genesis_foundation

The layer below the spine: a dependency-free diagnostics protocol and the typed, versioned wire contract that carries it off-process.

genesis_foundation sits under genesis_tree the way Flutter's foundation sits under widgets — the tree depends on it, never the reverse. It has no runtime dependencies at all, so a consumer that only needs to read diagnostics (a DevTools extension, a dashboard, a log renderer) can depend on this package alone and never pull in a tree engine.

The protocol

Objects describe themselves. There is no central projector that has to know about every type.

class Widget with Diagnosticable {
  Widget(this.label, this.enabled);
  final String label;
  final bool enabled;

  @override
  void debugFillProperties(List<DiagnosticsProperty> properties) {
    properties
      ..add(DiagnosticsProperty.string(name: 'label', value: label))
      ..add(DiagnosticsProperty.flag(name: 'enabled', value: enabled));
  }
}

Adding a new type makes it diagnosable on the spot — nothing outside the type needs editing.

The properties

DiagnosticsProperty is a sealed union, so a switch over it is compiler-checked and a new variant forces every consumer to handle it. Each property carries a DiagnosticsLevel (fine, info, warning, error), so a dirty-stuck node or an errored fragment can be surfaced by severity rather than by string-matching a dump.

Variants cover string, int, double, flag, enumValue, duration, timestamp and object.

The wire contract

TreeSnapshot is the serialized form for out-of-process consumers: a contractVersion, a projectedAt timestamp, and a TreeNode root carrying properties and children.

This is a deliberate divergence from Flutter, whose inspector ships an untyped Map<String, Object?> over the wire. A typed, versioned snapshot lets a client parse with the compiler's help and detect a contract it is too old to read.

Conventions

Value types here are hand-written — const constructors, ==, hashCode, copyWith, and hand-rolled version-1 JSON codecs — rather than generated. That is permanent for the foundation and the spine, not a workaround: this package must stay dependency-free, and the spine must not take on a codegen toolchain. Exhaustive switch expressions remain the house style.

Where this sits

genesis_foundation   Diagnosticable · DiagnosticsProperty · TreeSnapshot
        ▲
genesis_tree         Seed / Branch — the keyed-reconcile spine
        ▲
genesis_perception   measurement domain on the spine

Part of genesis.