RFC-0006 — Interaction and movement modes

Status: proposed v0 · 2026-10-07 · Implementation target, pending owner review.

Decision

Movement modes are replaceable controllers behind a core-owned policy boundary. Interactions are semantic actions evaluated by core against a world snapshot. A movement provider proposes motion; it never owns the seat, focus or authoritative player pose. The first built-ins are com.hyprune.fly and com.hyprune.walk. Free flight is available in M0; walking requires validated collision in M1/M2. Teleport and accessibility-oriented point navigation can follow without changing shells.

Controller interface

The following is the internal conceptual interface, not an already published wire API:

activate(context) -> initial controller state
step(dt, actionState, pose, collisionQueries) -> motionIntent
suspend(reason) -> release transient state
resume(context)
deactivate(reason)

dt is 1/60 second; pose uses RFC-0004 coordinates. Actions are named semantics (move.forward, move.strafe, look, jump, interact, cancel) with scalar/vector values after user binding and accessibility mapping. A motion intent proposes translation, orientation and a movement policy; the core clamps acceleration/speed, resolves collision, and commits the pose. Queries use immutable collision data and return bounded results. Providers cannot disable emergency exit or session-lock handling.

Mode switch via movement.set is atomic: suspend old controller, clear held actions, validate new mode against world features, activate at the current safe pose, publish revision. If activation fails, resume the old mode with cleared transient inputs and return an error. Walking rejects worlds without collision; do not silently turn gravity on inside an unvalidated scene. World changes select a safe supported mode and validated spawn.

Interaction arbitration

Priority is lock/desktop escape -> compositor shortcuts -> exclusive shell overlay -> focused app interaction -> world action -> movement. A target ray comes from the camera used to render the visible frame. interact resolves a typed target (surface, anchor or approved integration action) once on press; a hold action cannot retarget halfway through. World data names anchors and zones, not arbitrary commands. Integrations expose registered actions through later broker contracts and explicit grants.

A plugin crash or missed movement deadline holds the last safe pose, clears movement velocity and shows a notice. A held key may never continue driving motion after shell claim, focus transition or reconnect. User configuration controls speed, sensitivity, inversion and bindings in core; shell is a settings view. Reduced motion supports instant transitions, no camera bob and a fixed horizon. Keyboard-only navigation and a direct desktop exit are required.

Extension delivery

M0/M1 controllers are trusted built-ins compiled with core. M2 third-party movement controllers run out-of-process; avoid a synchronous round trip on every render. They consume bounded simulation snapshots and return timestamped, short-lived intents, which core validates and expires after 100 ms. This fast-path protocol is deliberately not defined by IPC 0.1: RFC-0003 only selects a registered mode. A follow-up RFC and schema version must specify sequencing, queries, deadlines and grants before third-party controllers are enabled. An extension manifest’s movementModes field reserves IDs; it does not activate an unimplemented API.

Native third-party controllers in the compositor are rejected as a public extension mechanism: latency benefits do not justify session-wide crash and input risk. Deterministic replay of normalized actions, collision invariants, mode-switch cancellation and deadline failure are the conformance criteria for the eventual SDK.