Aphelion Editor

Architecture

Application code lives under src/. main.py puts that tree on sys.path in development. Frozen builds ship packages beside the interpreter.

Packages

Package	Responsibility
`ui/`	PyQt windows, docks, dialogs, node-graph view, timeline chrome, QSS
`core/`	Project document, node graph model, serialization, preferences, roto, tracking
`timeline/`	Timeline state and playback control
`render/`	Decode, probe, frame evaluation, preview, export and tracking workers
`effects/`	Frame-level implementations used by built-in nodes
`app_io/`	`.aph` I/O, plugin and node loaders, theme files
`config/`	Constants, default keybinds, theme tokens
`utils/`	Logging, paths, process environment
`../aphelion-sdk/aphelion_sdk/`	Public plugin SDK
`plugins/`	Drop-in `*.py` modules loaded at boot

UI never owns core logic. Rendering and export run off the UI thread.

Boot

EditorBootDriver (Qt-free) runs staged init: runtime, built-in node registry, plugins (using persisted PluginSettings), project document, graph validation, media probe. The bootloader UI reports each stage.

Frame pipeline

Preview and export evaluate the graph into float32 RGB frames, shape (height, width, 3), values nominally in [0, 1]. Alpha is not carried on this buffer. Mixing, color, and most effects stay in that space.

Built-in unary effects subclass FrameEffectNode. Plugin video effects subclass aphelion_sdk.VideoEffectPlugin, which is the same host node type behind a public API.

Registry

NodeLoader registers BUILTIN_NODE_TYPES from core.nodes.catalog (77 types). PluginLoader then registers enabled SDK plugins into the same global_node_registry, so plugin nodes appear in the same menus and search palette as built-ins.

Persistence