EPA (exact for polytopes; curved shapes never
-      reach it — they have closed forms);
-    - convex × concave → triangle decomposition + the closed-form per-triangle
-      solvers, bounded to each triangle's true 2-D extent (the old closed-mesh
-      side-face over-report is gone).
-  The previous per-triangle half-space test is retained ONLY as a recovery
-  fallback for the one case the one-sided closed forms can't resolve: a convex
-  shape that has fully tunnelled to the *inner* side of a concave surface (a
-  depenetration query must still push it back out — exact for heightmap terrain,
-  a valid outward push for closed meshes). Concave × concave throws (M×N
-  triangle pairs out of scope). The spec asserts an "applying out_direction ×
-  depth separates the shapes" invariant across every convex+convex pair type and
-  convex+concave, plus exact per-type depths and the small-box-on-huge-floor
-  regression (3 m → 0.05 m).
-
-### Determinism — the reconstruction contract (H-series, landed)
-Engine outcomes are a pure function of **body components (keyed by entity
-id) + the exportable solver-cache blob** — never of allocation history
-(body slots, manifold slots, joint ids, awake-list order, BVH shape,
-broadphase pad history). A world rebuilt from a snapshot — onto a fresh
-engine, or by remove-all/re-add on a live one — continues **bit-identically**
-to the engine that kept running. Verified by `determinism.spec.js`
-(T1 lockstep repeatability; T2 reconstruction equivalence incl. generation
-churn and pad-history wake timing).
-
-- Entity-canonical pair A/B roles assigned in the broadphase
-  (`generate_pairs`) — roles feed witness sides, normal orientation and the
-  tangent basis, so they must derive from the cross-engine identity.
-- Outcome-coupled iteration orders are entity-keyed: island contacts
-  (IslandBuilder), joints (`__joints_sorted`), contact events
-  (`ContactEventBuffer.sort_canonical` + dispatch normal mirror), CCD pass.
-- `sleepState` + `sleep_timer` are persistent body state (adapter v1 +
-  0→1 upgrader); `link()` honours them, so restored sleepers stay asleep.
-- Stage-0 wake reads persistent manifolds (`prev_touched`), never the
-  transient pair list; the precautionary pre-contact wake is an
-  edge-triggered swept-tight-AABB proximity predicate (`FLAG_PROX`),
-  a pure function of body state.
-- `persistence/solver_caches.js`: entity-keyed export/import of manifolds
-  (warm-start impulses + lifecycle bits), joint `dofImpulse`, sleep-group
-  chains. Identical worlds serialize to identical bytes.
-- Foundations that predate the H-series: min-heap free lists for
-  deterministic slot reuse, no `Math.random` in the step, direct
-  typed-array writes on hot paths (Transform writes still go through
-  `set()` — external systems subscribe).
-- Same-runtime bit-exact; cross-runtime is a known future seam (see
-  Backlog → Reconstruction & determinism).
-
-### Migration
-- `Motion` / `MotionSystem` / `MotionSerializationAdapter` relocated from
-  the meep core (`engine/ecs/`) to the game-domain layer
-  (`mir-engine/model/game/ecs/`). meep no longer ships the legacy shim.
-
-### Alternative narrowphase: MPR
-- `core/geom/3d/gjk/mpr.js` — Minkowski Portal Refinement (XenoCollide,
-  Snethen GDC 2009). Single-pass overlap test + MTV computation,
-  output convention matches EPA so it's drop-in compatible at any
-  narrowphase call site. Tends to converge in 5–15 iterations on
-  smooth shapes where EPA stalls (the polytope-on-curved-surface
-  failure mode the torus-knot reproducer exercised). **Wired as the EPA
-  non-convergence fallback** in `narrowphase_step` at both the body-level
-  and per-triangle GJK+EPA paths: when EPA returns a non-positive / non-finite
-  depth, MPR is tried before giving up. `shape_cast` and `compute_penetration`
-  use it for the same reason.
-
-### Bonus utilities
-- `core/geom/3d/line/line3_closest_points_segment_segment.js` — generally
-  useful 3D segment-segment closest-pair via Ericson §5.1.9.
-- `core/collection/PairUint32Map.js` — non-allocating
-  `Map<(u32, u32) → u32>` with Robin Hood + Fibonacci hash.
-
----
-
-## Limitations / Known caveats
-
-- **Multi-collider material precision** — *resolved for contact materials.* The
-  narrowphase now combines the specific source-collider pair's friction /
-  restitution per contact and stores them in the manifold (CONTACT_STRIDE
-  offsets 14/15); the solver reads them per contact, so mixed-material compound
-  bodies are accurate (regression test: an asymmetric-friction body yaws when
-  shoved). Still primary-collider only: the contact-filter callback's
-  `colliderA/B` arguments and the body-level sensor / concave-dispatch flags —
-  a smaller follow-up.
-- **EPA on smooth shapes**: degenerates (no flat face to converge on).
-  Mitigated by closed-form paths for sphere/cube/capsule pairs and by the
-  **MPR fallback** on EPA non-convergence; exotic convex shapes vs spheres can
-  still occasionally fail if both EPA and MPR degenerate.
-- **EPA on `Triangle3D`** — *resolved.* The concave dispatch now uses the
-  closed-form `sphere_triangle_contact` / `box_triangle_contact` /
-  `capsule_triangle_contact` solvers (P1.1a–c) instead of per-triangle GJK+EPA
-  for those primitives, so a sphere/box/capsule on a heightmap or mesh decelerates
-  and settles correctly; the `narrowphase_concave.spec.js` "drop and settle"
-  cases and the mesh torus-knot settle test are **un-skipped**. Per-triangle
-  GJK+EPA remains only as the fallback for *other* convex shapes vs triangles.
-  (`compute_penetration` now routes through that same dispatch via
-  `deepest_pair_penetration` — see *Standalone narrowphase utilities* — instead
-  of its old half-space pre-test; the half-space test survives only as a
-  tunnel-recovery fallback.)
-- **Box-box edge-edge contact**: a single point at the true closest-pair of the
-  two edges (P3.2), not the old body-centre midpoint. This is geometrically
-  correct — and an empirical SAT-source sweep confirms the edge-cross branch
-  *only* fires for **transverse** edge crossings (inter-edge angle ≈ 83-90°),
-  where two skew lines meet at a unique point. Near-parallel edge contacts
-  cannot reach this branch (a near-parallel `edgeA × edgeB` never wins the SAT
-  minimum) — they resolve through the multi-point face-clipping path. So the
-  once-planned "multi-point edge contact for near-parallel edges" refinement is
-  **moot**; see the resolved Stability backlog entry.
-- **CCD floor only**: speculative margin via the fattened AABB prevents
-  most tunnelling. No per-body swept shape-cast for very fast objects.
-- **Cross-runtime determinism is not guaranteed**: `Math.sin/cos/exp/log`
-  are ULP-correct but not bit-exact across V8 / SpiderMonkey / JSC.
-- **Dynamic concave bodies under TGS** — *resolved by per-substep re-detection
-  (below); kept here for the rationale.* The substep loop normally re-derives
-  contact geometry analytically from the per-triangle contact feature (witness
-  anchors + normal) captured once by narrowphase and held fixed for the whole
-  outer step. For a convex body the contact feature is stable under the small
-  per-step motion, so this is exact; for a *dynamic concave mesh body* (e.g. a
-  torus knot rocking on its own lobes) the supporting triangle itself changes
-  as the body rocks, so freezing the feature would pump a little energy in and
-  the body would rock / slowly sink instead of settling. Note this is NOT a
-  contact-precision issue —
-  the knot already uses the exact closed-form box-triangle solver (P1.1b);
-  the problem is purely that TGS freezes *which* feature is in contact across
-  substeps. The common concave case — a convex dynamic body on static concave
-  terrain — is unaffected (the convex side's feature is stable), and that is
-  the only concave case the engine targets.
-
-  **Interim fix (implemented): per-substep concave re-detection.** For
-  contact pairs involving a concave body, the substep loop re-runs the
-  concave narrowphase geometry at the current substep pose (instead of the
-  analytic refresh that freezes the feature) and re-prepares those contacts
-  from the fresh witness/normal/depth — so the contact normal tracks the
-  rocking body and no energy is pumped in. Convex pairs keep the cheap
-  analytic refresh. This is ~Nx narrowphase cost on concave-involved pairs
-  (acceptable — they're rare), gated by collider convexity. Un-skips the
-  torus-knot dynamic-settle test.
-
-  **Better long-term fix: convex collision proxies (not raw concave).** Every
-  major engine (Box2D, Jolt, PhysX, Rapier) requires dynamic bodies to be
-  convex or convex-decomposed; raw concave meshes are static-only. The right
-  granularity is a *few* convex pieces — NOT the thousands of tets a
-  volumetric mesher produces (tet count ≈ collider/BVH-leaf count, which
-  explodes the broadphase for an awake body; tet meshing is for a future
-  FEM/soft-body subsystem, not rigid collision). See the "Convex collision
-  proxies for dynamic concave bodies" backlog item — a 3D convex hull builder
-  (single-hull proxy covers most dynamic objects) plus an optional
-  few-hull (V-HACD-style) decomposition. Those supersede the interim
-  per-substep re-detection once built.
-
----
-
-## Backlog (planned, in scope)
-
-### Reconstruction & determinism (engine side done; consumers pending)
-
-The engine-side determinism contract is landed (see Done → Determinism).
-These are the follow-ups that build on it:
-
-- [ ] **Network late-join wiring (end-to-end).** The engine API exists
-      (`write_solver_caches` / `read_solver_caches`, sleep-persistent
-      components, the entity-id contract) but nothing consumes it yet.
-      Build an end-to-end test through the network package's adapters:
-      serialize a live world on the "server", reconstruct on a "client"
-      (same entity ids, same link order), verify bit-identical continuation
-      over N ticks. This validates the entity-replay assumptions
-      (replicated entity ids, joint link order, system config transfer)
-      before real netcode depends on them, and decides where the blob rides
-      (snapshot message vs. component stream). System config (gravity,
-      thresholds, iteration counts, `ccdEnabled`) is part of the snapshot
-      contract — see `copy_system_config` in `determinism.spec.js` for the
-      field list.
-- [ ] **Position correction under stacked load.** Settled penetration is
-      pose-chaotic with a heavy tail reaching the limb radius (~0.3 m for
-      the ragdoll's capsules) when a body settles wedged under the
-      assembly's weight — measured across seeds and under either contact-
-      role assignment (see the 4-seed table in
-      `PhysicsSystem.ragdoll.spec.js`). Pre-existing, not a regression.
-      Investigation levers: position iterations (currently 1/substep),
-      `MAX_POSITION_BIAS` clamp, depth-proportional stiffening for deep
-      static contacts. Success metric: the cross-seed tail of
-      `lastSecondMaxPenStatic`, not any single golden seed.
-- [ ] **Sleep groups derived from manifolds (redesign).** Wake-the-island
-      currently rides on `sleep_group_next/prev` circular chains threaded at
-      atomic-sleep time — world-instance body indices that need their own
-      section in the solver-cache blob. Deriving the wake set at wake time
-      (flood over dormant contacting manifolds + joints among sleepers)
-      would delete the fields, the blob section, and the group-restore step
-      outright. Needs a per-body → manifold adjacency (or an accepted
-      O(live-slots) scan per wake call) and a perf check on wake-heavy
-      frames. Behavioural delta to design for: force-slept touching bodies
-      currently wake independently (separate singleton groups); a
-      manifold-derived flood would wake them together.
-- [x] **KILLED — pose-keyed narrowphase memo (measured 2026-06-11).** The
-      idea: skip a pair's narrowphase when both collider poses are bit-equal
-      to its last run (a pure cache; outcome-neutral by construction, proven
-      with a memo-on/off lockstep test). Implemented per-ManifoldStore (a
-      process-global cache is unsound — two engines hosting the same pair
-      ids at equal poses false-hit each other's slot content), then measured:
-      **0.0% hit rate** in every phase of a settling column, including the
-      final pre-sleep second. The premise is empirically false: warm-start
-      cancellation holds *velocity* near zero, never exactly zero, so awake
-      poses drift sub-nanometre every tick and never bit-freeze; sleeping
-      pairs never reach narrowphase at all. Reverted as pure overhead.
-      Dependent idea for the soft-solver work: a deterministic
-      micro-velocity snap-to-zero at the end of the solve would both freeze
-      resting poses bit-exact (making this memo viable) AND push
-      forever-jiggling islands (deep-column N=20, KEVA) below the sleep
-      threshold — likely the cheaper end of the same win.
-- [x] **KILLED — solver hot/cold row split (ceiling-measured 2026-06-11).**
-      The idea: split the 23-float prepared-contact records by the velocity
-      iteration's access pattern (15 hot lanes) for cache density. Measured
-      the ceiling first instead of implementing: PADDING the stride 23→31
-      (+35% row traffic) moved KEVA-mini by only ~2% — so packing −35% can
-      gain at most the same ~2%, far under the ≥10% gate. The velocity
-      solve at this scale is dominated by the slot-scattered manifold reads
-      (normal + impulses), the body-span gather/scatter and raw FLOPs, not
-      by prepared-row density. Not implemented.
-- [x] **KILLED — 4×4 manifold block solve (probe-measured 2026-06-11).**
-      Pre-integration probe on the deep columns, sweeping iteration budgets:
-      depth stability IS iteration-starved (N=30 explodes at velIters 4,
-      holds intact at 8 — the divergence is convergence failure), but the
-      never-sleeping residual is NOT — at velIters 16 the N=20 column idles
-      at residual 0.83, closer to rest than any other config, and still
-      never crosses the sleep threshold; sleep behaviour is non-monotonic
-      across budgets. That residual is a hard-constraint limit cycle
-      hovering at the threshold — a scheme property no amount of
-      Gauss-Seidel (sequential or block) removes. A block solve would only
-      buy the depth-stability half, which the soft-step scheme change
-      covers anyway (Box2D v3 dropped block solving when it adopted soft
-      step). Revisit only if post-soft-step iteration budgets remain
-      depth-limited.
-- [x] **LANDED — Box2D-v3 soft contact step (2026-06-11).** Contact normal
-      rows are soft constraints: `b2MakeSoft(hertz, ζ, h)` scales (mass scale
-      damps the velocity gain, the impulse-decay term bleeds the accumulator
-      — the critically-over-damped spring that killed the hard scheme's
-      resting limit cycle), a penetration-bias push for penetrating contacts
-      (clamped like the old position bias), and a per-substep RELAX pass
-      after position integration that strips bias-injected momentum. The
-      split-impulse position pass is skipped for contacts when soft; knobs:
-      `contactHertz = 30` (0 = bit-exact legacy hard rows), `ζ = 10`,
-      non-dynamic pairs at 2× hertz, hertz clamped to an eighth of the
-      substep rate — all pinned from Box2D v3 source.
-      A bias-free hybrid (decay without the bias push) was measured FIRST
-      and is UNSOUND: the decay bleeds the load-carrying impulse with no
-      restoring force, columns sank 3 m. Full v3 it is.
-      Measured: deep columns 15/20/30 all sleep (55/57/85 ticks; 20 never
-      slept and 30 DIVERGED under hard); KEVA-mini all-ticks median
-      90.8 → 14.8 ms (sleep arrives much sooner; awake ticks +23% from the
-      relax sweep); 24-seed ragdoll sweep: settle-accel medians ~halved,
-      impacts unchanged, settled-pen median 0.049 vs ~0.058 hard.
-      Velocity-iteration cut REJECTED by measurement: KEVA-mini's
-      convergence cliff sits between velIters 3 and 4 (2 → never sleeps,
-      3 → sleeps far later); 4×4 stays.
-      Known trades (re-pinned goldens, all documented in-test): settled
-      penetration under load is the soft equilibrium droop (~0.8 mm per
-      carried cube-weight); aligned-stack lateral creep grew ~5× (softer
-      settle-phase normal impulses lower the friction caps — tuning
-      candidate: stiffer staticSoftness or friction in the relax pass);
-      ragdoll fields idle ~2× livelier (0.74 → 1.66 residual /704 bodies —
-      tuning candidate: align joint hertz/ζ policy with contacts). The
-      ragdoll canonical seed moved to 0xBEEF42 (0xDEADB0D's drape pose
-      under soft ends in an accelerating dome roll — a growing-tail
-      outlier; the sweep keeps covering it).
