Redlamp Bench

Redlamp Bench: a step in another app, as a task

When work needs Lightroom's own answer, such as how its masks combine, what a slider does to a ramp or what a preset renders, don't ask the owner to move photos around. Make a bench task. It reaches his phone by itself, opens on its steps one at a time, and comes back to a folder you can read, with each result paired with the photo it came from. docs/bench-tasks.md has the format, the hub and the app in full.

Use it for: anything only the owner can do in another app, with files going in and coming out: Lightroom checks (masks, sliders, profiles, presets, exports), and a phone app's output on given images.

Don't use it for:

• What you can measure yourself, from the CLI or tests.
• A question with no files: put that on your workstream canvas's Needs you instead.
• A phone app's filter to rebuild as a Redlamp look: the owner makes those himself on the phone as look references (New Look).

How a task travels

1. You run redlamp task new. The task lands in ~/Library/Application Support/Redlamp/Bench/Outbox/<id>/, outside every checkout, so it doesn't matter which worktree you're in.
2. When the owner's iPhone can reach the Recipe Lab's hub (the harness open on the Recipe Lab with its Bench tab's Receive on), Redlamp Bench pulls the task.
3. He follows the steps: share the photos to Lightroom, do exactly what each step says, export, and share the exports back to Redlamp Bench. Each export pairs with its photo.
4. Once every photo has its result and every required question has an answer, the phone sends the task back. It's checked as untrusted input and filed in .../Bench/Done/<id>/, and it leaves the outbox.

Make the task

Build the CLI once (SCHEME=redlamp mise run build), then use build/DerivedData/Build/Products/Debug/redlamp. It's written redlamp below.

Quick form, for a few photos and plain steps:

redlamp task new --title "Sky masks on the coverage set" --app "Lightroom" \
    --workstream masking --tracker MSK-16 --issue 52 \
    --step "Select Sky on each | Masking › Create New Mask › Select Sky, nothing else." \
    --step "Show the mask | Set the mask's Exposure to −2.00, nothing else." \
    --step "Export | JPG, quality 100, full size, sRGB, no output sharpening, original file names." \
    --question "edge | Did Select Sky miss any sky at the trees? | Yes, No, Partly" \
    photos/*.dng

Without --no-auto-steps, it adds a first step that shares the photos to the app and a last one that waits for the results. Add --manual when the number of results isn't one per photo; the owner then marks the task done.

Draft form, when steps need actions, pictures or their own pairing: write a draft as task.json's fields, with each asset as {"source": "path", "id", "label", "counts"} and step pictures listed in "pictures" (copied into pictures/, named in steps as pictures/<name>). Then run redlamp task new --draft draft.json. examples/dec-08 is a complete one, with the script that made its photos.

Then run redlamp task check <id>, and fix every error and warning.

Steps that work on a phone

The app shows one step at a time, full screen, while the owner switches between it and Lightroom:

• One action per step: "Frame 1: gradient A", not "make the gradients and export". check warns when a step's detail won't fit one screen (over 320 characters) or its title is over 60.
• Lightroom's own words and exact values: menu paths as Lightroom shows them (Masking › Create New Mask › Linear Gradient), every value with its sign and decimals (Exposure −2.00), and "nothing else" when other settings must stay at their defaults.
• Say how to export, once, in its own step: TIF if offered (otherwise JPG at quality 100), full size, sRGB, no output sharpening, and original file names.
• Give a step an action when it has one. share and save put the photos one tap away; results waits for the exports and ticks itself; answer asks a question.
• A picture ("picture": "pictures/where.png") when a setting is hard to find.

Assets that pair

• Name assets for what they're for (1-gradient-a.tif, exposure-plus-50.jpg): with original file names on export, each result pairs by name.
• Make look-alike assets distinguishable. When several assets are the same picture with different instructions, put a visible label in a corner (as the DEC-08 frames do). That tells the owner which is which in Lightroom, and lets similarity pair them if Lightroom renames the exports.
• Keep tasks small: at most 20 assets and 1 GB.
• Use fixture, CC0 or synthetic images only, never the owner's own photos.