# Core concepts

Source: https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/concepts (ASCII Magic documentation)

Five words that mean something specific here. Everything else in these docs links back to this page rather than redefining them.

## Render mode

The engine-level identity of a look, stored as `state.renderMode`. There are **91 unique render modes**. A mode is a string like `characters`, `dither`, `lego` or `liquidglass`, and it decides which renderer draws your pixels.

## Style tile

What you click in the left rail. Most tiles map one to one onto a render mode, but a tile can also pin extra parameters on top of a mode, which lets one renderer appear as several distinct looks. The ten glass variants are all the `liquidglass` mode with a different `glassStyle` pinned, which is why there are more tiles than modes.

> **Note:** Anything reading or writing engine state should key on the render mode. Anything showing a picker should key on the tile.

## Variant

A curated look within a style: a preset of that style's own parameters. Most styles carry several. When a render is not quite right, asking for a different variant is usually a better move than adjusting sliders.

## Post effect

A pass applied **after** the style has drawn. There are **28**, of which **16 are free**. They stack in a fixed order that does not depend on the order you switched them on. See [Post effects](https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/effects).

## Recipe

A look with no image: a delta of every look-bearing setting against its defaults, serialised to a short string like `recipe:v1:eyJ2IjoxLC...`. Paste one into the editor to reproduce a render exactly. Every PNG the app exports carries its own recipe inside it. See [Recipe format](https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/recipes).

## Credit

Spent on generative renders only. Nothing else in the tool consumes credits, and there is no export cap, no render cap and no watermark. A free account starts with 3. Cost depends on output resolution, so a 1K render is not the same price as a 4K one. See [Generative](https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/generative).

## The state model

Everything the editor knows about your look lives in one flat object. Not a tree, not a layer stack: a single set of keys, where `renderMode` picks the renderer and the rest are parameters that renderer may or may not read.

Three consequences worth knowing, because they explain most of the tool's behaviour:

- **Switching styles keeps your parameters.** Moving from Dither to Halftone does not reset `contrast` or your post effects, because those keys were never owned by Dither. Only the keys the new mode pins get overwritten.
- **A parameter a mode does not read simply sits there.** It is not an error and the control may still be visible. This is why Coverage appears to do nothing on modes with no cell grid.
- **A recipe is a diff of this object.** That is the whole format. See [the recipe format](https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/recipes).

## Dressing

A term you will only meet through [the MCP server](https://www.ascii-magic.com/docs/mcp). The editor hands you a style's raw defaults and expects you to adjust them by eye. An agent cannot do that, so the server dresses a render before it runs: it picks a curated look with its post effects, applies the style's own ground rules, fits the cell size to the image, rescues a badly exposed source, and on Pro adds a Levels grade when the render comes out flat.

This is why the same style can look better from an agent than from a cold start in the editor, and why `enhance: false` is worth reaching for when you want to reproduce editor defaults exactly. A recipe is never dressed: it is rendered as encoded, which is what makes it reproducible.

## Tier vocabulary

| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Free | Usable with no account at all. 15 of the 91 render modes and 16 of the 28 post effects. |
| Pro | A paid plan. Unlocks the rest of the catalog and adds plan credits every billing period. |
| Locked | A Pro style or effect seen from a free account. It is visible and named on purpose, so you can tell what exists. Picking it opens the upgrade prompt rather than rendering. |
| Credit | Spent only on a generative render. Nothing else in the tool consumes one. |

## Glossary

| Word | One line |
|---|---|
| Render mode | The engine-level identity of a look, `state.renderMode`. |
| Style tile | One entry in the picker. May pin parameters over a mode. |
| Variant | A curated parameter set within one style. |
| Post effect | A pass over the finished frame, in a fixed order. |
| Grade | Levels and Curves. Runs after the effects, before the text layer. |
| Recipe | The look with no image, as a delta against the defaults. |
| Project | A saved recipe plus the source it was made on. |
| Dressing | The quality pass the MCP server applies unless you turn it off. |
| Credit | The unit a generative render costs. 1 at 1K, 2 at 2K, 3 at 4K. |