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ADR-016: Keep 9:16 as the only format for 1.0; square, portrait and landscape on the roadmap ​

  • Status: accepted · Date: 2026-11-01

Context ​

Requests for square (1080×1080), 4:5 portrait (1080×1350) and 16:9 landscape (1920×1080) output came up while preparing the open-source release. Presets already describe the canvas, the header, the stage band and the platform safe zones in YAML (presets/*.preset.yaml), so a new preset looks cheap. It is not, because of how element geometry works:

  • Every element is placed in absolute stage coordinates: a 1080 × 1000 box between the header (y 270) and the captions (y 1300). Episodes, templates, blueprints, skills, the editor's guides and the V-6/V-7/V-8 checks all assume that box.
  • A square or 4:5 canvas has 1080 or 1350 px of height for header, stage and captions together; the stage would shrink to roughly 600–850 px. Existing layouts would overflow or overlap (V-6, V-8), and texts sized for 1000 px would no longer fit (V-9).
  • A landscape canvas changes the aspect of the stage itself (wide, not tall). Diagrams laid out as columns would need to become rows; no uniform scale keeps them readable.

Doing this properly means a relative layout model (anchors, flow or grid placement, or per-format place overrides) across the compiler, runtime, editor, lint rules, templates and every example: a rewrite of the layout contract, not a preset.

Decision ​

ReelForge 1.0 ships 9:16 only (tiktok, reels, shorts). Additional formats are on the roadmap behind a relative placement model, designed in a separate ADR before any code. Until then, people who need another format can render 9:16 and crop or pad with ffmpeg, accepting that the layout is not adapted.

Consequences ​

  • The Timeline contract and golden frames stay stable for the first release.
  • Templates, blueprints and skills can keep using fixed, tested coordinates, which is what makes them reliable for small models.
  • The roadmap item is explicit: relative placement first (likely place: { anchor, w%, h% } with per-preset resolution in the compiler), then square, 4:5 and 16:9 presets with their own safe zones.