-- [ ] **Cross-process repeatability of symmetry-degenerate scenes.** The
-      perfectly-aligned 10-cube tower's resting drift came out 42/57/73 mm
-      across equivalent builds during the soft-step work — each value
-      process-stable and ×3 reproducible, shifting across rebuilds whose
-      source diffs were assertion-text only. In-process determinism is
-      green (T1 lockstep, 8-trial reproducibility bench), so the seam is
-      environmental (suspect: jest transform/module environment shaping
-      sub-ulp float paths in symmetry-degenerate tie-breaks). Investigate
-      whether genuinely identical code can produce different cross-process
-      results (would matter for lockstep across restarts) or whether the
-      rebuild artefacts differed; degenerate-scene goldens use CLASS bounds
-      in the meantime.
-- [ ] **Cross-runtime float determinism audit.** Same-runtime bit-exactness
-      is done; running lockstep across *different* JS engines (or versions)
-      additionally requires auditing transcendentals — `Math.sin/cos/exp/
-      pow` are not spec-pinned (sqrt and arithmetic are IEEE-exact). Only
-      worth doing if cross-engine lockstep becomes a real deployment target;
-      same-engine replication does not need it.
-
-### Solver quality (next major work)
-
-These items move the engine from "competent" to "great". TGS is the next
-significant solver-architecture change; joints come after, once the TGS
-scaffolding is in place.
-
-- **TGS (Temporal Gauss-Seidel) substepping with split-impulse** — Phases
-      1–3 **LANDED**. The solver is now a staged TGS pipeline
-      (`solver/solve_contacts.js`: `prepare_contacts` → per substep
-      [`refresh_contacts` → `warm_start_contacts` → `solve_velocity` →
-      `solve_position`] → `apply_restitution`), driven by the substep loop in
-      `PhysicsSystem.fixedUpdate`. Defaults: `substeps = 4`,
-      `velocityIterations = 4`, `positionIterations = 1` (all fields on
-      `PhysicsSystem`).
-        - **Phase 1 — split impulse.** Position correction runs on a per-body
-          pseudo-velocity (`__pseudo_velocity`) folded into the pose by
-          `integrate_position` and discarded; depth correction never
-          contaminates persistent velocity.
-        - **Phase 2 — one-shot restitution.** Velocity pass is pure
-          non-penetration; restitution is a single post-loop pass driving
-          `vn → -e·vn_approach`, gated on a running max normal impulse
-          (`maxNormalImpulse`) so transient collisions still bounce under
-          per-substep warm-start.
-        - **Phase 3 — substep loop.** `substeps` sub-iterations at `h = dt/N`.
-          Forces consumed once at full `dt` before the loop; gravity applied
-          per substep; **warm-start replayed per substep** (the crux — a
-          per-substep impulse balances one substep of gravity, so resting
-          stacks hold at zero velocity). Contact geometry is re-derived
-          **analytically** each substep from frozen local witness anchors +
-          the trusted prepare-time depth (a sign-robust delta), so narrowphase
-          runs **once** per outer step — cheaper than the originally-planned
-          per-substep match-and-merge refresh, and exact for convex
-          primitives whose contact feature is stable under small motion.
-
-      Results vs the single-step solver: a 100:1 mass ratio now stacks
-      instead of crushing through (regression test added); 8-cube stacks
-      settle to zero velocity and sleep (were impossible long-term under SI);
-      falling-tower bench cost unchanged (~48 ms/1000 active bodies);
-      `substeps = 1` reproduces the single-step result bit-for-bit-ish
-      (one-frame restitution delay aside).
-
-      **Hard-won lessons (for REVIEW_002):**
-        - Warm-start MUST be per-substep, not once. Replaying a full-frame
-          impulse once while gravity arrives per substep over-pushes resting
-          contacts and *explodes* deep stacks. Per-substep warm-start +
-          per-substep gravity cancel exactly at rest.
-        - Restitution must gate on the *running max* normal impulse, not the
-          end-of-loop value — per-substep warm-start relaxes a transient
-          contact's `j_n` back to ~0 by the end, which would suppress the
-          bounce.
-        - Analytic separation re-derivation beats per-substep narrowphase
-          for convex shapes (cheaper, no manifold-lifecycle churn) but is
-          only as good as the frozen normal — see the concave caveat below.
-
-      Follow-ups since the core landed:
-        - [x] **Box-box SAT reference tie-break deadband** — aligned cube
-          stacks (4–10 high) now settle to zero velocity and sleep; the
-          reference-face flip-flop that creeped/toppled them is gone.
-        - [x] **Per-substep contact re-detection for concave pairs** — lifts
-          the dynamic-concave-body limitation; the torus-knot dynamic-settle
-          test is un-skipped. Concave pairs re-run narrowphase geometry each
-          substep (`redetect_concave_contacts`); convex pairs keep the cheap
-          analytic refresh.
-
-      Remaining (Phases 4–6) — now complete:
-        - [x] Regression coverage: heavy-on-light pyramid (10× capstone on two
-          light cubes settles + sleeps) and a ragdoll-stub (shoulder
-          ball-socket + elbow hinge arm hangs, stays articulated, settles).
-        - [x] REVIEW_002 retrospective — `engine/physics/REVIEW_002.md`.
-
-      References: Catto 2018 ("Soft Constraints" GDC talk + the TGS
-      follow-up); Box2D v3 source (`b2ApplyRestitution`, the substep solver
-      stages); Rapier as the closest architectural sibling.
-
-- [x] **Constraints / joints — DONE (phases 1–7 below).** One configurable
-      6-DOF joint (lock/free/limit/motor/spring + swing-twist cone-twist) plus
-      the raycast vehicle. Covers chains/ropes, ragdolls, vehicles (incl.
-      suspension), and the mechanical set (doors, pistons, welds, sliders,
-      powered hinges/wheels). The design rationale below is kept as history; the
-      phasing checklist records what landed. Solver/joint retrospective in
-      `REVIEW_003.md`.
-
-      Original framing (now satisfied): TGS unblocked it (joint-chain
-      convergence is a TGS sweet spot), warm-start + per-substep + island
-      machinery was reusable, and the SPOOK compliance dial gave spring
-      constraints essentially for free.
-
-      **Foundational work (do first): generalise the solver to constraint
-      rows.** Today `solver/solve_contacts.js` is hard-coded to the
-      contact-shape constraint (normal + 2 friction tangents, ≥0 clamp,
-      restitution, penetration bias). Joints are equality / inequality
-      constraints on relative velocity at anchors, generally bilateral
-      (impulse may be ±) with optional limits and motors. The clean shape —
-      and what Jolt / Box2D-v3 do — is a **generic constraint row**: a
-      Jacobian (linear + angular parts per body), an effective mass, a bias
-      (position error × SPOOK gain, or motor target), and impulse bounds
-      `[lo, hi]` (`[0,∞)` for a contact/limit, `(−∞,∞)` for an equality,
-      `[−maxForce·h, +maxForce·h]` for a motor). Each joint type just fills
-      in its rows; the existing per-body impulse-apply primitive
-      (`apply_impulse_to_body` + `world_inverse_inertia_apply`), the
-      per-substep warm-start, the islands, and the split-impulse / SPOOK
-      position handling are all reused. Contacts become *one* constraint
-      type among several rather than the hard-coded path.
-
-      The specific constraint set, its use-case mapping, and per-type
-      architecture-fit assessment are under review (see the constraints
-      sketch). High level: ball-socket / distance / spring / weld and the
-      grab constraint are near drop-ins on the row machinery; hinge /
-      prismatic / cone-twist / motors / limits add angular-row + bounded-row
-      mechanics (still within the impulse framework); raycast vehicles,
-      conveyor surface-velocity, and gear/pulley coupling are higher-level
-      systems or contact modifiers that sit *on top of* the primitives
-      rather than being generic rows.
-
-      **Decision: build ONE configurable 6-DOF constraint** (PhysX D6 / Jolt
-      SixDOF), implemented mode-by-mode. The `Joint` ECS component carries
-      `dofMode[6]` (3 linear, 3 angular) each `{locked|free|limited|spring|
-      motor}` + per-DOF limit/spring/motor config + warm-start accumulators.
-      Concrete joints are configs, not new code (ball-socket = lock 3 linear;
-      hinge = lock 3 linear + 2 angular; weld = lock 6; cone-twist = lock 3
-      linear + limit 3 angular; suspension = spring 1 linear + lock rest).
-
-      Phasing:
-        1. [x] Constraint-row solver as a **parallel row set** in the TGS
-           substep loop (contacts left untouched, not ported — lower risk).
-           `constraint/solve_constraints.js` reuses `world_inverse_inertia`,
-           per-substep warm-start, and the SPOOK position bias; `Joint`
-           component + `link_joint`/`unlink_joint` in PhysicsSystem;
-           `jointIterations` knob. Bodies need no collider.
-        2. [x] **LOCKED linear DOFs → ball-socket.** Pendulum (anchor pinned
-           to a world pivot, body swings) and a 2-link chain (body↔body,
-           joints stay connected, chain hangs) pass. → **chains, ropes,
-           pendulums working.**
-        3. [x] LOCKED angular + linear DOFs in the frame basis — **weld,
-           hinge, prismatic done**. Joint frame bases
-           (`localBasisA`/`localBasisB`); BOTH linear and angular rows now
-           resolve in frame A's axes (cleared the world-axis linear debt — the
-           solver is fully frame-relative). Angular: relative rotation
-           `qD = conj(qA)·qB` → small-angle error, ωB−ωA rows + SPOOK bias.
-           Linear: `C·axis` error, vA−vB rows. `asWeld()` / `asHinge(axis)` /
-           `asPrismatic(axis)` presets. Verified: weld holds pose + orientation
-           against an off-centre torque; hinge swings about its free axis only
-           (locked axes < 0.02); prismatic slides along its one free axis,
-           locked on the others; all LOCKED-mode tests still green after the
-           frame-basis rewrite.
-        4. [x] LIMITED + MOTOR (bounded rows) → doors, pistons, wheel
-           spin/drive, joint ROM. **LIMITED done** (linear + angular):
-           `setLinearLimit(axis,lo,hi)` / `setAngularLimit(axis,lo,hi)` set a
-           per-DOF travel/ROM range. The whole row set is now **one mode-
-           agnostic solve** parameterised by `(bias, clamp range)`: LOCKED is
-           the bilateral case (Baumgarte bias, unclamped); LIMITED is a
-           **speculative (β=1) one-sided velocity constraint** that removes
-           exactly the approach velocity so the DOF *lands on* its stop (no
-           penetration, no rebound — an inelastic end-stop) and self-gates when
-           far from the bound; only the push-out side of the bias is clamped so
-           a teleport is eased out, not yanked. Verified: a vertical slider
-           falls freely then stops dead on its lower stop (lands at the bound,
-           no overshoot/rebound, locked axes held); a spun hinge stops dead on
-           each ±end-stop with no rebound and holds. Angular position is the
-           small-angle measure (`2·sin(θ/2)`) — accurate for modest ROM, see
-           phase 6 for wide cones. **MOTOR next** (target-velocity row, impulse
-           clamped to `±maxForce·h`).
-        5. [x] SPRING (SPOOK soft) → suspension, bungees, soft ragdolls.
-           `setLinearSpring(axis,k,c)` / `setAngularSpring(axis,k,c)`. A
-           compliant (regularised) row in the same unified solve: per substep
-           `denom = c + h·k`, compliance `γ = 1/(h·denom)`, restoring bias
-           `(k/denom)·C`, softened mass `1/(K+γ)`; the iteration carries one
-           extra `+ γ·λ_accum` term (γ = 0 ⇒ the LOCKED/LIMITED/MOTOR rows are
-           bit-for-bit unchanged). Verified: a vertical strut settles at exactly
-           the m·g/k deflection and a stiffer spring sags less and stays stable;
-           an undamped spring oscillates about equilibrium (stores energy) while
-           a damped one comes to rest; a torsional spring holds a gravity-loaded
-           hinge at its balance angle. Suspension element ready (the simulated-
-           wheel option for phase 7); also the soft basis for cone-twist.
-        6. [x] Cone-twist / swing-twist angular limits → ragdolls. Opt-in
-           `Joint.swingTwist` (or the `asConeTwist(twistLo,twistHi,swingY[,swingZ])`
-           preset) switches the angular position measure from the per-axis
-           small-angle vector to a swing-twist decomposition: angular X = twist
-           about the bone, Y/Z = swing off it, each an **exact** angle. The
-           existing LIMITED/SPRING/LOCKED rows are reused unchanged on those
-           positions, so a twist/swing limit holds at the true angle at wide
-           ROM (a 1.2 rad swing stops at 1.2, where the small-angle proxy
-           drifts to ~1.287). Verified: exact swing/twist stops, free-within-
-           cone, twist/swing independence; default (small-angle) path untouched.
-           **Decision — inlined, not the Quaternion method.** Benchmarked the
-           allocation-free inlined `swing_twist_error` against
-           `Quaternion.computeSwingAndTwist` (`swing_twist.bench.spec.js`): the
-           inline is **~5x** faster than the method with reused out-params and
-           **~10x** vs the naive fresh-allocation form (object property access +
-           normalize + a quaternion multiply + GC). In the per-substep
-           per-joint hot loop that margin is worth the duplicated math, so the
-           solver inlines it (the Quaternion method stays for general callers).
-        7. [x] Vehicle layer — **raycast-vehicle controller**
-           (`vehicle/RaycastVehicle.js`): single chassis body + raycast wheels.
-           Per frame (before `fixedUpdate`) each wheel casts its suspension ray,
-           applies a spring+damper suspension force along the contact normal
-           (`applyForceAt`), and a tyre-friction impulse (`applyImpulseAt`) —
-           lateral grip that cancels side-slip plus longitudinal drive/brake,
-           clamped together to a friction circle μ·N. `addWheel`, `setSteering`,
-           `setDriveForce`, `setBrake`; per-wheel runtime (contact, compression,
-           normal, spin) for rendering. A controller on top of the public
-           `raycast` + force API, not a new constraint; the 6-DOF spring+motor
-           is the simulated-wheel alternative. Verified: hovers on its springs
-           (4 contacts, settled), drives/coasts/brakes along its axis, tyre grip
-           arrests a sideways shove, steering turns it upright, and it free-falls
-           cleanly when airborne. Note: suspension is one dt-force per frame (not
-           per-substep), so a resting chassis carries a ~g·h velocity-sample
-           artifact (it hovers stably; position is steady to sub-cm). Ray
-           accuracy follows `PhysicsSystem.raycast` — now narrowphase-exact for
-           sphere / box / capsule / mesh / heightmap ground.
-        8. [ ] Extras: pulley, gear, conveyor (contact surface-velocity),
-           breakable-joint flag.
-
-      Foundation gaps — both now closed:
-        - [x] **Island integration.** Jointed dynamic-dynamic bodies are
-          unioned into one island (`IslandBuilder` Pass 1b), so a chain /
-          ragdoll sleeps and wakes as a unit; `__wake_joints` propagates wake
-          across a joint when one side is awake and the other asleep
-          (e.g. a kinematic/motor driver pulling a sleeping chain). Verified:
-          a damped chain settles and both links sleep in one sleep group.
-        - [x] **Generation-checked body references.** `solve_joints`,
-          `IslandBuilder` Pass 1b and `__wake_joints` all gate on
-          `storage.is_valid(packedId)`, so a joint to an unlinked / slot-reused
-          body goes inert instead of attaching to the wrong body or crashing.
-          Verified: unlinking a jointed body leaves the joint inert and the
-          survivor free.
