Shader Operations

Shader Operations

Shader operations provide deep introspection into shaders and render pipelines, including variant analysis, cost attribution, and controlled mutation.

When to Use

• Analyzing shader variant explosion
• Attributing GPU cost to specific shaders
• A/B testing shader changes
• Understanding pipeline composition

Commands

List Shader Variants

# Get variants for a specific shader
3lens shader:variants <shaderId>

# List all variants sorted by compile count
3lens shader:variants --all --sort compile_count

Attribute Shader Cost

# Get cost for a specific shader
3lens shader:cost <shaderId>

# Get detailed breakdown
3lens shader:cost <shaderId> --breakdown

Cost breakdown includes:

• Compile time
• Execution time per frame
• Memory footprint
• Variant count

Mutate Shader (Controlled)

Perform controlled shader mutations for A/B testing:

# Toggle a feature and compare against baseline
3lens shader:mutate <shaderId> --toggle FEATURE_X --baseline runA

# Disable a shader node and measure impact
3lens shader:mutate <shaderId> --disable-node nodeId --measure

Mutation output:

• Before/after trace
• Delta report
• Revert command

Shader Graph Integration

For TSL (Three.js Shading Language) shaders, additional introspection is available:

# Inspect shader node graph
3lens shader:graph <shaderId>

# Find all nodes contributing to a specific output
3lens shader:graph <shaderId> --trace-output color

Agent Use Cases

1. Variant analysis: "List all shader variants and identify which has the most compilations"
2. Cost attribution: "Break down the GPU cost for this PBR shader"
3. A/B testing: "Toggle FEATURE_REFLECTION off and measure the performance delta"
4. Optimization: "Find which shader node is most expensive"

Safety Notes

• Mutations are isolated and don't affect production code
• Always capture a baseline trace before mutating
• Use the provided revert command to undo changes
• Mutations work on both live sessions and saved traces

Additional Resources

• For detailed command syntax, see .cursor/commands/
• For shader graph contract, see .cursor/contracts/shader-graph.md

Converted and distributed by TomeVault — claim your Tome and manage your conversions.