pretext

# Pretext Creative Demos ## Overview [`@chenglou/pretext`](https://github.com/chenglou/pretext) is a 15KB zero-dependency TypeScript library by Cheng Lou (React core, ReasonML, Midjourney) for **DOM-free multiline text measurement and layout**. It does one thing: given `(text, font, width)`, return the line breaks, per-line widths, per-grapheme positions, and total height — all via canvas measurement, no reflow. That sounds like plumbing. It is not. Because it is fast and geometric, it is a **creative primitive**: you can reflow paragraphs around a moving sprite at 60fps, build games whose level geometry is made of real words, drive ASCII logos through prose, shatter text into particles with exact per-grapheme starting positions, or pack shrink-wrapped multiline UI without any `getBoundingClientRect` thrash. This skill exists so Hermes can make **cool demos** with it — the kind people post to X. See `pretext.cool` and `chenglou.me/pretext` for the community demo corpus. ## When to Use Use when the user asks for: - A "pretext demo" / "cool pretext thing" / "text-as-X" - Text flowing around a moving shape (hero sections, editorial layouts, animated long-form pages) - ASCII-art effects using **real words or prose**, not monospace rasters - Games where the playfield / obstacles / bricks are made of text (Tetris-from-letters, Breakout-of-prose) - Kinetic typography with per-glyph physics (shatter, scatter, flock, flow) - Typographic generative art, especially with non-Latin ...