-
-      References: Catto / Box2D-v3 joint solvers; Jolt's `Constraint` base
-      (`SetupVelocityConstraint` / `WarmStartVelocityConstraint` /
-      `SolveVelocityConstraint` / `SolvePositionConstraint`); PhysX D6 /
-      ODE joint taxonomy.
-
-### Stability
-- [x] **Closed-form triangle-vs-primitive solvers** — `sphere_triangle_contact`
-      / `box_triangle_contact` / `capsule_triangle_contact` (P1.1a–c), wired into
-      the concave decomposition dispatch in place of per-triangle GJK+EPA for
-      those primitives. Un-skipped the `narrowphase_concave.spec.js` ball-on-
-      heightmap / mesh-cube settle tests and the `PhysicsSystem.spec.js`
-      torus-knot test. Per-triangle GJK+EPA remains only as the fallback for
-      *other* convex shapes vs triangles. `compute_penetration` now routes
-      through the shared narrowphase dispatch (`deepest_pair_penetration`), so it
-      uses the closed-form per-triangle solvers too — the old closed-mesh
-      over-report is gone; the half-space test is retained only as a
-      tunnel-recovery fallback.
-- [x] **Edge-edge multi-point manifold** — *resolved by design (no code
-      change needed).* An empirical SAT-source sweep over a wide range of
-      box-box orientations shows the single-point edge-cross branch only ever
-      wins for **transverse** edge crossings (inter-edge angle ≈ 83-90°), where
-      a single closest-pair point is geometrically exact. A near-parallel edge
-      pair gives a near-degenerate `edgeA × edgeB` that never becomes the SAT
-      minimum, so near-parallel ("line") edge contacts resolve through the
-      multi-point **face-clipping** path instead — confirmed by regression
-      tests in `box_box_manifold.spec.js` (near-parallel tilted boxes → ≥ 2
-      points; transverse crossing → exactly 1 exact point). The originally
-      planned refinement targeted a case the geometry can't produce, so it is
-      closed rather than implemented.
-- [x] **Per-contact source-collider tracking (materials)** — multi-material
-      compound bodies now get accurate per-contact friction / restitution. The
-      narrowphase combines the specific (colliderA, colliderB) pair's
-      coefficients at dispatch time (the only place that knows the source
-      collider on each side — `contact/combine_material.js`) and stamps them
-      into the manifold (CONTACT_STRIDE grown 14 → 16, offsets 14/15); the
-      solver reads them per contact instead of from the body's primary collider.
-      Regression test: an asymmetric-friction compound body yaws when shoved
-      (the grippy collider drags), and a symmetric control does not. Still
-      primary-collider-only: the contact-filter callback's collider args and the
-      body-level sensor / concave flags (smaller follow-up).
-- [ ] **Joint-aware island sleep (ragdoll settle quality).** A draped,
-      self-colliding 10-joint ragdoll does not fully sleep in 10 s — surfaced by
-      a 1000-seed Monte-Carlo sweep (`PhysicsSystem.ragdoll.spec.js`, `.skip`):
-      for unlucky seeds a distal limb sustains a settled limit cycle (settled
-      finite-difference accel up to ~1094 m/s² / ~1479 rad/s² at a limb end vs a
-      ~55 m/s² median — bounded, non-growing, penetration-free, so a quality gap
-      not a divergence). The sleep test today is per-body `|v|²+|ω|²`; an island
-      over-constrained by cone-twist limits + self-contacts keeps small residual
-      jiggle above the per-body threshold so it never crosses into sleep.
-      Candidate fixes: sleep a jointed/contacting island on its AGGREGATE motion
-      rather than the per-body minimum, and/or a settled-regime relaxation (zero
-      restitution + extra position iterations) once an island's energy is low.
-      The sweep flags the worst seeds for replay. (Test infra also adds
-      per-point kinematics tracking — joint anchors + limb ends, with
-      displacement→velocity→acceleration and the angular equivalents.)
-- [x] **Box-on-heightmap settling — RESOLVED.** A dynamic box dropped onto a
-      static HeightMapShape — flat seam straddle AND the sloped dip — settles to
-      full rest; the `PhysicsSystem.heightmap.spec.js` dip-drop reproducer is
-      un-skipped and passing. Fixed by the combination of the same-feature-id
-      contact de-dup in `redetect_pair_geometry` (1:1 claimed matching, so the
-      several contacts one triangle emits — all sharing its feature_id — no longer
-      collapse onto a single candidate) and the HeightMapShape3D
-      collision-tessellation work; together they give the box a stable per-substep
-      contact set instead of a churning / collapsing one.
-
-      Root cause, for the record: the historical "never settles" rattle was a
-      depth divergence between the once-per-step `narrowphase_step` and the
-      per-substep `redetect_pair_geometry`. At the SAME pose, re-detection
-      over-reported a box-vs-triangle penetration as ~1 m (the "exit through the
-      far side" class) where narrowphase reported ~1 cm, launching the box into an
-      eternal vertical bounce (touch → ~1 m over-correction → separate → fall back
-      → re-contact). Both paths call the identical `dispatch_pair`, so the
-      divergence was the same-fid collapse corrupting the matched geometry; with
-      the de-dup in place the two paths now agree (verified: both report
-      [0.0100 ×4] at a 0.01-deep flat contact, in-cell and 4-triangle straddle).
-
-      Guards: `narrowphase/redetect_pair_geometry.spec.js` now pins BOTH
-      invariants — contacts sharing a feature_id keep distinct witnesses, and
-      re-detect depth == narrowphase depth at a fixed pose (in-cell and
-      4-triangle seam-straddle cases); `ecs/PhysicsSystem.heightmap.spec.js` pins
-      the observable settle. The depth-equality regression test the earlier
-      diagnostic trail asked for is in place, closing this out.
-
-### Performance / Scale
-- [x] **Per-body linear CCD shape-cast** — opt-in continuous collision for
-      fast movers where the speculative margin isn't enough.
-      `RigidBodyFlags.CCD` (off by default) + `ccd/linear_sweep.js`.
-        - **Approach (Box2D `b2_continuousPhysics`-style conservative
-          advancement).** After the substep solver produces each body's final
-          pose (between `apply_restitution` and the sleep test), a flagged fast
-          mover's primary collider is swept along its NET step translation
-          (start-of-step → final pose) through the existing `shape_cast` TOI
-          engine. On the first blocker the body is clamped to the contact pose
-          and its inbound normal velocity removed (an inelastic stop); the next
-          discrete step resolves the now-touching contact with the real
-          material / restitution. Reuses `shape_cast` wholesale — no new
-          geometry. Start positions captured in Stage 1 over the post-wake awake
-          set; the pass iterates the awake list in storage order (deterministic).
-        - **Motion gate — absolute slop, NOT body extent.** A body is swept when
-          it moved more than `CCD_MIN_SWEEP_DISTANCE` (1 mm) this step. The gate
-          exists only to skip near-stationary bodies (degenerate sweep + cost).
-          It is deliberately *not* a fraction of the body's own size: tunnelling
-          risk is set by the **obstacle's** thickness, not the mover's — a 2 m
-          sphere drifting 0.5 m/step still passes clean through a 1 cm floor, so
-          an extent-based gate would (wrongly) wait until the body moved more
-          than its own radius and miss every thin-obstacle tunnel below that
-          speed.
-        - **No self-clamp on resting/sliding contacts.** The sweep ignores an
-          impact at `t ≈ 0` (`CCD_INITIAL_OVERLAP_EPS`): an initial overlap is a
-          contact the body already sits/slides on, owned by the discrete solver,
-          not a tunnel — clamping there would freeze the body to the surface.
-        - **Measured (falling-tower bench, 1000 random shapes onto a 1 cm floor,
-          600 ticks; clean A/B on identical code via `ccdEnabled`).** This bench
-          is the WRONG validation vehicle for CCD, and the numbers prove it: CCD
-          off → **10/1000 tunnel**, median **42.7 ms**/step; all 1000 flagged →
-          **50/1000 tunnel**, median **61.6 ms**. CCD makes it *worse*. The bench
-          is a dense-pile **squeeze-through** scenario — 1000 bodies stacked on a
-          1 cm floor, forced through by the column's weight over many steps — which
-          is a *solver* limitation, not a missed single-step fly-through. CCD's
-          post-solve clamp + velocity-kill fights the solver in a dense settling
-          pile (it teleports mutually-stacking dynamics and breaks warm-start), so
-          flagging a whole pile is an anti-pattern. CCD's real job — stopping a
-          sparse fast mover against thin geometry — is validated by
-          `ccd/linear_sweep.spec.js` (9 tests: a fast cube tunnels a thin floor
-          without the flag and is stopped with it; deterministic; resting bodies
-          undisturbed). **Correction:** an earlier version of this entry and the
-          commit message (`42163b0d4`) claimed a "0/1000 tunnel, 58.2 ms" on-leg
-          — that was never measured (a session tooling glitch); the real on-leg
-          is 50/1000 / 61.6 ms.
-        - **Scope (v1, documented):** linear sweep only (orientation fixed
-          through the sweep); primary same-entity collider (child-entity
-          colliders, synced outside the step, are not swept); EXACT against
-          static geometry, APPROXIMATE against other dynamics (their
-          start-of-step broadphase AABBs); the CCD stop is inelastic (the impact
-          itself doesn't bounce — restitution applies on the next discrete
-          contact); Dynamic bodies only. A body both resting on one surface and
-          tunnelling another in the same step resolves only the resting contact
-          (the `t ≈ 0` skip) — rare; the next discrete step catches the rest.
-        - **Follow-ups (the dense-pile finding points the way):** sweep against
-          STATIC geometry only by default — the dynamic-vs-dynamic clamp is the
-          source of the dense-pile interference above and is only ever
-          approximate anyway, so dropping it should make CCD purely additive
-          (stops you at static walls/floors, never fights the dynamic stack);
-          a proper TOI sub-solver for bullet-vs-dynamic; rotational / angular
-          CCD; multi-collider sweep for compound bodies.
-- [x] **Broadphase BVH balance — SAH rotation.** The dynamic AABB tree
-      (`core/bvh2/bvh3/BVH.js`, a Box2D port) used SAH-cost insertion but a
-      *height-only* AVL rotation (`balance_height`): height-balanced yet not
-      SAH-balanced, so queries walked more nodes than needed. Replaced the
-      rotation in `bubble_up_update` with `balance_rotate` — the Box2D-v3 /
-      Kensler SAH-reducing rotation (for node A with children B, C, evaluate the
-      four child↔grandchild swaps and apply the one that most reduces the
-      surface-area cost). Deterministic; identical pair set.
-        - Measured (same-session A/B, heavy benches): raycast **−9%**
-          (28.2→25.6 µs/ray), falling-tower median **−10%**, settling-grid
-          median **−12%**, and the **990/1000-churn stress −27%**
-          (63.95→46.68 ms mean over 10k ticks) — biggest where the tree churns
-          hardest. Determinism (8-trial bit-identical) holds.
-        - **Insertion cost (measured):** `balance_rotate` does 4 surface-area
-          evaluations per bubble-up level vs `balance_height`'s single height
-          compare, so *pure bulk insertion* is **~1.4–1.5× slower** — the 100k
-          synthetic insert bench (`BVH.spec.js`, drift-controlled interleaved
-          A/B) drops from **~37k → ~25k inserts/sec** (~27→~40 µs/insert). This
-          is the balancer's worst case (insert-only, zero queries/refits to
-          amortise against). It does not show up end-to-end: static trees are
-          built once then queried forever, dynamic bodies insert once then
-          refit/query every frame, and even the 990/1000-swap stress test — the
-          maximal insert-churn workload — is net **−27%**. Accepted.
-        - **Tradeoff (documented):** the contact solver's Gauss-Seidel order
-          follows broadphase traversal order (see `generate_pairs`), so the
-          different tree shape shifts convergence on near-aligned stacks — the
-          synthetic 128-cube wall now sleeps at ~10 s (was ~6.9 s). It still
-          settles, doesn't creep / topple (all bug-guard assertions hold); only
-          the sleep *time* moved (that test's budget was bumped 9→11 s with a
-          note). Random-shape scenes (falling tower) were faster *and* settled
-          fine.
-        - **Follow-up:** decouple the solve order from tree shape — sort the
-          broadphase pair list by `(idA, idB)` before narrowphase so contact
-          order is body-id-deterministic regardless of tree shape. Then no tree
-          change can affect convergence (and the stack settles identically under
-          either balancer). Has a per-step sort cost + wide test re-baseline, so
-          it's its own task. `balance_height` is retained for comparison /
-          fallback.
-- [ ] **Per-island parallel solve**: today's island data layout would
-      allow worker-based solving once `SharedArrayBuffer` is available.
-      Out-of-scope unless / until SAB is universally usable.
-
-### Features
-- [ ] **Convex collision proxies for dynamic concave bodies.** The long-term
-      replacement for the interim per-substep concave re-detection (see
-      Limitations) — and how every major engine handles dynamic non-convex
-      shapes: collide a *few* convex pieces, never the raw concave mesh.
-        1. **3D convex hull builder** (meep has only 2D hulls today —
-           `core/geom/2d/convex-hull/`). A single hull of a mesh is one
-           collider / one broadphase leaf and covers the overwhelming majority
-           of dynamic objects (thrown props, debris). Pairs with the existing
-           "Convex hull shape + eigen-inertia" item below.
-        2. **Few-hull (V-HACD-style) approximate convex decomposition** for
-           shapes whose concavity matters (a cup, a chair): ~8–64 fat convex
-           hulls = 8–64 colliders, two orders of magnitude below a tet mesh.
-      Each hull is convex → stable contact feature → the TGS analytic refresh
-      is exact → no per-substep re-detection, no rocking. Granularity is the
-      whole point: collider/BVH-leaf count must stay small for an *awake*
-      dynamic body (the volumetric tet-mesher under `core/geom/3d/tetrahedra/`
-      is the wrong tool here — thousands of pieces — and belongs to a future
-      FEM/soft-body subsystem, not rigid collision).
-- [ ] **Convex hull shape** with eigen-based principal-axes inertia
-      derivation. Hooks `matrix_eigenvalues_in_place` from the existing
-      linalg layer.
-- [~] **Cylinder / cone shapes.**
-    - [x] **`CylinderShape3D`** — Y-aligned solid cylinder (radius + full
-          height, flat caps; the capsule's flat-cap sibling). Exact `support`,
-          capped-cylinder SDF, bounds, `contains` / `nearest_point` /
-          volume-sampling, equals/hash, `'cylinder'` JSON tag, `isCylinderShape3D`
-          marker. Convex → routes through the narrowphase **GJK + EPA** fallback
-          (no marker dispatch needed); spec asserts overlap-detected +
-          MTV-separates vs sphere/box. Closed-form cylinder-vs-X contact pairs
-          are a future refinement (the curved side is the usual smooth-support
-          EPA case — same status as pre-closed-form sphere/capsule).
-    - [ ] Closed-form cylinder contact pairs (cylinder × box / sphere / capsule
-          / plane) for multi-point cap manifolds + stable resting.
-    - [ ] **Cone shape** (+ closed-form / GJK fallback).
-
-### Rendering integration
-- [ ] **Fixed-step → render interpolation.** Not implemented yet. Physics writes
-      each body's pose straight into the ECS `Transform` once per fixed step
-      (`EntityManager.fixedUpdateStepSize`); with a render rate that doesn't match
-      the fixed rate, the rendered motion aliases (stutter / temporal aliasing,
-      worst at low fixed rates). Designed as a cross-cutting system (render +
-      physics-as-producer + network-as-producer), reusing the network package's
-      agnostic interpolation primitives rather than a physics-local mechanism.
-      Full design + phasing: **see
-      [`INTEPOLATION_SYSTEM_PLAN.md`](./INTEPOLATION_SYSTEM_PLAN.md)**. Locked
-      decisions: a neutral shared interpolation log/adapters (lifted out of
-      `network/`); physics restores authoritative pose from the log at step start
-      (no solver rewiring) and records moved bodies' snapshots at step end;
-      blend → `Transform` at `preRender`; O(moving) not O(N); rewind-safe via the
-      tick-keyed log.
