zpe-touch

What This Is

Bounded touch-stream codec. Contact geometry and receptor fields stay isolated from thermal, vibrotactile, and proprioceptive branches.

Touch is one lane in the Zer0pa 17-lane ZPE codec portfolio, each lane an independent encoding product for its own signal domain. Useful now, improving continuously.

The public scope is narrow by design: contact remains explicit, each fiber branch stays independent, and affective touch is out of scope. This repo ships technique evidence and CI-anchored proof artifacts, not a product-readiness claim. Compass-8 posture (V2 §7.2): NO — the internal technique evidence here is implementation, not a Compass-8 product claim.

Codec Mechanics

Field	Value
Architecture	TOUCH_STREAM
Encoding	TOUCH_FIBER_BRANCH_V1
Mechanics Asset	.github/assets/readme/lane-mechanics/TOUCH.gif

Key Metrics

Metric	Value	Baseline
CONTACT_BASE_PRESERVATION	1.0	legacy contact decoder
THERMAL_EXACT	1.0	contact-only decoder (0.0)
VIBROTACTILE_EXACT	1.0	contact-only decoder (0.0)
PROPRIOCEPTIVE_EXACT	1.0	contact-only decoder (0.0)

Source: proofs/manifests/VERIFICATION_SUMMARY.md

Repo Identity

Field	Value
Identifier	ZPE-Touch
Repository	https://github.com/Zer0pa/ZPE-Touch
Section	encoding
Visibility	PUBLIC
Architecture	TOUCH_STREAM
Encoding	TOUCH_FIBER_BRANCH_V1
Commit SHA	2681f25e927d
License	SAL-7.1
Authority Source	proofs/manifests/VERIFICATION_SUMMARY.md

Readiness

Field	Value
Verdict	STAGED
Checks	3/3
Anchors	5 display anchors
Commit	4d26abb94786
Authority	proofs/manifests/VERIFICATION_SUMMARY.md

Honest Blocker

Affective touch.; Full embodied touch.; Ambient thermal scene modeling.

What We Prove

• The frozen contact branch preserves contact geometry, receptor identity, body region, and pressure exactly on the shipped bounded surface.
• Thermal payloads roundtrip exactly on an explicit bounded branch with state and history carried in the stream. A contact-only decoder recovers 0.0 of this payload; the thermal branch decoder recovers 1.0.
• Vibrotactile payloads roundtrip exactly on an explicit bounded RA_II branch with state and history carried in the stream. Same contact-only gap: 0.0 vs 1.0.
• Proprioceptive payloads roundtrip exactly on an explicit bounded joint-angle and tension branch with ordered history carried in the stream. Same contact-only gap: 0.0 vs 1.0.
• Cross-fiber wrong-decoder collisions stay at zero across thermal, vibrotactile, and proprioceptive validation (wrong_decoder_collision_rate = 0.0 for all three).
• Same-contact/different-history cases do not alias (same_contact_history_alias_rate = 0.0 for all three fiber types).
• Native Rust backend word output and decode metadata match the local Python reference path exactly.

What We Don't Claim

• Affective touch.
• Full embodied touch.
• Ambient thermal scene modeling.
• Non-RA_II vibrotactile semantics.
• Full-body kinematics.
• Silent recovery of thermal, vibrotactile, or proprioceptive data from contact-only words.
• Compass-8 product readiness or any public product claim.
• Comparative benchmarks against external touch codecs. No named external baseline exists for this scope.

Verification Status

Code	Check	Verdict
V_01	Contact branch roundtrip stays exact on the local Python reference path.	PASS
V_02	Native Rust backend matches the local reference contact words and decode metadata.	PASS
V_03	Thermal, vibrotactile, and proprioceptive branches stay exact, isolated, and contact-preserving.	PASS

Proof Anchors

Path	State
docs/BOUNDED_SCOPE.md	VERIFIED
proofs/manifests/VERIFICATION_SUMMARY.md	VERIFIED
proofs/artifacts/contact_release_summary.json	VERIFIED
proofs/artifacts/fiber_release_summary.json	VERIFIED
validation/results/fresh_clone_verification.json	VERIFIED

Repo Shape

Field	Value
Proof Anchors	5 display anchors
Modality Lanes	3
Architecture	TOUCH_STREAM
Encoding	TOUCH_FIBER_BRANCH_V1
Verification	3/3 checks
Authority Source	proofs/manifests/VERIFICATION_SUMMARY.md

Extended Metrics

Rows retained from the previous expanded ## Key Metrics table. The public product page uses the first four rows only.

Metric	Value	Baseline	Source
WRONG_DECODER_COLLISION	0.0	—	proofs/artifacts/fiber_release_summary.json
SAME_CONTACT_HISTORY_ALIAS	0.0	—	proofs/artifacts/fiber_release_summary.json

Quick Start

cargo --version
python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install . build pytest
python -m pytest tests/test_touch_pack_regression.py tests/test_touch_native_optional.py tests/test_touch_fiber_branches.py -q
python scripts/generate_public_touch_artifacts.py
python -m build

Upcoming Workstreams

This section captures the active lane priorities — what the next agent or contributor picks up, and what investors should expect. Cadence is continuous, not milestoned.

• Deployable haptic stream API — Active Engineering. Build Python+Rust API wrapping the existing branch-isolation primitives (contact base + thermal / vibrotactile / proprioceptive fiber branches). Foundation is mature; this is the lane's transition from frozen-scope research artifact to product-shaped component. Compass-8 NO posture preserved.