feat(style,layout,render): converge inline pipeline — counters + pseudo/generated content pre-layout (slice 3)

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Summary

Slice 3 of the render↔layout inline-pipeline convergence (One-issue-one-way). Moves the CSS counter state machine + pseudo/marker generated-content resolution out of render's paint walk into a new pre-layout pass — the final phase of style resolution. The convergence target: generated-content text (counter values, pseudo content, list markers) is resolved once, in document order, before layout, and persisted as ECS state that both layout and render read.

Prior slices: #270 (horizontal LTR) / #271 (vertical WM).

Why it's a correctness fix, not just dedup

Pseudo entities were spawned at style time with counter() content left as placeholder text ([counter:list-item]). Layout measured that placeholder → wrong line-break/width. Render papered over it by re-resolving counters at paint time — so it painted the right glyphs at positions computed from the wrong text. Resolving once, pre-layout, fixes the measurement at the source and lets the single inline pipeline own pseudo runs too (InlineFlow now persists them).

Changes

• elidex-ecs: + ListItemMarker(String) component — the single source of list-item marker text.
• elidex-style: new generated_content pass — a document-order CounterState walk that writes resolved pseudo content → the pseudo's TextContent and a reconciled ListItemMarker (insert-or-remove every pass, mirroring slice-1's InlineFlow explicit-clear discipline). Wired as the final phase of resolve_styles_with_compat (one insertion point covers every style→layout caller). generate_pseudo_entity no longer pre-resolves content — the pass is the single resolver (the [counter:X] placeholder is gone).
• elidex-layout-block: drop the has_pseudo persist_flow gate; the pseudo branch now applies the has_bidi / has_text_transform gates on the resolved text (so RTL / text-transformed pseudo content stays gated for later slices).
• elidex-render: delete resolve_pseudo_text + resolve_content_items_with_counters; maybe_emit_list_marker reads ListItemMarker; the walk's counter machine is retained but gated paged-only — its sole remaining consumer is paged-media margin boxes (per-page running-header counters require post-pagination page assignment and cannot be precomputed pre-layout; analogous to bidi staying in render).

Folded-in spec fixes

• CSS Lists 3 §4.5: a display:none element does not set/reset/increment a counter (the old paint walk processed counters before the display:none check). Applied in the pass and mirrored in the retained paged walk.
• CSS Content 3 §2.1: attr() in pseudo content resolves against the originating element (was resolving against the pseudo entity → empty).
• Citation drift: counter.rs / walk.rs cited "CSS Lists L3 §5.x" — counters live under §4 (§5 has no headings). Swept to §4.1/§4.2/§4.3/§4.6/§4.7; counter-value formatting → CSS Counter Styles 3 §6.

Edge matrix covered

Counter ops × scope (reset/increment/set, reversed, nested counters()); implicit list-item (ol/ul/li/start/value/reversed/nested); 12 list-style-type × marker formatting; pseudo content shapes (string/attr/counter/counters/mixed); §4.5 display:none-skip and visibility:hidden-still-counts; ::before-vs-::after counter timing; marker gate-OUT staleness (reconcile removal); re-resolution idempotency; marker × paged.

Tests

6 new generated_content pass tests (markers in document order, §4.5 display:none skip with value check, reconcile removal on gate-out, nested-ol reset, counter() pseudo content, attr-against-originating). Layout gate_excludes_pseudo_element → persists_pseudo_element_flow (inverted). Render marker tests run the pass before building the display list. All 1053 tests across the touched crates + elidex-shell pass (no golden churn — output-preserving for existing cases).

Cap posture

Cap-neutral, no new #11-* slot — One-issue-one-way relocation + conformance/correctness, not a new web-platform feature (same posture as slices 1–2).

Deferred (own homes)

::marker as a real entity + layout marker-box generation (list-style-position); paged-media margin-box counter convergence; quotes/url/leader content values; visibility:collapse §4.5 edge.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Moves CSS counters + generated content resolution (pseudo content, list markers) out of render’s paint walk into a new pre-layout style pass, so layout measures resolved text and render consumes persisted ECS state.

Changes:

• Add generated_content pass in elidex-style, invoked as the final phase of resolve_styles_with_compat.
• Introduce ListItemMarker(String) ECS component as the single source of list marker text; render reads it instead of evaluating counters.
• Remove the inline-flow “has_pseudo” gate so pseudo text can persist in InlineFlow once resolved pre-layout.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 15 out of 15 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
crates/layout/elidex-layout-block/src/inline/tests/inline_flow.rs	Updates gating test to assert pseudo flows now persist with resolved text.
crates/layout/elidex-layout-block/src/inline/mod.rs	Removes has_pseudo gate; adds bidi/text-transform gating for pseudo text runs.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/walk.rs	Centralizes implicit list counter application via apply_implicit_list_counters_from_dom.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/resolve/box_model/mod.rs	Spec citation update for reversed counters.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/pseudo.rs	Stops pre-resolving pseudo text; creates pseudo entities with empty TextContent.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/lib.rs	Wires resolve_generated_content as final style-resolution phase; exports it.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/generated_content.rs	New pass: document-order counter machine + pseudo/list marker resolution into ECS.
crates/css/elidex-style/src/counter.rs	Spec citation sweep + new apply_implicit_list_counters_from_dom helper.
crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/walk.rs	Reads ListItemMarker; gates counter mutation to paged builds only.
crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/tests/display_types.rs	Runs generated-content pass before display list build in marker tests.
crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/tests/counter.rs	Runs generated-content pass before display list build; updates display:none expectations.
crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/mod.rs	Adds paged flag to PaintContext setup.
crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/inline.rs	Removes render-time pseudo counter evaluation; reads resolved TextContent only.
crates/core/elidex-ecs/src/lib.rs	Re-exports new ListItemMarker component.
crates/core/elidex-ecs/src/components.rs	Defines ListItemMarker(String) component and its semantics.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

crates/core/elidex-render/src/builder/walk.rs:575

• maybe_emit_list_marker clones ListItemMarker’s String for every list item even though the marker is immediately passed by reference. This adds avoidable allocation/copy overhead on large lists; you can borrow the stored marker text directly from the ECS ref.

            let marker_text = match ctx.dom.world().get::<&ListItemMarker>(child) {
                Ok(m) => m.0.clone(),
                Err(_) => return,
            };
            if let Ok(child_lb) = ctx.dom.world().get::<&LayoutBox>(child) {
                emit_list_marker_with_counter(
                    &child_lb,
                    &child_style,
                    &marker_text,
                    ctx.font_db,
                    ctx.font_cache,
                    ctx.dl,
                );
            }

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 15 out of 15 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.