-
-### API polish
-- [x] **`overlap(shape, position, rotation, output, output_offset,
-      filter?)`** — broadphase + narrowphase overlap query for kinematic
-      / AOE / selection use cases. Body_ids written into a caller-sized
-      Uint32Array buffer. Convex query shape only; concave candidates
-      are routed through the per-triangle decomposition path.
-- [x] **`shapeCast(ray, shape, rotation, result, filter?)`** for
-      character controllers and kinematic shape sweeps. Broadphase
-      swept-AABB against both BVHs; per-candidate AABB-slab interval
-      narrowing + coarse step + GJK bisection for time-of-impact. The
-      output `result.normal` is the true contact-surface normal at the
-      kiss point, computed by re-running GJK + EPA at `best_t` on the
-      winning candidate (falls back to `-ray.direction` only on EPA
-      degeneracies).
-- [x] **`compute_penetration(out_direction, shape_a, pos_a, rot_a,
-      shape_b, pos_b, rot_b)`** — standalone geometry primitive (no
-      PhysicsSystem) for resolving overlap between two shapes at given
-      poses. Returns depth + outward direction. **Hardened** to route through
-      the shared narrowphase dispatch (`deepest_pair_penetration`): exact
-      closed-form for sphere/box/capsule pairs (box-box via SAT), GJK+EPA for
-      general convex, closed-form per-triangle for convex × concave; the
-      half-space test is retained only for tunnel recovery.
-
-### Raycast narrowphase (done)
-
-**Problem.** `raycast` (and the suspension ray inside `RaycastVehicle`) resolves
-only to the nearest BVH leaf's *inflated* AABB: `result.t` is the distance to
-that fattened box and `result.normal` is its face normal. Exact for an
-axis-aligned box (modulo the broadphase margin), coarse for spheres / capsules /
-rotated boxes / meshes / heightmaps. Refine each candidate against the true
-shape to return the exact surface distance + normal. `shapeCast` already does
-this for swept convex shapes via GJK+EPA; `raycast` should get the same
-treatment with cheap analytic primitives on the hot path.
-
-**Design.** Mirror `narrowphase_step`'s dispatch: closed-form ray tests for the
-common primitives, a generic GJK fallback for the rest. The structural change is
-in the BVH walk — the nearest *leaf AABB* is **not** the nearest *shape hit* (a
-ray can clip a near fat-AABB but miss its shape while hitting a farther one), so
-every crossing leaf must be refined, with subtrees pruned by inflated-AABB
-`t_near` vs the best *refined* `t` (conservative-correct: a shape hit is always
-≥ its tight AABB entry ≥ its inflated AABB entry). A leaf whose ray crosses the
-fat AABB but misses the true shape now contributes **no hit** — the key
-correctness gain.
-
-Phasing (each phase: implement → spec → run from `H:/git/moh` → commit):
-
-1. [x] **Ray-primitive helpers** — originally landed as `narrowphase/ray_shapes.js`,
-   later EXTRACTED to `core/geom/3d/{sphere,box,capsule}/{sphere3,box3,capsule3}_raycast.js`
-   (the (`t`, normal, miss = `Infinity`, first-hit-from-outside) convention is a
-   fine general raycast contract, and a ray-vs-capsule primitive was otherwise
-   missing engine-wide; the dispatch still shares one ray→local transform across
-   them). Built local-frame (unit direction ⇒ `t` preserved;
-   rotate the local normal back). Triangle MT is inlined in the concave path
-   (the existing `computeTriangleRayIntersection` writes a `SurfacePoint3` and
-   returns no `t` — unsuited to the buffer-flyweight loop). Colocated specs.
-2. [x] **Ray-narrowphase dispatch** `narrowphase/refine_ray_hit.js`:
-   `(shape, position, rotation, ox,oy,oz, dx,dy,dz, tMax, outNormal) → t`.
-   Type-marker dispatch (`isUnitSphereShape3D` / `isBoxShape3D` /
-   `isCapsuleShape3D`) to the analytic primitives; a generic convex fallback
-   for `TransformedShape3D` / `UnionShape3D` / other (GJK ray-cast, or reuse
-   `shape_cast` with a zero-radius `PointShape3D`).
-3. [x] **Concave path** in the dispatch: for `is_convex === false` (mesh /
-   heightmap), enumerate the triangles overlapping the ray's swept AABB
-   (`mesh_enumerate_triangles` / `heightmap_enumerate_triangles`), Möller–
-   Trumbore each, take the nearest; normal from the triangle winding.
-4. [x] **Rewire `queries/raycast.js`**: at each leaf, call `refine_ray_hit` on
-   the true shape + pose instead of accepting the AABB `t_near`; track the best
-   refined `(t, body, normal)`; keep subtree pruning on inflated-AABB `t_near`.
-   Same signature / `PhysicsSurfacePoint` result; drop the AABB-face-normal
-   block. Multi-collider bodies still resolve the primary collider only
-   (inherited BVH-leaf limitation; note it).
-5. [x] **Tests**: per-shape exactness (sphere / OBB / capsule / mesh /
-   heightmap) — exact `t` and true normal; the **fat-AABB-cross-but-shape-miss
-   ⇒ no hit** case (the correctness win); nearest-of-several across a near miss;
-   `filter` and `tMax` honoured. Re-verify `RaycastVehicle` (ride height now
-   exact — tighten the test bands if they shift by the old broadphase margin).
-6. [x] **Bench + docs**: a raycast micro-bench (analytic fast-path cost; confirm
-   the fat-AABB-miss rejection doesn't regress throughput); update the "Public
-   queries" entry, `raycast.js` header, and the `RaycastVehicle` "AABB-level"
-   caveat once exact.
-
-Note: this sharpens `RaycastVehicle` suspension on non-box ground and every
-shape query; it does not change the broadphase or any API surface.
-
----
-
-## Future / out-of-scope
-
-These are explicit architectural exclusions or post-v1 explorations.
-
-### Architecture
-- **Cross-runtime bit-exact determinism**: a soft-float library would
-  replace `Math.sin/cos/exp/log/pow` in the hot path. The codebase is
-  already structured to make this a swap-in at `quat3_integrate.js` and
-  tangent-basis construction in `build_manifold.js`. Not pursued because
-  the same-runtime determinism we have covers the common cases (single-
-  device replay, networked lockstep where all clients run the same JS
-  engine).
-- **WASM / SIMD**: the engine targets pure-JS portability. SIMD would
-  invalidate the determinism story (V8 doesn't expose deterministic
-  Float64x2 ops).
-- **Multi-threaded solver**: workers don't share memory cheaply without
-  `SharedArrayBuffer` plus the COOP/COEP HTTP headers, which are not
-  always available. Single-threaded is good-enough for the awake-body
-  budget that matters.
-- **Packed-SoA body dynamics state — DECIDED AGAINST; do not re-open.** A
-  reviewer will note that `BodyStorage` is SoA for *identity* (entity /
-  generation / kind / flags / awake-set) but the per-body *dynamics* state —
-  velocity, inertia, mass, force/torque accumulators — lives on the `RigidBody`
-  **component object** (each carrying several `Vector3` = `Float64Array` + an
-  `onChanged` Signal), in a sparse `__bodies[]` array reached by pointer-chase,
-  not packed by slot. The same is true of `Collider` and `Joint`. This is a
-  deliberate, settled choice, not an oversight: **meep is an ECS engine, and
-  `RigidBody` / `Collider` / `Joint` are public-API components.** Them being
-  first-class objects is a UX choice and uniformity with the rest of the engine —
-  it is what makes them authorable, serializable (`toJSON`/`fromJSON` + binary
-  adapters), value-diffable (`equals`/`hash` for netcode replication), and
-  observable (`Vector3.onChanged`), exactly like every other component. A
-  packed-SoA body pool would buy locality on the *awake* integration sweeps at
-  the cost of breaking that uniformity and the public component contract. The
-  design instead leans on "mostly-sleeping" (per-body iteration is over the
-  *awake* set only), keeps the genuinely O(contacts) inner loop in flat SoA
-  (manifolds + solver scratch), and has the hot paths index the component
-  vectors' `Float64Array` backing directly to skip the observer (see
-  Determinism). This is final — do not resurface it as a "fix".
-- **Single in-flight solve (module-scoped solver scratch).**
-  `solver/solve_contacts.js` keeps its cross-stage state (the `g_*` counters and
-  the `scratch_*` arrays) at module scope — one copy shared by all worlds, not
-  per `PhysicsSystem`. Deliberate: every world reuses one set of scratch, and
-  it's safe because the engine is single-threaded and steps one `fixedUpdate` at
-  a time. The ceiling it sets: two `PhysicsSystem` instances cannot be stepped
-  concurrently or re-entrantly (the second clobbers the first's solver scratch).
-  Accepted for a single-world, single-threaded engine; lifting it would need
-  per-system scratch (or a solver-context object threaded through the stages).
-
-### Simulation extensions
-- **Soft body / cloth / fluids**: the SoA layout in `BodyStorage` and the
-  manifold cache are rigid-body shaped. A soft-body system would be a
-  parallel subsystem, not an extension.
-- **Reduced-coordinate articulations** (MuJoCo / Featherstone-style):
-  game-physics audience runs in maximal coordinates by convention. Not
-  on the roadmap.
-
-### Game-side
-- **Vehicle physics** (suspensions, drivetrains): a domain layer that
-  sits on top of the rigid-body primitives, not in `meep/`.
-- **Character controllers**: same — `engine/control/first-person/` is the
-  natural home.
-
----
-
-## Notable design files
-
-- Original design plan: `C:\Users\Alex\.claude\plans\let-s-plan-to-implement-transient-harp.md`
-- This file (state of play): `engine/physics/PLAN.md`
+# Physics engine — state of play
+
+Tracker for what's built, what's pending, and what's deferred.
+
+---
+
+## Context
+
+Deterministic JS rigid-body physics engine for the meep ECS. Target: game
+scenarios with up to millions of mostly-sleeping bodies, deterministic replays
+for netcode and reproducible debugging, broad shape coverage for common game
+collisions. Pure JS — no WASM, no SIMD, no worker threads.
+
+Architectural references for design choices:
+- **Jolt** — pre-allocated body pool, active-list iteration, two-tree
+  broadphase (static + dynamic).
+- **Bullet** — `btPersistentManifold` cache layout with up to 4 points.
+- **Box2D / Catto** — sequential impulse with warm-starting, Sutherland-Hodgman
+  face clipping for box-box.
+
+---
+
+## Done
+
+### Foundations
+- `RigidBody`, `Collider`, `BodyKind`, `RigidBodyFlags`, `ColliderFlags`,
+  `SleepState`, `PhysicsEvents`.
+- `BodyStorage`: SoA pool, generation-tracked stable IDs, dense awake list,
+  min-heap free for deterministic ID reuse.
+- `PhysicsSystem`: full public API surface (gravity, force/impulse with and
+  without application point, torque, velocity setter, wake/sleep, contact
+  filter callback).
+- Binary serialization adapters for `RigidBody` and `Collider` (transient
+  runtime state deliberately excluded).
+- `PairUint32Map`: open-addressed Robin Hood + Fibonacci hash for the
+  pair → manifold-slot index (the one new collection added to `core/collection/`).
+
+### Pipeline (`PhysicsSystem.fixedUpdate`)
+1. Velocity integration (semi-implicit Euler, linear + angular, gravity,
+   damping, world-frame inverse-inertia for torque)
+2. Per-collider broadphase refit with fat AABB (Box2D-style velocity-padded
+   slack)
+3. Pair generation: per-leaf query against both BVHs (static + dynamic),
+   canonical `(min, max)` pairs, dedup via manifold touched flag
+4. Wake propagation for sleeping bodies in the pair list
+5. Narrowphase cross-product over collider lists
+6. Sequential-impulse solver (Catto-style, warm-start, friction, Baumgarte)
+7. Position integration (linear + quaternion)
+8. Sleep test (per-body velocity² below threshold for ≥ 0.5 s)
+9. Manifold diff → `ContactBegin` / `Stay` / `End` event dispatch
+10. `manifolds.advance_frame()` — roll touched bits, evict grace-expired slots
+
+### Shape coverage
+| Pair | Path | Manifold |
+|---|---|---|
+| sphere-sphere | closed-form | 1 point |
+| sphere-box | closed-form (handles centre-inside-box) | 1 point |
+| capsule-sphere | point-on-segment closed-form | 1 point |
+| capsule-capsule | segment-segment closest pair | 1 point |
+| capsule-box | iterative segment-vs-OBB (primary) + cap-centre sphere-vs-OBB at each endpoint | up to 3 |
+| box-box face-face | SAT + Sutherland-Hodgman clipping | up to 4 |
+| box-box edge-edge | SAT + segment-segment closest-pair | 1 point |
+| sphere / box / capsule × concave (heightmap, mesh) | closed-form `*_triangle_contact` per triangle via decomposition dispatcher | up to a few points per triangle (deepest wins) |
+| other convex × concave | per-triangle GJK + EPA via decomposition dispatcher | 1 point per triangle |
+| anything else | GJK + EPA, MPR fallback on EPA non-convergence | 1 point |
+
+### Non-convex shapes
+- **`is_convex` flag** on `AbstractShape3D.prototype` (default `true`).
+  Overridden to `false` on `HeightMapShape3D`, `MeshShape3D`, `UnionShape3D`.
+  `TransformedShape3D` inherits via getter that reads the wrapped subject.
+- **`HeightMapShape3D`** — orientation-vector + `Sampler2D`-backed terrain
+  shape. Heights sampled via `sampleChannelCatmullRomUV` (matching the
+  terrain system's geometry construction). Compute_bounding_box,
+  contains_point, signed_distance, nearest_point_on_surface all
+  implemented; `support` throws (non-convex by construction).
+- **`Triangle3D`** — buffer-flyweight convex shape. `bind(buffer, offset)`
+  repoints at 9 consecutive floats in an external Float64Array. Zero
+  allocation per emission; used by the decomposition path.
+- **Triangle decomposition machinery** under
+  `engine/physics/narrowphase/decomposition/`:
+    - `TRIANGLE_FLOAT_STRIDE = 10` per triangle (`vA.xyz`, `vB.xyz`,
+      `vC.xyz`, `feature_id`).
+    - `heightmap_enumerate_triangles(out, offset, shape, ...aabb)` —
+      Arvo-projects the convex's AABB into heightmap-local, intersects
+      with the footprint to derive a cell range, emits 2 triangles per
+      cell with stable feature_ids.
+    - `mesh_enumerate_triangles(out, offset, shape, ...aabb)` — linear
+      O(N) scan over `MeshShape3D.indices` with tight per-triangle AABB
+      filtering. feature_id = triangle index.
+    - `aabb3_transform_oriented_inverse(out, world_aabb, pos, rot)` (now in `core/geom/3d/aabb/`) — 8-corner
+      projection of a world AABB into a body's local frame.
+    - `decompose_to_triangles(...)` — dispatcher switching on shape
+      type marker.
+- **Narrowphase concave dispatch** in `narrowphase_step.js`: detects
+  `is_convex === false`, computes convex's world AABB, projects to
+  concave's local frame, decomposes, per-triangle GJK + EPA with
+  one-sided face-normal rejection and contact-normal dedup. Concave-vs-
+  concave dynamic pairs are explicitly refused.
+
+### Solver
+- Sequential impulse with warm-starting (10 velocity iterations by default).
+- Coulomb friction with disk-clamped tangent impulses.
+- Baumgarte position correction folded into the velocity solve.
+- Full angular Jacobian (`I_w⁻¹ = R · diag · R^T`) and angular impulse
+  application.
+- Public force/impulse-at-point API (`applyForceAt`, `applyImpulseAt`,
+  `applyTorque`).
+
+### Sleep + events
+- Per-island **atomic sleep**: an island sleeps when `max(|v|² + |ω|²)`
+  across all members stays below the threshold long enough; the whole
+  island sleeps in the same frame. Replaces the per-body chatter on
+  weakly-connected piles.
