Screen Warming
Aqueous exposes experimental screen warming to compatible clients such as Pearl. It adjusts eligible SDR outputs through the Vulkan renderer. Normal builds include the protocol; no warming-specific build flag is required.
Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”- A live SDR output using Vulkan with output color-transform support.
- A neutral supported color baseline; arbitrary external calibration is not adopted automatically.
- A compatible client using
aqueous-output-warming-v1, such as Pearl.
HDR outputs, mirror sources/destinations, and unsupported renderers are ineligible. Physical SDR outputs can be eligible, but protocol availability does not establish measured display calibration or physical restoration accuracy.
Use warming
Section titled “Use warming”Configure the schedule or temporary temperature override in Pearl. The shell owns the desired schedule; Aqueous reports whether each output can acquire and commit a warming adjustment. Native requests accept 2500–6500 K, with 6500 K neutral. These temperatures are adjustment parameters, not measured white points.
There is no outputs.toml temperature setting or aqueousctl warming command.
Use a compatible client and check its per-output result. A saved schedule alone
does not mean the display has changed.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | An adjustment is waiting to commit. |
| Committed | The backend committed the requested adjustment. |
| Restoring | The compositor is restoring its current authorized baseline. |
| Unavailable | The output or current color path is ineligible. |
| Busy | Another client owns the color adjustment. |
| Failed | The requested operation did not complete successfully. |
Different outputs can have different results; a partially warmed desktop is not reported as all active. Version 1 acknowledges backend commits, not physical presentation or measured color accuracy.
Ownership and restoration
Section titled “Ownership and restoration”Native warming and legacy gamma control share exclusive ownership. A competing client cannot displace an existing owner. Pearl uses the native protocol and does not fall back to legacy gamma when it is unavailable.
Output mode/color changes, HDR activation, mirroring, session changes, renderer recovery, or output removal can revoke warming. Releasing a lease or disconnecting the client starts baseline restoration. Restoration can remain blocked after a backend failure; the reported state keeps that distinction.
Composed output captures include warming. Isolated window captures are independent of the output adjustment. See capture color behavior.
The source contract documents protocol ownership, eligibility, commit results, and validation limits.
