Inspector

The inspector shows what Strand knows about one element of your running shell: where it comes from in your files, where it was laid out, which tokens its props read and which of its state was kept. The shell draws only the outline of the picked element and the repaint flashes; the rest runs in a terminal, in strand-dev inspect.

#Start it

Build strand-dev as Editor setup says, start your shell with strand run, then in a terminal:

strand-dev inspect

It connects to the shell's socket, by the same rule the strand commands use ($STRAND_SOCKET, else the socket in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR named for your display), or to the socket path you give it. It starts in pick mode: click an element on any monitor. While you pick, clicks go to the inspector, not to the shell's handlers. Enter stops picking without a pick.

One click picks one element, and the shell takes its input back. The element stays outlined, and the terminal shows its pane. A lock screen is never picked, and pick mode ends when the screen locks.

#The pane

For a box, the pane looks like this:

box 4.0  /c/bar.strand:3:5
  identity  [DP-2]  id: target  #0  in bar
  layout    surface 2: 0,0 200×40
  props
    bg: #f38ba8
    width: 200
  tokens
    bg ← $probe.c (base) = #f38ba8
  state
    bar.clicks [kept]

• The first line is the element's kind, its node id and where it is written.
• why, for a shader node that draws nothing: the reason, such as no GPU.
• identity: what the shell knows the element by across reloads: its place in the instance (here the bar on DP-2), its id:, its position among siblings of the same kind, and the component (else the file) it is written in.
• layout: the box it was drawn in, on each surface that shows it, or "not drawn".
• props: its props as the shell holds them now.
• tokens: for each prop that reads a token, the chain of tokens back to where the value is set, with where each is defined and its value.
• state: the state cells of the component, surface and list item the element is mounted in, then the cells its props read, each with its badges: [kept] while a cell holds a value a reload kept, [persisted] for a persist cell, and the layer a setting's value comes from.

#Commands

Each command is a line typed into the inspector's terminal.

When the inspector quits, the shell ends pick mode, the outline and the flashing.

Repaint flashing tints each area the shell repaints for 300 ms, so you can see what a change redraws.

#Writing back

set and token change your file, and the shell then reloads it as it would after a save:

set width 240
token accent #7aa2f7

They write only a literal: a number, a colour, a string. A value that is an expression, a binding or a reference to a token is refused, since changing it would change what the value means. A token that the palette or an overlay sets is refused too.

The file must still be the one the shell compiled. If it changed since, the edit is refused: save it so the shell reloads, then edit again. The new text replaces the file atomically and follows symlinks, so a linked config stays linked. A file you cannot write, such as one in the Nix store, is refused with the reason, and the inspector offers to open it in your editor instead.