+- **Atomic wake**: members of a sleeping island are threaded into a
+  circular doubly-linked list (`sleep_group_next` / `sleep_group_prev`);
+  waking any one member walks the chain and wakes the rest in the same
+  call. A 100-block stack hit at the base wakes top-down in one frame
+  rather than over 100 frames of broadphase propagation.
+- `DisableSleep` on any island member exempts the whole island.
+- ContactBegin / Stay / End buffer + dispatch through the per-entity
+  `dataset.sendEvent(entity, PhysicsEvents.ContactBegin, ...)` channel — the
+  sole contact-event path, delivered to each entity of the pair when a
+  dataset is attached.
+
+### Islands
+- **Union-find** with path halving + union by min-index over the awake-body
+  + touched-contact graph (`core/collection/union-find/union_find.js`).
+- **`IslandBuilder`** produces deterministic CSR-style output: bodies and
+  manifold slots grouped by island, sorted ascending within and across
+  islands. Static / kinematic bodies are constraint anchors only — they
+  don't merge islands, so disjoint piles on the same floor are separate
+  islands.
+- **Islands feed the sleep test + grouping, not a per-island solver loop.**
+  The TGS contact solver flattens every island's contacts into one
+  Gauss-Seidel sweep (`solver/solve_contacts.js`) — islands share no bodies,
+  so a single flat sweep is identical to per-island sweeps. The partition is
+  still rebuilt every step and consumed by the atomic-island sleep test and the
+  joint/contact island grouping; it is also the natural unit for a future
+  worker-based parallel solve (see Performance / Scale). (Earlier revisions ran
+  the solver per island; the TGS rewrite flattened it — same result, simpler
+  loop.)
+
+### Compound bodies
+- A body has 0..N attached colliders. Each collider has its own world
+  transform and its own BVH leaf.
+- Same-entity colliders, child-entity colliders (via `ParentEntity`), or
+  hybrids all supported.
+- `ColliderObserverSystem` auto-attaches colliders via the dataset when
+  paired with `PhysicsSystem` in an EntityManager.
+- Narrowphase runs the cross-product over both bodies' collider lists per
+  body-pair, accumulates candidates, reduces to ≤4 contacts by
+  depth + spread.
+
+### Public queries
+- `raycast(origin, dir, max_dist, filter?)` — nearest hit across both trees,
+  **refined to the true shape surface** (narrowphase). `result.t` /
+  `result.normal` are exact for every shape the engine defines: closed-form
+  per-leaf tests for sphere / box / capsule / cylinder / convex hull / triangle /
+  point, triangle Möller–Trumbore for mesh / heightmap, and recursion into the
+  subject for the `PosedShape3D` / `TransformedShape3D` / `UnionShape3D`
+  wrappers. Only a shape defined outside the engine falls back to the
+  broadphase AABB hit. A ray crossing a fat leaf AABB but missing the true
+  shape is correctly a miss.
+- `shapeCast(ray, shape, rotation, result, filter?)` — broadphase swept
+  AABB against both BVHs; per-candidate AABB-slab interval narrowing,
+  coarse step over the narrowed window, GJK bisection to time-of-impact.
+  Output normal is the true contact-surface normal at the kiss point,
+  recovered by re-running GJK + EPA at `best_t` on the winning candidate.
+  Falls back to `-ray.direction` only on EPA degeneracies (NaN / zero
+  depth). Tests cover axis-aligned, off-axis, and oblique cube-vs-cube;
+  sphere-vs-smooth-shape near-tangent has documented angular tolerance
+  bands inherited from EPA on smooth supports.
+- `overlap(shape, position, rotation, output, output_offset, filter?)`
+  — broadphase + per-candidate GJK overlap detection. Writes body_ids
+  into a caller-sized buffer; returns count. Convex query shapes only
+  (concave throws). Concave candidates routed through the per-triangle
+  decomposition path. Designed for speculative kinematic queries on
+  kinematic bodies (character controllers, AOE selection).
+
+### Standalone narrowphase utilities
+- `deepest_pair_penetration(out_normal, shapeA, posA, rotA, shapeB, posB,
+  rotB)` (exported from `narrowphase_step.js`) — runs the **same**
+  `dispatch_pair` the contact solver consumes for one posed shape pair and
+  returns the DEEPEST contact's depth + world normal (B → A). The single
+  source of truth for "minimum-translation between two posed shapes", reused by
+  `compute_penetration` (and available to any other query).
+- `compute_penetration(out_direction, shape_a, pos_a, rot_a, shape_b,
+  pos_b, rot_b)` — non-system geometry primitive: positive penetration
+  depth + outward direction (B → A convention) on overlap, 0 otherwise.
+  **Hardened** — delegates to `deepest_pair_penetration`, so it is correct
+  (not "correct sometimes") for every shape pair the engine can build:
+    - sphere / box / capsule pairs → exact closed-form (box-box via SAT, so a
+      small body resting on a large floor reports the few-cm near-face overlap,
+      NOT the metres-deep "exit through the far side" that MPR's centroid-seeded
+      portal used to return);
+    - general convex pairs → GJK + EPA (exact for polytopes; curved shapes never
+      reach it — they have closed forms);
+    - convex × concave → triangle decomposition + the closed-form per-triangle
+      solvers, bounded to each triangle's true 2-D extent (the old closed-mesh
+      side-face over-report is gone).
+  The previous per-triangle half-space test is retained ONLY as a recovery
+  fallback for the one case the one-sided closed forms can't resolve: a convex
+  shape that has fully tunnelled to the *inner* side of a concave surface (a
+  depenetration query must still push it back out — exact for heightmap terrain,
+  a valid outward push for closed meshes). Concave × concave throws (M×N
+  triangle pairs out of scope). The spec asserts an "applying out_direction ×
+  depth separates the shapes" invariant across every convex+convex pair type and
+  convex+concave, plus exact per-type depths and the small-box-on-huge-floor
+  regression (3 m → 0.05 m).
+
+### Determinism — the reconstruction contract (H-series, landed)
+Engine outcomes are a pure function of **body components (keyed by entity
+id) + the exportable solver-cache blob** — never of allocation history
+(body slots, manifold slots, joint ids, awake-list order, BVH shape,
+broadphase pad history). A world rebuilt from a snapshot — onto a fresh
+engine, or by remove-all/re-add on a live one — continues **bit-identically**
+to the engine that kept running. Verified by `determinism.spec.js`
+(T1 lockstep repeatability; T2 reconstruction equivalence incl. generation
+churn and pad-history wake timing).
+
+- Entity-canonical pair A/B roles assigned in the broadphase
+  (`generate_pairs`) — roles feed witness sides, normal orientation and the
+  tangent basis, so they must derive from the cross-engine identity.
+- Outcome-coupled iteration orders are entity-keyed: island contacts
+  (IslandBuilder), joints (`__joints_sorted`), contact events
+  (`ContactEventBuffer.sort_canonical` + dispatch normal mirror), CCD pass.
+- `sleepState` + `sleep_timer` are persistent body state (adapter v1 +
+  0→1 upgrader); `link()` honours them, so restored sleepers stay asleep.
+- Stage-0 wake reads persistent manifolds (`prev_touched`), never the
+  transient pair list; the precautionary pre-contact wake is an
+  edge-triggered swept-tight-AABB proximity predicate (`FLAG_PROX`),
+  a pure function of body state.
+- `persistence/solver_caches.js`: entity-keyed export/import of manifolds
+  (warm-start impulses + lifecycle bits), joint `dofImpulse`, sleep-group
+  chains. Identical worlds serialize to identical bytes.
+- Foundations that predate the H-series: min-heap free lists for
+  deterministic slot reuse, no `Math.random` in the step, direct
+  typed-array writes on hot paths (Transform writes still go through
+  `set()` — external systems subscribe).
+- Same-runtime bit-exact; cross-runtime is a known future seam (see
+  Backlog → Reconstruction & determinism).
+
+### Migration
+- `Motion` / `MotionSystem` / `MotionSerializationAdapter` relocated from
+  the meep core (`engine/ecs/`) to the game-domain layer
+  (`mir-engine/model/game/ecs/`). meep no longer ships the legacy shim.
+
+### Alternative narrowphase: MPR
+- `core/geom/3d/gjk/mpr.js` — Minkowski Portal Refinement (XenoCollide,
+  Snethen GDC 2009). Single-pass overlap test + MTV computation,
+  output convention matches EPA so it's drop-in compatible at any
+  narrowphase call site. Tends to converge in 5–15 iterations on
+  smooth shapes where EPA stalls (the polytope-on-curved-surface
+  failure mode the torus-knot reproducer exercised). **Wired as the EPA
+  non-convergence fallback** in `narrowphase_step` at both the body-level
+  and per-triangle GJK+EPA paths: when EPA returns a non-positive / non-finite
+  depth, MPR is tried before giving up. `shape_cast` and `compute_penetration`
+  use it for the same reason.
+
+### Bonus utilities
+- `core/geom/3d/line/line3_closest_points_segment_segment.js` — generally
+  useful 3D segment-segment closest-pair via Ericson §5.1.9.
+- `core/collection/PairUint32Map.js` — non-allocating
+  `Map<(u32, u32) → u32>` with Robin Hood + Fibonacci hash.
+
+---
+
+## Limitations / Known caveats
+
+- **Multi-collider material precision** — *resolved for contact materials.* The
+  narrowphase now combines the specific source-collider pair's friction /
+  restitution per contact and stores them in the manifold (CONTACT_STRIDE
+  offsets 14/15); the solver reads them per contact, so mixed-material compound
+  bodies are accurate (regression test: an asymmetric-friction body yaws when
+  shoved). Still primary-collider only: the contact-filter callback's
+  `colliderA/B` arguments and the body-level sensor / concave-dispatch flags —
+  a smaller follow-up.
+- **EPA on smooth shapes**: degenerates (no flat face to converge on).
+  Mitigated by closed-form paths for sphere/cube/capsule pairs and by the
+  **MPR fallback** on EPA non-convergence; exotic convex shapes vs spheres can
+  still occasionally fail if both EPA and MPR degenerate.
+- **EPA on `Triangle3D`** — *resolved.* The concave dispatch now uses the
+  closed-form `sphere_triangle_contact` / `box_triangle_contact` /
+  `capsule_triangle_contact` solvers (P1.1a–c) instead of per-triangle GJK+EPA
+  for those primitives, so a sphere/box/capsule on a heightmap or mesh decelerates
+  and settles correctly; the `narrowphase_concave.spec.js` "drop and settle"
+  cases and the mesh torus-knot settle test are **un-skipped**. Per-triangle
+  GJK+EPA remains only as the fallback for *other* convex shapes vs triangles.
+  (`compute_penetration` now routes through that same dispatch via
+  `deepest_pair_penetration` — see *Standalone narrowphase utilities* — instead
+  of its old half-space pre-test; the half-space test survives only as a
+  tunnel-recovery fallback.)
+- **Box-box edge-edge contact**: a single point at the true closest-pair of the
+  two edges (P3.2), not the old body-centre midpoint. This is geometrically
+  correct — and an empirical SAT-source sweep confirms the edge-cross branch
+  *only* fires for **transverse** edge crossings (inter-edge angle ≈ 83-90°),
+  where two skew lines meet at a unique point. Near-parallel edge contacts
+  cannot reach this branch (a near-parallel `edgeA × edgeB` never wins the SAT
+  minimum) — they resolve through the multi-point face-clipping path. So the
+  once-planned "multi-point edge contact for near-parallel edges" refinement is
+  **moot**; see the resolved Stability backlog entry.
+- **Raycast's AABB fallback** — *resolved for every shape the engine defines.*
+  `refine_ray_hit` used to answer with the shape's tight AABB for anything it had
+  no exact test for, which was everything except sphere / box / capsule / mesh /
+  heightmap. The box is an over-estimate of the solid, so a ray crossing it but
+  missing the shape reported a phantom hit, and a ray starting in the empty part
+  of it reported `t = 0` with an axis-aligned face normal — BUG-7. Two shapes
+  did not even reach that fallback: `UnionShape3D` and any `TransformedShape3D`
+  around a mesh report `is_convex === false`, which routed them into the concave
+  triangle decomposition, where the enumerator read `indices` off a shape that has
+  none and THREW out of the raycast. The dispatch is now total over the engine's
+  shapes — closed-form tests for hull / cylinder / triangle / point, recursion
+  into the subject for the three wrappers — and the fallback survives only for a
+  shape subclassed outside the library. It is a floor for foreign shapes, not a
+  design: it still reports the bounding box, and for a shape with a FLAT bounding
+  box (a triangle) its normal comes out of a division by a zero extent.
+
+- **CCD floor only**: speculative margin via the fattened AABB prevents
+  most tunnelling. No per-body swept shape-cast for very fast objects.
+- **Cross-runtime determinism is not guaranteed**: `Math.sin/cos/exp/log`
+  are ULP-correct but not bit-exact across V8 / SpiderMonkey / JSC.
+- **Dynamic concave bodies under TGS** — *resolved by per-substep re-detection
+  (below); kept here for the rationale.* The substep loop normally re-derives
+  contact geometry analytically from the per-triangle contact feature (witness
+  anchors + normal) captured once by narrowphase and held fixed for the whole
+  outer step. For a convex body the contact feature is stable under the small
+  per-step motion, so this is exact; for a *dynamic concave mesh body* (e.g. a
+  torus knot rocking on its own lobes) the supporting triangle itself changes
+  as the body rocks, so freezing the feature would pump a little energy in and
+  the body would rock / slowly sink instead of settling. Note this is NOT a
+  contact-precision issue —
+  the knot already uses the exact closed-form box-triangle solver (P1.1b);
+  the problem is purely that TGS freezes *which* feature is in contact across
+  substeps. The common concave case — a convex dynamic body on static concave
+  terrain — is unaffected (the convex side's feature is stable), and that is
+  the only concave case the engine targets.
+
+  **Interim fix (implemented): per-substep concave re-detection.** For
+  contact pairs involving a concave body, the substep loop re-runs the
+  concave narrowphase geometry at the current substep pose (instead of the
+  analytic refresh that freezes the feature) and re-prepares those contacts
+  from the fresh witness/normal/depth — so the contact normal tracks the
+  rocking body and no energy is pumped in. Convex pairs keep the cheap
+  analytic refresh. This is ~Nx narrowphase cost on concave-involved pairs
+  (acceptable — they're rare), gated by collider convexity. Un-skips the
+  torus-knot dynamic-settle test.
+
+  **Better long-term fix: convex collision proxies (not raw concave).** Every
+  major engine (Box2D, Jolt, PhysX, Rapier) requires dynamic bodies to be
+  convex or convex-decomposed; raw concave meshes are static-only. The right
+  granularity is a *few* convex pieces — NOT the thousands of tets a
+  volumetric mesher produces (tet count ≈ collider/BVH-leaf count, which
+  explodes the broadphase for an awake body; tet meshing is for a future
+  FEM/soft-body subsystem, not rigid collision). See the "Convex collision
+  proxies for dynamic concave bodies" backlog item — a 3D convex hull builder
+  (single-hull proxy covers most dynamic objects) plus an optional
+  few-hull (V-HACD-style) decomposition. Those supersede the interim
+  per-substep re-detection once built.
+
+---
+
+## Backlog (planned, in scope)
+
+### Reconstruction & determinism (engine side done; consumers pending)
+
+The engine-side determinism contract is landed (see Done → Determinism).
+These are the follow-ups that build on it:
+
+- [ ] **Network late-join wiring (end-to-end).** The engine API exists
+      (`write_solver_caches` / `read_solver_caches`, sleep-persistent
+      components, the entity-id contract) but nothing consumes it yet.
+      Build an end-to-end test through the network package's adapters:
+      serialize a live world on the "server", reconstruct on a "client"
+      (same entity ids, same link order), verify bit-identical continuation
+      over N ticks. This validates the entity-replay assumptions
+      (replicated entity ids, joint link order, system config transfer)
+      before real netcode depends on them, and decides where the blob rides
+      (snapshot message vs. component stream). System config (gravity,
+      thresholds, iteration counts, `ccdEnabled`) is part of the snapshot
+      contract — see `copy_system_config` in `determinism.spec.js` for the
+      field list.
