Tinker Mode

Tinker Mode was added as a dev toggle that bypasses the normal stage gates. The purpose is simple: if the work today is in Forge, there is no value in being forced to run full Prospect then Smelt flows just to get back to the geometry stage every time.

The toggle lives in the header and shows an amber banner when active. More importantly, the bypass threads all the way through the path that matters, from App to Forge to MeshPipeline. That means the run button is enabled and the warnings tied to the normal progression rules stay out of the way during testing.

This is not a production feature. It is a speed feature for development. The main value is cutting wasted iteration time so work on the deeper pipeline stages can stay focused.

Why This Matters

Tinker Mode matters because the later Inter-Forge work depends on being able to isolate stages. The geometry and reconstruction sessions would have been much slower if every test run still required the full Prospect to Smelt progression even when the bug being chased lived further downstream.

It also makes the system easier to reason about during development. A visible bypass with a clear banner is safer than informal one-off hacks because the state of the app stays explicit while the iteration loop gets shorter.

Diff Log: Gate Bypass for Development

The bug here was workflow friction. Development on later stages was blocked by earlier-stage requirements that were irrelevant to the task at hand.

Bug / Fix

- Forge run blocked unless Prospect and Smelt complete normally
+ Tinker Mode bypass threads through App -> Forge -> MeshPipeline

- no visible state that gate bypass is active
+ header toggle and amber banner indicate active bypass mode