glslViewer Shader Debug

Use this skill to turn shader math into repeatable headless previews.

Workflow

1. Confirm glslViewer is available with command -v glslViewer || command -v glslviewer.
2. Create a scratch .frag file, usually by copying assets/sdf-contour-template.frag.
3. Translate the source shader into standard GLSL.
4. Render the shader with scripts/render_headless.sh.
5. Inspect the generated PNGs and compare the contour or mask shape against expectations.

Translation Rules

• For runtime-shader or SkSL-like snippets, read references/runtime-effect-to-glsl.md.
• Keep the math identical first. Change syntax before changing behavior.
• Replace non-standard types such as half4 or float2 with GLSL equivalents.
• Rewrite main(vec2 fragCoord) into standard fragment entrypoint form:

void main()
{
    vec2 fragCoord = gl_FragCoord.xy;
    fragColor = ...;
}

• Prefer adding a contour or mask visualization instead of staring at raw SDF alpha. The template already includes a reusable previewColor() helper.

Rendering

Render one or more fragment shaders like this:

/root/.codex/skills/glslviewer-shader-debug/scripts/render_headless.sh path/to/a.frag path/to/b.frag

Useful options:

• --output DIR: choose output directory
• --size WIDTHxHEIGHT: choose render size, default 256x256
• GLSLVIEWER_BIN=/full/path/to/glslViewer: force a specific binary

The script writes one PNG per input shader plus a frame directory that contains the original exported frame.

Validation Heuristics

• For rounded-rect SDFs, top and bottom scanlines should narrow near the corners.
• For gradients or normals, prefer false-color output so directional changes are obvious.
• If the headless preview looks correct but device output does not, suspect uniform binding, backend shader translation, or downstream thresholding rather than the pure math.

Resources

• Renderer: scripts/render_headless.sh
• Translation notes: references/runtime-effect-to-glsl.md
• Starter template: assets/sdf-contour-template.frag