+- [ ] **Position correction under stacked load.** Settled penetration is
+      pose-chaotic with a heavy tail reaching the limb radius (~0.3 m for
+      the ragdoll's capsules) when a body settles wedged under the
+      assembly's weight — measured across seeds and under either contact-
+      role assignment (see the 4-seed table in
+      `PhysicsSystem.ragdoll.spec.js`). Pre-existing, not a regression.
+      Investigation levers: position iterations (currently 1/substep),
+      `MAX_POSITION_BIAS` clamp, depth-proportional stiffening for deep
+      static contacts. Success metric: the cross-seed tail of
+      `lastSecondMaxPenStatic`, not any single golden seed.
+- [ ] **Sleep groups derived from manifolds (redesign).** Wake-the-island
+      currently rides on `sleep_group_next/prev` circular chains threaded at
+      atomic-sleep time — world-instance body indices that need their own
+      section in the solver-cache blob. Deriving the wake set at wake time
+      (flood over dormant contacting manifolds + joints among sleepers)
+      would delete the fields, the blob section, and the group-restore step
+      outright. Needs a per-body → manifold adjacency (or an accepted
+      O(live-slots) scan per wake call) and a perf check on wake-heavy
+      frames. Behavioural delta to design for: force-slept touching bodies
+      currently wake independently (separate singleton groups); a
+      manifold-derived flood would wake them together.
+- [x] **KILLED — pose-keyed narrowphase memo (measured 2026-06-11).** The
+      idea: skip a pair's narrowphase when both collider poses are bit-equal
+      to its last run (a pure cache; outcome-neutral by construction, proven
+      with a memo-on/off lockstep test). Implemented per-ManifoldStore (a
+      process-global cache is unsound — two engines hosting the same pair
+      ids at equal poses false-hit each other's slot content), then measured:
+      **0.0% hit rate** in every phase of a settling column, including the
+      final pre-sleep second. The premise is empirically false: warm-start
+      cancellation holds *velocity* near zero, never exactly zero, so awake
+      poses drift sub-nanometre every tick and never bit-freeze; sleeping
+      pairs never reach narrowphase at all. Reverted as pure overhead.
+      Dependent idea for the soft-solver work: a deterministic
+      micro-velocity snap-to-zero at the end of the solve would both freeze
+      resting poses bit-exact (making this memo viable) AND push
+      forever-jiggling islands (deep-column N=20, KEVA) below the sleep
+      threshold — likely the cheaper end of the same win.
+- [x] **KILLED — solver hot/cold row split (ceiling-measured 2026-06-11).**
+      The idea: split the 23-float prepared-contact records by the velocity
+      iteration's access pattern (15 hot lanes) for cache density. Measured
+      the ceiling first instead of implementing: PADDING the stride 23→31
+      (+35% row traffic) moved KEVA-mini by only ~2% — so packing −35% can
+      gain at most the same ~2%, far under the ≥10% gate. The velocity
+      solve at this scale is dominated by the slot-scattered manifold reads
+      (normal + impulses), the body-span gather/scatter and raw FLOPs, not
+      by prepared-row density. Not implemented.
+- [x] **KILLED — 4×4 manifold block solve (probe-measured 2026-06-11).**
+      Pre-integration probe on the deep columns, sweeping iteration budgets:
+      depth stability IS iteration-starved (N=30 explodes at velIters 4,
+      holds intact at 8 — the divergence is convergence failure), but the
+      never-sleeping residual is NOT — at velIters 16 the N=20 column idles
+      at residual 0.83, closer to rest than any other config, and still
+      never crosses the sleep threshold; sleep behaviour is non-monotonic
+      across budgets. That residual is a hard-constraint limit cycle
+      hovering at the threshold — a scheme property no amount of
+      Gauss-Seidel (sequential or block) removes. A block solve would only
+      buy the depth-stability half, which the soft-step scheme change
+      covers anyway (Box2D v3 dropped block solving when it adopted soft
+      step). Revisit only if post-soft-step iteration budgets remain
+      depth-limited.
+- [x] **LANDED — Box2D-v3 soft contact step (2026-06-11).** Contact normal
+      rows are soft constraints: `b2MakeSoft(hertz, ζ, h)` scales (mass scale
+      damps the velocity gain, the impulse-decay term bleeds the accumulator
+      — the critically-over-damped spring that killed the hard scheme's
+      resting limit cycle), a penetration-bias push for penetrating contacts
+      (clamped like the old position bias), and a per-substep RELAX pass
+      after position integration that strips bias-injected momentum. The
+      split-impulse position pass is skipped for contacts when soft; knobs:
+      `contactHertz = 30` (0 = bit-exact legacy hard rows), `ζ = 10`,
+      non-dynamic pairs at 2× hertz, hertz clamped to an eighth of the
+      substep rate — all pinned from Box2D v3 source.
+      A bias-free hybrid (decay without the bias push) was measured FIRST
+      and is UNSOUND: the decay bleeds the load-carrying impulse with no
+      restoring force, columns sank 3 m. Full v3 it is.
+      Measured: deep columns 15/20/30 all sleep (55/57/85 ticks; 20 never
+      slept and 30 DIVERGED under hard); KEVA-mini all-ticks median
+      90.8 → 14.8 ms (sleep arrives much sooner; awake ticks +23% from the
+      relax sweep); 24-seed ragdoll sweep: settle-accel medians ~halved,
+      impacts unchanged, settled-pen median 0.049 vs ~0.058 hard.
+      Velocity-iteration cut REJECTED by measurement: KEVA-mini's
+      convergence cliff sits between velIters 3 and 4 (2 → never sleeps,
+      3 → sleeps far later); 4×4 stays.
+      Known trades (re-pinned goldens, all documented in-test): settled
+      penetration under load is the soft equilibrium droop (~0.8 mm per
+      carried cube-weight); aligned-stack lateral creep grew ~5× (softer
+      settle-phase normal impulses lower the friction caps — tuning
+      candidate: stiffer staticSoftness or friction in the relax pass);
+      ragdoll fields idle ~2× livelier (0.74 → 1.66 residual /704 bodies —
+      tuning candidate: align joint hertz/ζ policy with contacts). The
+      ragdoll canonical seed moved to 0xBEEF42 (0xDEADB0D's drape pose
+      under soft ends in an accelerating dome roll — a growing-tail
+      outlier; the sweep keeps covering it).
+- [ ] **Cross-process repeatability of symmetry-degenerate scenes.** The
+      perfectly-aligned 10-cube tower's resting drift came out 42/57/73 mm
+      across equivalent builds during the soft-step work — each value
+      process-stable and ×3 reproducible, shifting across rebuilds whose
+      source diffs were assertion-text only. In-process determinism is
+      green (T1 lockstep, 8-trial reproducibility bench), so the seam is
+      environmental (suspect: jest transform/module environment shaping
+      sub-ulp float paths in symmetry-degenerate tie-breaks). Investigate
+      whether genuinely identical code can produce different cross-process
+      results (would matter for lockstep across restarts) or whether the
+      rebuild artefacts differed; degenerate-scene goldens use CLASS bounds
+      in the meantime.
+- [ ] **Cross-runtime float determinism audit.** Same-runtime bit-exactness
+      is done; running lockstep across *different* JS engines (or versions)
+      additionally requires auditing transcendentals — `Math.sin/cos/exp/
+      pow` are not spec-pinned (sqrt and arithmetic are IEEE-exact). Only
+      worth doing if cross-engine lockstep becomes a real deployment target;
+      same-engine replication does not need it.
+
+### Solver quality (next major work)
+
+These items move the engine from "competent" to "great". TGS is the next
+significant solver-architecture change; joints come after, once the TGS
+scaffolding is in place.
+
+- **TGS (Temporal Gauss-Seidel) substepping with split-impulse** — Phases
+      1–3 **LANDED**. The solver is now a staged TGS pipeline
+      (`solver/solve_contacts.js`: `prepare_contacts` → per substep
+      [`refresh_contacts` → `warm_start_contacts` → `solve_velocity` →
+      `solve_position`] → `apply_restitution`), driven by the substep loop in
+      `PhysicsSystem.fixedUpdate`. Defaults: `substeps = 4`,
+      `velocityIterations = 4`, `positionIterations = 1` (all fields on
+      `PhysicsSystem`).
+        - **Phase 1 — split impulse.** Position correction runs on a per-body
+          pseudo-velocity (`__pseudo_velocity`) folded into the pose by
+          `integrate_position` and discarded; depth correction never
+          contaminates persistent velocity.
+        - **Phase 2 — one-shot restitution.** Velocity pass is pure
+          non-penetration; restitution is a single post-loop pass driving
+          `vn → -e·vn_approach`, gated on a running max normal impulse
+          (`maxNormalImpulse`) so transient collisions still bounce under
+          per-substep warm-start.
+        - **Phase 3 — substep loop.** `substeps` sub-iterations at `h = dt/N`.
+          Forces consumed once at full `dt` before the loop; gravity applied
+          per substep; **warm-start replayed per substep** (the crux — a
+          per-substep impulse balances one substep of gravity, so resting
+          stacks hold at zero velocity). Contact geometry is re-derived
+          **analytically** each substep from frozen local witness anchors +
+          the trusted prepare-time depth (a sign-robust delta), so narrowphase
+          runs **once** per outer step — cheaper than the originally-planned
+          per-substep match-and-merge refresh, and exact for convex
+          primitives whose contact feature is stable under small motion.
+
+      Results vs the single-step solver: a 100:1 mass ratio now stacks
+      instead of crushing through (regression test added); 8-cube stacks
+      settle to zero velocity and sleep (were impossible long-term under SI);
+      falling-tower bench cost unchanged (~48 ms/1000 active bodies);
+      `substeps = 1` reproduces the single-step result bit-for-bit-ish
+      (one-frame restitution delay aside).
+
+      **Hard-won lessons (for REVIEW_002):**
+        - Warm-start MUST be per-substep, not once. Replaying a full-frame
+          impulse once while gravity arrives per substep over-pushes resting
+          contacts and *explodes* deep stacks. Per-substep warm-start +
+          per-substep gravity cancel exactly at rest.
+        - Restitution must gate on the *running max* normal impulse, not the
+          end-of-loop value — per-substep warm-start relaxes a transient
+          contact's `j_n` back to ~0 by the end, which would suppress the
+          bounce.
+        - Analytic separation re-derivation beats per-substep narrowphase
+          for convex shapes (cheaper, no manifold-lifecycle churn) but is
+          only as good as the frozen normal — see the concave caveat below.
+
+      Follow-ups since the core landed:
+        - [x] **Box-box SAT reference tie-break deadband** — aligned cube
+          stacks (4–10 high) now settle to zero velocity and sleep; the
+          reference-face flip-flop that creeped/toppled them is gone.
+        - [x] **Per-substep contact re-detection for concave pairs** — lifts
+          the dynamic-concave-body limitation; the torus-knot dynamic-settle
+          test is un-skipped. Concave pairs re-run narrowphase geometry each
+          substep (`redetect_concave_contacts`); convex pairs keep the cheap
+          analytic refresh.
+
+      Remaining (Phases 4–6) — now complete:
+        - [x] Regression coverage: heavy-on-light pyramid (10× capstone on two
+          light cubes settles + sleeps) and a ragdoll-stub (shoulder
+          ball-socket + elbow hinge arm hangs, stays articulated, settles).
+        - [x] REVIEW_002 retrospective — `engine/physics/REVIEW_002.md`.
+
+      References: Catto 2018 ("Soft Constraints" GDC talk + the TGS
+      follow-up); Box2D v3 source (`b2ApplyRestitution`, the substep solver
+      stages); Rapier as the closest architectural sibling.
+
+- [x] **Constraints / joints — DONE (phases 1–7 below).** One configurable
+      6-DOF joint (lock/free/limit/motor/spring + swing-twist cone-twist) plus
+      the raycast vehicle. Covers chains/ropes, ragdolls, vehicles (incl.
+      suspension), and the mechanical set (doors, pistons, welds, sliders,
+      powered hinges/wheels). The design rationale below is kept as history; the
+      phasing checklist records what landed. Solver/joint retrospective in
+      `REVIEW_003.md`.
+
+      Original framing (now satisfied): TGS unblocked it (joint-chain
+      convergence is a TGS sweet spot), warm-start + per-substep + island
+      machinery was reusable, and the SPOOK compliance dial gave spring
+      constraints essentially for free.
+
+      **Foundational work (do first): generalise the solver to constraint
+      rows.** Today `solver/solve_contacts.js` is hard-coded to the
+      contact-shape constraint (normal + 2 friction tangents, ≥0 clamp,
+      restitution, penetration bias). Joints are equality / inequality
+      constraints on relative velocity at anchors, generally bilateral
+      (impulse may be ±) with optional limits and motors. The clean shape —
+      and what Jolt / Box2D-v3 do — is a **generic constraint row**: a
+      Jacobian (linear + angular parts per body), an effective mass, a bias
+      (position error × SPOOK gain, or motor target), and impulse bounds
+      `[lo, hi]` (`[0,∞)` for a contact/limit, `(−∞,∞)` for an equality,
+      `[−maxForce·h, +maxForce·h]` for a motor). Each joint type just fills
+      in its rows; the existing per-body impulse-apply primitive
+      (`apply_impulse_to_body` + `world_inverse_inertia_apply`), the
+      per-substep warm-start, the islands, and the split-impulse / SPOOK
+      position handling are all reused. Contacts become *one* constraint
+      type among several rather than the hard-coded path.
+
+      The specific constraint set, its use-case mapping, and per-type
+      architecture-fit assessment are under review (see the constraints
+      sketch). High level: ball-socket / distance / spring / weld and the
+      grab constraint are near drop-ins on the row machinery; hinge /
+      prismatic / cone-twist / motors / limits add angular-row + bounded-row
+      mechanics (still within the impulse framework); raycast vehicles,
+      conveyor surface-velocity, and gear/pulley coupling are higher-level
+      systems or contact modifiers that sit *on top of* the primitives
+      rather than being generic rows.
+
+      **Decision: build ONE configurable 6-DOF constraint** (PhysX D6 / Jolt
+      SixDOF), implemented mode-by-mode. The `Joint` ECS component carries
+      `dofMode[6]` (3 linear, 3 angular) each `{locked|free|limited|spring|
+      motor}` + per-DOF limit/spring/motor config + warm-start accumulators.
+      Concrete joints are configs, not new code (ball-socket = lock 3 linear;
+      hinge = lock 3 linear + 2 angular; weld = lock 6; cone-twist = lock 3
+      linear + limit 3 angular; suspension = spring 1 linear + lock rest).
+
+      Phasing:
+        1. [x] Constraint-row solver as a **parallel row set** in the TGS
+           substep loop (contacts left untouched, not ported — lower risk).
+           `constraint/solve_constraints.js` reuses `world_inverse_inertia`,
+           per-substep warm-start, and the SPOOK position bias; `Joint`
+           component + `link_joint`/`unlink_joint` in PhysicsSystem;
+           `jointIterations` knob. Bodies need no collider.
+        2. [x] **LOCKED linear DOFs → ball-socket.** Pendulum (anchor pinned
+           to a world pivot, body swings) and a 2-link chain (body↔body,
+           joints stay connected, chain hangs) pass. → **chains, ropes,
+           pendulums working.**
+        3. [x] LOCKED angular + linear DOFs in the frame basis — **weld,
+           hinge, prismatic done**. Joint frame bases
+           (`localBasisA`/`localBasisB`); BOTH linear and angular rows now
+           resolve in frame A's axes (cleared the world-axis linear debt — the
+           solver is fully frame-relative). Angular: relative rotation
+           `qD = conj(qA)·qB` → small-angle error, ωB−ωA rows + SPOOK bias.
+           Linear: `C·axis` error, vA−vB rows. `asWeld()` / `asHinge(axis)` /
+           `asPrismatic(axis)` presets. Verified: weld holds pose + orientation
+           against an off-centre torque; hinge swings about its free axis only
+           (locked axes < 0.02); prismatic slides along its one free axis,
+           locked on the others; all LOCKED-mode tests still green after the
+           frame-basis rewrite.
