feat(brand): Möbius symbol across the desktop app

[yaacovcorcos]

What Changed

The Möbius-strip symbol replaces the old line symbol across the desktop app. It comes from the brand kit in ScientFactory-website (assets/brand/symbol, merged there as #42 and #46).

• In-app symbol: apps/web/src/assets/scient-symbol.svg is the colour master. scient-symbol-strong.svg is the kit's pixel-fitted 16 px colour drawing, used at 12–14 px: the Scient skill marker in the command menu and the Skills settings header. Every ScientSymbol use is in colour. That covers the sidebar header, the sign-in screen, getting started, the message timeline and the sidebar watermark (7% light, 12% dark).

• App icons (Icon Composer projects in assets/{prod,dev,nightly}/app-icon.icon):

  • Scient: colour symbol on Scient's warm off-white tile (#FAF9F6, unchanged).
  • Scient (Dev): black symbol (#252B32) on a white tile.
  • Nightly: white symbol on a near-black tile (#16181C).

  The symbol layer is 72/128 of the canvas. The layer scale, translation and glass settings in icon.json are unchanged.

• Generated renditions: the iOS, universal/Linux, Windows .ico, web apple-touch and favicon files for all three variants were generated with pnpm icons:export (Icon Composer 27.0, design generation 26). This includes apps/web/public, which carries the development icons.

• macOS 1024 icons: see the note below.

• apps/desktop/resources/icon.{png,icns,ico}: regenerated from the production icons. They were from February and still showed the old symbol. The packaged build stages its own icons from BRAND_ASSET_PATHS, but development paths read these files.

• scripts/check-scient-brand.ts: now pins the new symbol for prod (mask and colours), dev (black) and nightly (white). Before, it pinned the old symbol's colours.

macOS icon note. assets/README.md asks for the three macOS PNGs to be exported from Icon Composer's GUI-only "macOS pre-Tahoe" preset, with no compositing. That preset isn't available from ictool, and the GUI couldn't be driven here. Each macOS PNG is therefore the ictool iOS render at 824 px, placed inside the previous native export's body and shadow: the same 824 px body, 100 px inset and native shadow alpha, so the geometry matches the native preset. A native re-export can replace these files at any time, with no code change.

Why

This is the first step of the Scient rebrand. The website (ScientFactory-website #43–#48) and the Scient Agent icon (#446) already use the new symbol; the desktop app still showed the old one.

All touched files are either Scient-only or files where Scient already differs from upstream (apps/web/public/*, the assets/prod/t3-black-* renditions). No upstream-identical file changes, and nothing in Orchestration V2 is involved.

Documentation Impact

Documentation impact: None — brand assets and the brand check only. The assets/README.md export workflow is unchanged.

UI Changes

Local previews: reviews/desktop-brand-mobius-20261003/preview.png in the ScientFactory workspace. It shows the three app icons at 128, 64 and 32 px, the sidebar header with the watermark in light and dark, and the 12 px command-menu marker. Screenshots are not committed, per the PR-assets rule.

Checklist

• This PR is small and focused (assets plus one guard script)
• I explained what changed and why
• I included before/after screenshots for any UI changes (local preview path above)
• No animation or interaction changes

Validation, run locally on 24453b632f:

• vp check: 0 errors. The 1,036 warnings are pre-existing on main.
• vp run brand:check: passed.
• vp test run scripts/check-scient-brand.test.ts scripts/build-desktop-artifact.test.ts: 87 passed.
• SidebarStageBackdrop.test.tsx: 4 passed.

Not run locally: the full workspace tests and build:desktop; CI covers both. Not checked: a running dev app showing the new Dock icon.

Codex review

Codex ran a read-only review of 24453b632f, at high reasoning effort, against origin/main.

• P2, fixed in 8128e7a218: assets/README.md described the retired line symbol and forbade compositing the macOS PNGs. It now documents the per-channel Möbius icons and how the committed macOS PNGs were produced.
• P3, fixed in 8128e7a218: the brand-check anchors pinned only mask ids and colours, so an empty shape in the right colours passed. They now also pin the Möbius outline in all three icon layers and in the in-app symbol.
• No findings:
  • Release, dev-launcher, runtime and web icon consumers. Paths, sizes and ICO/ICNS entries are intact, and every variant is consistent.
  • SVG mask ids. Every use goes through <img>/<image>, so the ids never share a document.
• Pre-existing, out of scope: the Android launcher/splash artwork is still T3's, and the mobile app is on hold.

After the fixes, run locally on 8128e7a218:

• node scripts/check-scient-brand.ts: passed.
• vp run icons:check: all 25 generated icon assets are current.
• check-scient-brand.test.ts: 8 passed.

Codex did not re-review the fix commit; it touches only the README and the guard's anchor strings.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

Thread transfer impact

✅ Thread transfer remains within every enforced ceiling.

Provider	Metric	Main baseline	This PR	Impact	PR ceiling
Codex	Total thread wire	13.6 KiB	13.6 KiB	+46 B (+0.3%)	15.1 KiB	✅
Codex	Thread snapshot wire	7.1 KiB	7.1 KiB	+11 B (+0.2%)	7.3 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn WebSocket wire	6.5 KiB	6.5 KiB	+35 B (+0.5%)	7.8 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn WebSocket decoded	56.2 KiB	56.3 KiB	+44 B (+0.1%)	66.4 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn messages	9	10	+1 (+11.1%)	21	✅
Claude	Total thread wire	13.6 KiB	13.6 KiB	−6 B (−0.0%)	15.1 KiB	✅
Claude	Thread snapshot wire	7.1 KiB	7.1 KiB	+1 B (+0.0%)	7.3 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn WebSocket wire	6.5 KiB	6.4 KiB	−7 B (−0.1%)	7.8 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn WebSocket decoded	57.0 KiB	57.0 KiB	0 B (0.0%)	66.4 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn messages	9	9	0 (0.0%)	21	✅

Baseline: 896513e · PR result: 8128e7a · Source CI: success

Scenario and decoded snapshot size

10 historical turns, 5 command tools per turn, 878.9 KiB retained MCP result per historical turn, and a 1.05 MiB retained result in the measured turn.

• Codex decoded thread snapshot: 114.1 KiB
• Claude decoded thread snapshot: 114.8 KiB

Updated in place by a trusted workflow. PR artifacts are strictly validated and never executed.