dojo_cate/board/FORMAT.md

Board format

The board is authored as one 8x8 quadrant (board/quadrant.txt, the top-left corner of the board). The tooling rotates it 90° clockwise three times to build the full 16x16 board, so every corner is identical by construction.

uv run dojo board validate                     # check board/quadrant.txt against the rules
uv run dojo board render -o board/board.txt    # write the full board (generated, never edit)

Exit codes: 0 OK (warnings allowed), 1 design errors, 2 format errors or missing file.

Notation

Classic ASCII maze notation. Each cell is 3 characters wide with its code in the middle; walls sit between cells.

+---+---+---+
| S   S | . |
+   +---+   +
| S   1   ? |
+---+---+---+

Element	Walled	Open
Corner	+ (always)	—
Between two rows	---	three blanks
Between two columns	|	one blank

• Lines starting with # and blank lines are ignored.
• Trailing blanks may be stripped by your editor; a missing character at the end of a line reads as open.
• The quadrant file is 17 lines of 33 characters.

Cell codes

Code	Meaning
S	Safe Room
D	Central Dojo
.	Tatami
A	Allenamento
F	Fatica
?	Nebbia del Dojo
P	Passo Falso
K	Sfida
1–9	Tunnel; the two cells with the same digit are a pair

Quadrant rules (format errors — the board cannot be built)

• Exactly 8x8 cells, only the codes above.
• Top and left borders are the outer border of the board: fully walled.
• Right and bottom borders are seams shared with the neighbouring quadrants. Rotation maps the bottom seam onto the right seam, so the right border at row i must equal the bottom border at column i.
• D cells are exactly rows 6–7, columns 6–7 (the quadrant's share of the 4x4 Dojo).
• Each tunnel digit appears on exactly two cells.

Rows and columns are 0-based, top-left is (0, 0). On the full board, quadrants are numbered clockwise: 0 top-left, 1 top-right, 2 bottom-right, 3 bottom-left.

Tunnel links — board/legend.toml (optional)

The CLI reads legend.toml from the quadrant's folder automatically (override with --legend). By default a tunnel pair links its two cells inside the same quadrant. To link across quadrants, give the digit a quadrant_offset:

[tunnels.3]
quadrant_offset = 1

Call a and b the two cells of the digit in reading order (row by row, left to right). With offset o, a in quadrant k is linked to b in quadrant k + o. Offsets are 0–3.

Design checks (validate errors and warnings)

Errors:

• a wall inside the Dojo;
• a quadrant without a Dojo entrance, or an entrance opening straight into a Safe Room;
• a Safe Room that does not contain its board corner, is not connected, does not have exactly 2 exits, or has both exits on the same side;
• a Safe Room that is a shortcut (walking through it is shorter than walking around it between its two exits);
• any square that cannot be walked to from a Safe Room (tunnels not counted, Dojo impassable).

Warnings:

• Safe Room size other than 3x3;
• Tatami share outside 30–40% of playable squares.

The report also lists the square mix, number of tunnel pairs and Dojo entrances, and the shortest walk from each Safe Room into the Dojo.