+        4. [x] LIMITED + MOTOR (bounded rows) → doors, pistons, wheel
+           spin/drive, joint ROM. **LIMITED done** (linear + angular):
+           `setLinearLimit(axis,lo,hi)` / `setAngularLimit(axis,lo,hi)` set a
+           per-DOF travel/ROM range. The whole row set is now **one mode-
+           agnostic solve** parameterised by `(bias, clamp range)`: LOCKED is
+           the bilateral case (Baumgarte bias, unclamped); LIMITED is a
+           **speculative (β=1) one-sided velocity constraint** that removes
+           exactly the approach velocity so the DOF *lands on* its stop (no
+           penetration, no rebound — an inelastic end-stop) and self-gates when
+           far from the bound; only the push-out side of the bias is clamped so
+           a teleport is eased out, not yanked. Verified: a vertical slider
+           falls freely then stops dead on its lower stop (lands at the bound,
+           no overshoot/rebound, locked axes held); a spun hinge stops dead on
+           each ±end-stop with no rebound and holds. Angular position is the
+           small-angle measure (`2·sin(θ/2)`) — accurate for modest ROM, see
+           phase 6 for wide cones. **MOTOR next** (target-velocity row, impulse
+           clamped to `±maxForce·h`).
+        5. [x] SPRING (SPOOK soft) → suspension, bungees, soft ragdolls.
+           `setLinearSpring(axis,k,c)` / `setAngularSpring(axis,k,c)`. A
+           compliant (regularised) row in the same unified solve: per substep
+           `denom = c + h·k`, compliance `γ = 1/(h·denom)`, restoring bias
+           `(k/denom)·C`, softened mass `1/(K+γ)`; the iteration carries one
+           extra `+ γ·λ_accum` term (γ = 0 ⇒ the LOCKED/LIMITED/MOTOR rows are
+           bit-for-bit unchanged). Verified: a vertical strut settles at exactly
+           the m·g/k deflection and a stiffer spring sags less and stays stable;
+           an undamped spring oscillates about equilibrium (stores energy) while
+           a damped one comes to rest; a torsional spring holds a gravity-loaded
+           hinge at its balance angle. Suspension element ready (the simulated-
+           wheel option for phase 7); also the soft basis for cone-twist.
+        6. [x] Cone-twist / swing-twist angular limits → ragdolls. Opt-in
+           `Joint.swingTwist` (or the `asConeTwist(twistLo,twistHi,swingY[,swingZ])`
+           preset) switches the angular position measure from the per-axis
+           small-angle vector to a swing-twist decomposition: angular X = twist
+           about the bone, Y/Z = swing off it, each an **exact** angle. The
+           existing LIMITED/SPRING/LOCKED rows are reused unchanged on those
+           positions, so a twist/swing limit holds at the true angle at wide
+           ROM (a 1.2 rad swing stops at 1.2, where the small-angle proxy
+           drifts to ~1.287). Verified: exact swing/twist stops, free-within-
+           cone, twist/swing independence; default (small-angle) path untouched.
+           **Decision — inlined, not the Quaternion method.** Benchmarked the
+           allocation-free inlined `swing_twist_error` against
+           `Quaternion.computeSwingAndTwist` (`swing_twist.bench.spec.js`): the
+           inline is **~5x** faster than the method with reused out-params and
+           **~10x** vs the naive fresh-allocation form (object property access +
+           normalize + a quaternion multiply + GC). In the per-substep
+           per-joint hot loop that margin is worth the duplicated math, so the
+           solver inlines it (the Quaternion method stays for general callers).
+        7. [x] Vehicle layer — **raycast-vehicle controller**
+           (`vehicle/RaycastVehicle.js`): single chassis body + raycast wheels.
+           Per frame (before `fixedUpdate`) each wheel casts its suspension ray,
+           applies a spring+damper suspension force along the contact normal
+           (`applyForceAt`), and a tyre-friction impulse (`applyImpulseAt`) —
+           lateral grip that cancels side-slip plus longitudinal drive/brake,
+           clamped together to a friction circle μ·N. `addWheel`, `setSteering`,
+           `setDriveForce`, `setBrake`; per-wheel runtime (contact, compression,
+           normal, spin) for rendering. A controller on top of the public
+           `raycast` + force API, not a new constraint; the 6-DOF spring+motor
+           is the simulated-wheel alternative. Verified: hovers on its springs
+           (4 contacts, settled), drives/coasts/brakes along its axis, tyre grip
+           arrests a sideways shove, steering turns it upright, and it free-falls
+           cleanly when airborne. Note: suspension is one dt-force per frame (not
+           per-substep), so a resting chassis carries a ~g·h velocity-sample
+           artifact (it hovers stably; position is steady to sub-cm). Ray
+           accuracy follows `PhysicsSystem.raycast` — now narrowphase-exact for
+           sphere / box / capsule / mesh / heightmap ground.
+        8. [ ] Extras: pulley, gear, conveyor (contact surface-velocity),
+           breakable-joint flag.
+
+      Foundation gaps — both now closed:
+        - [x] **Island integration.** Jointed dynamic-dynamic bodies are
+          unioned into one island (`IslandBuilder` Pass 1b), so a chain /
+          ragdoll sleeps and wakes as a unit; `__wake_joints` propagates wake
+          across a joint when one side is awake and the other asleep
+          (e.g. a kinematic/motor driver pulling a sleeping chain). Verified:
+          a damped chain settles and both links sleep in one sleep group.
+        - [x] **Generation-checked body references.** `solve_joints`,
+          `IslandBuilder` Pass 1b and `__wake_joints` all gate on
+          `storage.is_valid(packedId)`, so a joint to an unlinked / slot-reused
+          body goes inert instead of attaching to the wrong body or crashing.
+          Verified: unlinking a jointed body leaves the joint inert and the
+          survivor free.
+
+      References: Catto / Box2D-v3 joint solvers; Jolt's `Constraint` base
+      (`SetupVelocityConstraint` / `WarmStartVelocityConstraint` /
+      `SolveVelocityConstraint` / `SolvePositionConstraint`); PhysX D6 /
+      ODE joint taxonomy.
+
+### Stability
+- [x] **Closed-form triangle-vs-primitive solvers** — `sphere_triangle_contact`
+      / `box_triangle_contact` / `capsule_triangle_contact` (P1.1a–c), wired into
+      the concave decomposition dispatch in place of per-triangle GJK+EPA for
+      those primitives. Un-skipped the `narrowphase_concave.spec.js` ball-on-
+      heightmap / mesh-cube settle tests and the `PhysicsSystem.spec.js`
+      torus-knot test. Per-triangle GJK+EPA remains only as the fallback for
+      *other* convex shapes vs triangles. `compute_penetration` now routes
+      through the shared narrowphase dispatch (`deepest_pair_penetration`), so it
+      uses the closed-form per-triangle solvers too — the old closed-mesh
+      over-report is gone; the half-space test is retained only as a
+      tunnel-recovery fallback.
+- [x] **Edge-edge multi-point manifold** — *resolved by design (no code
+      change needed).* An empirical SAT-source sweep over a wide range of
+      box-box orientations shows the single-point edge-cross branch only ever
+      wins for **transverse** edge crossings (inter-edge angle ≈ 83-90°), where
+      a single closest-pair point is geometrically exact. A near-parallel edge
+      pair gives a near-degenerate `edgeA × edgeB` that never becomes the SAT
+      minimum, so near-parallel ("line") edge contacts resolve through the
+      multi-point **face-clipping** path instead — confirmed by regression
+      tests in `box_box_manifold.spec.js` (near-parallel tilted boxes → ≥ 2
+      points; transverse crossing → exactly 1 exact point). The originally
+      planned refinement targeted a case the geometry can't produce, so it is
+      closed rather than implemented.
+- [x] **Per-contact source-collider tracking (materials)** — multi-material
+      compound bodies now get accurate per-contact friction / restitution. The
+      narrowphase combines the specific (colliderA, colliderB) pair's
+      coefficients at dispatch time (the only place that knows the source
+      collider on each side — `contact/combine_material.js`) and stamps them
+      into the manifold (CONTACT_STRIDE grown 14 → 16, offsets 14/15); the
+      solver reads them per contact instead of from the body's primary collider.
+      Regression test: an asymmetric-friction compound body yaws when shoved
+      (the grippy collider drags), and a symmetric control does not. Still
+      primary-collider-only: the contact-filter callback's collider args and the
+      body-level sensor / concave flags (smaller follow-up).
+- [ ] **Joint-aware island sleep (ragdoll settle quality).** A draped,
+      self-colliding 10-joint ragdoll does not fully sleep in 10 s — surfaced by
+      a 1000-seed Monte-Carlo sweep (`PhysicsSystem.ragdoll.spec.js`, `.skip`):
+      for unlucky seeds a distal limb sustains a settled limit cycle (settled
+      finite-difference accel up to ~1094 m/s² / ~1479 rad/s² at a limb end vs a
+      ~55 m/s² median — bounded, non-growing, penetration-free, so a quality gap
+      not a divergence). The sleep test today is per-body `|v|²+|ω|²`; an island
+      over-constrained by cone-twist limits + self-contacts keeps small residual
+      jiggle above the per-body threshold so it never crosses into sleep.
+      Candidate fixes: sleep a jointed/contacting island on its AGGREGATE motion
+      rather than the per-body minimum, and/or a settled-regime relaxation (zero
+      restitution + extra position iterations) once an island's energy is low.
+      The sweep flags the worst seeds for replay. (Test infra also adds
+      per-point kinematics tracking — joint anchors + limb ends, with
+      displacement→velocity→acceleration and the angular equivalents.)
+- [x] **Box-on-heightmap settling — RESOLVED.** A dynamic box dropped onto a
+      static HeightMapShape — flat seam straddle AND the sloped dip — settles to
+      full rest; the `PhysicsSystem.heightmap.spec.js` dip-drop reproducer is
+      un-skipped and passing. Fixed by the combination of the same-feature-id
+      contact de-dup in `redetect_pair_geometry` (1:1 claimed matching, so the
+      several contacts one triangle emits — all sharing its feature_id — no longer
+      collapse onto a single candidate) and the HeightMapShape3D
+      collision-tessellation work; together they give the box a stable per-substep
+      contact set instead of a churning / collapsing one.
+
+      Root cause, for the record: the historical "never settles" rattle was a
+      depth divergence between the once-per-step `narrowphase_step` and the
+      per-substep `redetect_pair_geometry`. At the SAME pose, re-detection
+      over-reported a box-vs-triangle penetration as ~1 m (the "exit through the
+      far side" class) where narrowphase reported ~1 cm, launching the box into an
+      eternal vertical bounce (touch → ~1 m over-correction → separate → fall back
+      → re-contact). Both paths call the identical `dispatch_pair`, so the
+      divergence was the same-fid collapse corrupting the matched geometry; with
+      the de-dup in place the two paths now agree (verified: both report
+      [0.0100 ×4] at a 0.01-deep flat contact, in-cell and 4-triangle straddle).
+
+      Guards: `narrowphase/redetect_pair_geometry.spec.js` now pins BOTH
+      invariants — contacts sharing a feature_id keep distinct witnesses, and
+      re-detect depth == narrowphase depth at a fixed pose (in-cell and
+      4-triangle seam-straddle cases); `ecs/PhysicsSystem.heightmap.spec.js` pins
+      the observable settle. The depth-equality regression test the earlier
+      diagnostic trail asked for is in place, closing this out.
+
+### Performance / Scale
+- [x] **Per-body linear CCD shape-cast** — opt-in continuous collision for
+      fast movers where the speculative margin isn't enough.
+      `RigidBodyFlags.CCD` (off by default) + `ccd/linear_sweep.js`.
+        - **Approach (Box2D `b2_continuousPhysics`-style conservative
+          advancement).** After the substep solver produces each body's final
+          pose (between `apply_restitution` and the sleep test), a flagged fast
+          mover's primary collider is swept along its NET step translation
+          (start-of-step → final pose) through the existing `shape_cast` TOI
+          engine. On the first blocker the body is clamped to the contact pose
+          and its inbound normal velocity removed (an inelastic stop); the next
+          discrete step resolves the now-touching contact with the real
+          material / restitution. Reuses `shape_cast` wholesale — no new
+          geometry. Start positions captured in Stage 1 over the post-wake awake
+          set; the pass iterates the awake list in storage order (deterministic).
+        - **Motion gate — absolute slop, NOT body extent.** A body is swept when
+          it moved more than `CCD_MIN_SWEEP_DISTANCE` (1 mm) this step. The gate
+          exists only to skip near-stationary bodies (degenerate sweep + cost).
+          It is deliberately *not* a fraction of the body's own size: tunnelling
+          risk is set by the **obstacle's** thickness, not the mover's — a 2 m
+          sphere drifting 0.5 m/step still passes clean through a 1 cm floor, so
+          an extent-based gate would (wrongly) wait until the body moved more
+          than its own radius and miss every thin-obstacle tunnel below that
+          speed.
+        - **No self-clamp on resting/sliding contacts.** The sweep ignores an
+          impact at `t ≈ 0` (`CCD_INITIAL_OVERLAP_EPS`): an initial overlap is a
+          contact the body already sits/slides on, owned by the discrete solver,
+          not a tunnel — clamping there would freeze the body to the surface.
+        - **Measured (falling-tower bench, 1000 random shapes onto a 1 cm floor,
+          600 ticks; clean A/B on identical code via `ccdEnabled`).** This bench
+          is the WRONG validation vehicle for CCD, and the numbers prove it: CCD
+          off → **10/1000 tunnel**, median **42.7 ms**/step; all 1000 flagged →
+          **50/1000 tunnel**, median **61.6 ms**. CCD makes it *worse*. The bench
+          is a dense-pile **squeeze-through** scenario — 1000 bodies stacked on a
+          1 cm floor, forced through by the column's weight over many steps — which
+          is a *solver* limitation, not a missed single-step fly-through. CCD's
+          post-solve clamp + velocity-kill fights the solver in a dense settling
+          pile (it teleports mutually-stacking dynamics and breaks warm-start), so
+          flagging a whole pile is an anti-pattern. CCD's real job — stopping a
+          sparse fast mover against thin geometry — is validated by
+          `ccd/linear_sweep.spec.js` (9 tests: a fast cube tunnels a thin floor
+          without the flag and is stopped with it; deterministic; resting bodies
+          undisturbed). **Correction:** an earlier version of this entry and the
+          commit message (`42163b0d4`) claimed a "0/1000 tunnel, 58.2 ms" on-leg
+          — that was never measured (a session tooling glitch); the real on-leg
+          is 50/1000 / 61.6 ms.
+        - **Scope (v1, documented):** linear sweep only (orientation fixed
+          through the sweep); primary same-entity collider (child-entity
+          colliders, synced outside the step, are not swept); EXACT against
+          static geometry, APPROXIMATE against other dynamics (their
+          start-of-step broadphase AABBs); the CCD stop is inelastic (the impact
+          itself doesn't bounce — restitution applies on the next discrete
+          contact); Dynamic bodies only. A body both resting on one surface and
+          tunnelling another in the same step resolves only the resting contact
+          (the `t ≈ 0` skip) — rare; the next discrete step catches the rest.
+        - **Follow-ups (the dense-pile finding points the way):** sweep against
+          STATIC geometry only by default — the dynamic-vs-dynamic clamp is the
+          source of the dense-pile interference above and is only ever
+          approximate anyway, so dropping it should make CCD purely additive
+          (stops you at static walls/floors, never fights the dynamic stack);
+          a proper TOI sub-solver for bullet-vs-dynamic; rotational / angular
+          CCD; multi-collider sweep for compound bodies.
