Distributed systems · 2026 · Solo — research, systems design, build, verification
Causal Canvas
Partition two replicas, write independently, then inspect why opposite delivery orders still converge.
The problem
Offline-capable collaboration fails in ways that are hard to explain from sync logs alone: arrival order can differ from causal order, concurrent edits have no natural wall-clock winner, and convergence claims need proof. Causal Canvas turns that distributed-systems reasoning into one bounded, interactive experiment without pretending to be a production CRDT.
Architecture
Key decisions
Separate causality from arrival order
Each operation captures the creator's version-vector frontier. Reconnect deliberately presents opposite delivery orders while materialization follows causal dependencies and a documented deterministic tie-break.
Keep the algorithm pure and the interface inspectable
The merge engine owns validation, immutable operations, vector comparison, and topological ordering. React only dispatches actions and renders the same evidence as replica leaves, operation nodes, and a selected proof.
Bound the model instead of overstating it
The release supports two replicas and append-only runs. It explicitly excludes deletes, arbitrary cursor edits, persistence, real networking, and production CRDT or Automerge parity.
Make publication evidence transactional
The private product repository and this portfolio site remain separate. Production was linked only after tests, build, browser behavior, English, visual differentiation, and hiring-signal gates passed; Vercel then matched the pushed Git SHA.