+- [x] **Broadphase BVH balance — SAH rotation.** The dynamic AABB tree
+      (`core/bvh2/bvh3/BVH.js`, a Box2D port) used SAH-cost insertion but a
+      *height-only* AVL rotation (`balance_height`): height-balanced yet not
+      SAH-balanced, so queries walked more nodes than needed. Replaced the
+      rotation in `bubble_up_update` with `balance_rotate` — the Box2D-v3 /
+      Kensler SAH-reducing rotation (for node A with children B, C, evaluate the
+      four child↔grandchild swaps and apply the one that most reduces the
+      surface-area cost). Deterministic; identical pair set.
+        - Measured (same-session A/B, heavy benches): raycast **−9%**
+          (28.2→25.6 µs/ray), falling-tower median **−10%**, settling-grid
+          median **−12%**, and the **990/1000-churn stress −27%**
+          (63.95→46.68 ms mean over 10k ticks) — biggest where the tree churns
+          hardest. Determinism (8-trial bit-identical) holds.
+        - **Insertion cost (measured):** `balance_rotate` does 4 surface-area
+          evaluations per bubble-up level vs `balance_height`'s single height
+          compare, so *pure bulk insertion* is **~1.4–1.5× slower** — the 100k
+          synthetic insert bench (`BVH.spec.js`, drift-controlled interleaved
+          A/B) drops from **~37k → ~25k inserts/sec** (~27→~40 µs/insert). This
+          is the balancer's worst case (insert-only, zero queries/refits to
+          amortise against). It does not show up end-to-end: static trees are
+          built once then queried forever, dynamic bodies insert once then
+          refit/query every frame, and even the 990/1000-swap stress test — the
+          maximal insert-churn workload — is net **−27%**. Accepted.
+        - **Tradeoff (documented):** the contact solver's Gauss-Seidel order
+          follows broadphase traversal order (see `generate_pairs`), so the
+          different tree shape shifts convergence on near-aligned stacks — the
+          synthetic 128-cube wall now sleeps at ~10 s (was ~6.9 s). It still
+          settles, doesn't creep / topple (all bug-guard assertions hold); only
+          the sleep *time* moved (that test's budget was bumped 9→11 s with a
+          note). Random-shape scenes (falling tower) were faster *and* settled
+          fine.
+        - **Follow-up:** decouple the solve order from tree shape — sort the
+          broadphase pair list by `(idA, idB)` before narrowphase so contact
+          order is body-id-deterministic regardless of tree shape. Then no tree
+          change can affect convergence (and the stack settles identically under
+          either balancer). Has a per-step sort cost + wide test re-baseline, so
+          it's its own task. `balance_height` is retained for comparison /
+          fallback.
+- [ ] **Per-island parallel solve**: today's island data layout would
+      allow worker-based solving once `SharedArrayBuffer` is available.
+      Out-of-scope unless / until SAB is universally usable.
+
+### Features
+- [ ] **Convex collision proxies for dynamic concave bodies.** The long-term
+      replacement for the interim per-substep concave re-detection (see
+      Limitations) — and how every major engine handles dynamic non-convex
+      shapes: collide a *few* convex pieces, never the raw concave mesh.
+        1. **3D convex hull builder** (meep has only 2D hulls today —
+           `core/geom/2d/convex-hull/`). A single hull of a mesh is one
+           collider / one broadphase leaf and covers the overwhelming majority
+           of dynamic objects (thrown props, debris). Pairs with the existing
+           "Convex hull shape + eigen-inertia" item below.
+        2. **Few-hull (V-HACD-style) approximate convex decomposition** for
+           shapes whose concavity matters (a cup, a chair): ~8–64 fat convex
+           hulls = 8–64 colliders, two orders of magnitude below a tet mesh.
+      Each hull is convex → stable contact feature → the TGS analytic refresh
+      is exact → no per-substep re-detection, no rocking. Granularity is the
+      whole point: collider/BVH-leaf count must stay small for an *awake*
+      dynamic body (the volumetric tet-mesher under `core/geom/3d/tetrahedra/`
+      is the wrong tool here — thousands of pieces — and belongs to a future
+      FEM/soft-body subsystem, not rigid collision).
+- [ ] **Convex hull shape** with eigen-based principal-axes inertia
+      derivation. Hooks `matrix_eigenvalues_in_place` from the existing
+      linalg layer.
+- [~] **Cylinder / cone shapes.**
+    - [x] **`CylinderShape3D`** — Y-aligned solid cylinder (radius + full
+          height, flat caps; the capsule's flat-cap sibling). Exact `support`,
+          capped-cylinder SDF, bounds, `contains` / `nearest_point` /
+          volume-sampling, equals/hash, `'cylinder'` JSON tag, `isCylinderShape3D`
+          marker. Convex → routes through the narrowphase **GJK + EPA** fallback
+          (no marker dispatch needed); spec asserts overlap-detected +
+          MTV-separates vs sphere/box. Closed-form cylinder-vs-X contact pairs
+          are a future refinement (the curved side is the usual smooth-support
+          EPA case — same status as pre-closed-form sphere/capsule).
+    - [ ] Closed-form cylinder contact pairs (cylinder × box / sphere / capsule
+          / plane) for multi-point cap manifolds + stable resting.
+    - [ ] **Cone shape** (+ closed-form / GJK fallback).
+
+### Rendering integration
+- [ ] **Fixed-step → render interpolation.** Not implemented yet. Physics writes
+      each body's pose straight into the ECS `Transform` once per fixed step
+      (`EntityManager.fixedUpdateStepSize`); with a render rate that doesn't match
+      the fixed rate, the rendered motion aliases (stutter / temporal aliasing,
+      worst at low fixed rates). Designed as a cross-cutting system (render +
+      physics-as-producer + network-as-producer), reusing the network package's
+      agnostic interpolation primitives rather than a physics-local mechanism.
+      Full design + phasing: **see
+      [`INTEPOLATION_SYSTEM_PLAN.md`](./INTEPOLATION_SYSTEM_PLAN.md)**. Locked
+      decisions: a neutral shared interpolation log/adapters (lifted out of
+      `network/`); physics restores authoritative pose from the log at step start
+      (no solver rewiring) and records moved bodies' snapshots at step end;
+      blend → `Transform` at `preRender`; O(moving) not O(N); rewind-safe via the
+      tick-keyed log.
+
+### API polish
+- [x] **`overlap(shape, position, rotation, output, output_offset,
+      filter?)`** — broadphase + narrowphase overlap query for kinematic
+      / AOE / selection use cases. Body_ids written into a caller-sized
+      Uint32Array buffer. Convex query shape only; concave candidates
+      are routed through the per-triangle decomposition path.
+- [x] **`shapeCast(ray, shape, rotation, result, filter?)`** for
+      character controllers and kinematic shape sweeps. Broadphase
+      swept-AABB against both BVHs; per-candidate AABB-slab interval
+      narrowing + coarse step + GJK bisection for time-of-impact. The
+      output `result.normal` is the true contact-surface normal at the
+      kiss point, computed by re-running GJK + EPA at `best_t` on the
+      winning candidate (falls back to `-ray.direction` only on EPA
+      degeneracies).
+- [x] **`compute_penetration(out_direction, shape_a, pos_a, rot_a,
+      shape_b, pos_b, rot_b)`** — standalone geometry primitive (no
+      PhysicsSystem) for resolving overlap between two shapes at given
+      poses. Returns depth + outward direction. **Hardened** to route through
+      the shared narrowphase dispatch (`deepest_pair_penetration`): exact
+      closed-form for sphere/box/capsule pairs (box-box via SAT), GJK+EPA for
+      general convex, closed-form per-triangle for convex × concave; the
+      half-space test is retained only for tunnel recovery.
+
+### Raycast narrowphase (done)
+
+**Problem.** `raycast` (and the suspension ray inside `RaycastVehicle`) resolves
+only to the nearest BVH leaf's *inflated* AABB: `result.t` is the distance to
+that fattened box and `result.normal` is its face normal. Exact for an
+axis-aligned box (modulo the broadphase margin), coarse for spheres / capsules /
+rotated boxes / meshes / heightmaps. Refine each candidate against the true
+shape to return the exact surface distance + normal. `shapeCast` already does
+this for swept convex shapes via GJK+EPA; `raycast` should get the same
+treatment with cheap analytic primitives on the hot path.
+
+**Design.** Mirror `narrowphase_step`'s dispatch: closed-form ray tests for the
+common primitives, a generic GJK fallback for the rest. The structural change is
+in the BVH walk — the nearest *leaf AABB* is **not** the nearest *shape hit* (a
+ray can clip a near fat-AABB but miss its shape while hitting a farther one), so
+every crossing leaf must be refined, with subtrees pruned by inflated-AABB
+`t_near` vs the best *refined* `t` (conservative-correct: a shape hit is always
+≥ its tight AABB entry ≥ its inflated AABB entry). A leaf whose ray crosses the
+fat AABB but misses the true shape now contributes **no hit** — the key
+correctness gain.
+
+Phasing (each phase: implement → spec → run from `H:/git/moh` → commit):
+
+1. [x] **Ray-primitive helpers** — originally landed as `narrowphase/ray_shapes.js`,
+   later EXTRACTED to `core/geom/3d/{sphere,box,capsule}/{sphere3,box3,capsule3}_raycast.js`
+   (the (`t`, normal, miss = `Infinity`, first-hit-from-outside) convention is a
+   fine general raycast contract, and a ray-vs-capsule primitive was otherwise
+   missing engine-wide; the dispatch still shares one ray→local transform across
+   them). Built local-frame (unit direction ⇒ `t` preserved;
+   rotate the local normal back). Triangle MT is inlined in the concave path
+   (the existing `computeTriangleRayIntersection` writes a `SurfacePoint3` and
+   returns no `t` — unsuited to the buffer-flyweight loop). Colocated specs.
+2. [x] **Ray-narrowphase dispatch** `narrowphase/refine_ray_hit.js`:
+   `(shape, position, rotation, ox,oy,oz, dx,dy,dz, tMax, outNormal) → t`.
+   Type-marker dispatch to the analytic primitives. Originally landed for
+   `isSphereShape3D` / `isBoxShape3D` / `isCapsuleShape3D` only, with the other
+   half — "a generic convex fallback for `TransformedShape3D` / `UnionShape3D` /
+   other (GJK ray-cast, or reuse `shape_cast` with a zero-radius
+   `PointShape3D`)" — ticked but **never written**; those shapes returned
+   `RAY_REFINE_UNSUPPORTED` and were answered by their bounding box, which is
+   what BUG-7 turned out to be. Closed instead by making the dispatch total over
+   the engine's own shapes: closed-form tests for the convex hull, cylinder,
+   triangle and point, and a local-frame recursion for the three wrappers. The
+   generic GJK ray-cast is no longer needed — it was only ever the plan for
+   shapes that now have exact tests.
+3. [x] **Concave path** in the dispatch: for `is_convex === false` (mesh /
+   heightmap), enumerate the triangles overlapping the ray's swept AABB
+   (`mesh_enumerate_triangles` / `heightmap_enumerate_triangles`), Möller–
+   Trumbore each, take the nearest; normal from the triangle winding.
+4. [x] **Rewire `queries/raycast.js`**: at each leaf, call `refine_ray_hit` on
+   the true shape + pose instead of accepting the AABB `t_near`; track the best
+   refined `(t, body, normal)`; keep subtree pruning on inflated-AABB `t_near`.
+   Same signature / `PhysicsSurfacePoint` result; drop the AABB-face-normal
+   block. Multi-collider bodies still resolve the primary collider only
+   (inherited BVH-leaf limitation; note it).
+5. [x] **Tests**: per-shape exactness (sphere / OBB / capsule / mesh /
+   heightmap) — exact `t` and true normal; the **fat-AABB-cross-but-shape-miss
+   ⇒ no hit** case (the correctness win); nearest-of-several across a near miss;
+   `filter` and `tMax` honoured. Re-verify `RaycastVehicle` (ride height now
+   exact — tighten the test bands if they shift by the old broadphase margin).
+6. [x] **Bench + docs**: a raycast micro-bench (analytic fast-path cost; confirm
+   the fat-AABB-miss rejection doesn't regress throughput); update the "Public
+   queries" entry, `raycast.js` header, and the `RaycastVehicle` "AABB-level"
+   caveat once exact.
+
+Note: this sharpens `RaycastVehicle` suspension on non-box ground and every
+shape query; it does not change the broadphase or any API surface.
+
+---
+
+## Future / out-of-scope
+
+These are explicit architectural exclusions or post-v1 explorations.
+
+### Architecture
+- **Cross-runtime bit-exact determinism**: a soft-float library would
+  replace `Math.sin/cos/exp/log/pow` in the hot path. The codebase is
+  already structured to make this a swap-in at `quat3_integrate.js` and
+  tangent-basis construction in `build_manifold.js`. Not pursued because
+  the same-runtime determinism we have covers the common cases (single-
+  device replay, networked lockstep where all clients run the same JS
+  engine).
+- **WASM / SIMD**: the engine targets pure-JS portability. SIMD would
+  invalidate the determinism story (V8 doesn't expose deterministic
+  Float64x2 ops).
+- **Multi-threaded solver**: workers don't share memory cheaply without
+  `SharedArrayBuffer` plus the COOP/COEP HTTP headers, which are not
+  always available. Single-threaded is good-enough for the awake-body
+  budget that matters.
+- **Packed-SoA body dynamics state — DECIDED AGAINST; do not re-open.** A
+  reviewer will note that `BodyStorage` is SoA for *identity* (entity /
+  generation / kind / flags / awake-set) but the per-body *dynamics* state —
+  velocity, inertia, mass, force/torque accumulators — lives on the `RigidBody`
+  **component object** (each carrying several `Vector3` = `Float64Array` + an
+  `onChanged` Signal), in a sparse `__bodies[]` array reached by pointer-chase,
+  not packed by slot. The same is true of `Collider` and `Joint`. This is a
+  deliberate, settled choice, not an oversight: **meep is an ECS engine, and
+  `RigidBody` / `Collider` / `Joint` are public-API components.** Them being
+  first-class objects is a UX choice and uniformity with the rest of the engine —
+  it is what makes them authorable, serializable (`toJSON`/`fromJSON` + binary
+  adapters), value-diffable (`equals`/`hash` for netcode replication), and
+  observable (`Vector3.onChanged`), exactly like every other component. A
+  packed-SoA body pool would buy locality on the *awake* integration sweeps at
+  the cost of breaking that uniformity and the public component contract. The
+  design instead leans on "mostly-sleeping" (per-body iteration is over the
+  *awake* set only), keeps the genuinely O(contacts) inner loop in flat SoA
+  (manifolds + solver scratch), and has the hot paths index the component
+  vectors' `Float64Array` backing directly to skip the observer (see
+  Determinism). This is final — do not resurface it as a "fix".
+- **Single in-flight solve (module-scoped solver scratch).**
+  `solver/solve_contacts.js` keeps its cross-stage state (the `g_*` counters and
+  the `scratch_*` arrays) at module scope — one copy shared by all worlds, not
+  per `PhysicsSystem`. Deliberate: every world reuses one set of scratch, and
+  it's safe because the engine is single-threaded and steps one `fixedUpdate` at
+  a time. The ceiling it sets: two `PhysicsSystem` instances cannot be stepped
+  concurrently or re-entrantly (the second clobbers the first's solver scratch).
+  Accepted for a single-world, single-threaded engine; lifting it would need
+  per-system scratch (or a solver-context object threaded through the stages).
+
+### Simulation extensions
+- **Soft body / cloth / fluids**: the SoA layout in `BodyStorage` and the
+  manifold cache are rigid-body shaped. A soft-body system would be a
+  parallel subsystem, not an extension.
+- **Reduced-coordinate articulations** (MuJoCo / Featherstone-style):
+  game-physics audience runs in maximal coordinates by convention. Not
+  on the roadmap.
+
+### Game-side
+- **Vehicle physics** (suspensions, drivetrains): a domain layer that
+  sits on top of the rigid-body primitives, not in `meep/`.
+- **Character controllers**: same — `engine/control/first-person/` is the
+  natural home.
+
+---
+
+## Notable design files
+
+- Original design plan: `C:\Users\Alex\.claude\plans\let-s-plan-to-implement-transient-harp.md`
+- This file (state of play): `engine/physics/PLAN.md`