ParamRig is an open-source workbench for human-tuning AI-built visual systems.

Coding agents are good at building something that renders. The last mile is where they slow down. A value is right or wrong because of how it looks, and turning that into prose costs several rounds and rarely lands on it. So instead of asking AI to own the finished creative result, ParamRig asks it to build the tool: a rig around a component, a design system, an SVG, an animation, a 3D scene or a running page. You take the controls, find the values with your eyes, and hand back numbers the agent can apply.

Uncertain ideas work the same way. A rough prototype becomes something you can manipulate, and the parameters you approve go into the product.

It is for creative developers, vibecoders and technical artists who build visual systems with coding agents, and lose time turning what they can see into precise code changes.

How it works

1. The agent builds the rig. It names the parameters that matter, with their ranges and their kinds: numbers, colors, curves, choices, resources, collections. In this repository that is a rig manifest. In a project you are building it is .paramrig/manifest.json and the @paramrig/web SDK.

2. You tune it. The controls open beside a live preview. Compare against a reference, keep snapshots, animate a value on the timeline, and step back through the session's history.

3. The agent reads what you kept. An export from the workbench, or a reviewed batch written into the connected project for its own agent to pick up on the next run.

_{A rig open in the workbench: preview, inspector, and a timeline with grouped tracks and keyframes.}

Run it

The workbench runs as the Docker Compose project paramrig, from the repository root. Nothing needs a Node installation on the host.

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:5174/. docs/local-docker-development.md covers stop and start, rebuilds, and one-off commands.

docker compose run --rm app npm test
docker compose run --rm app npm run lint
docker compose run --rm app npm run build

Route	What is there
/	The library
/audio, /vector, /3d	Sound, drawing/layout and scene libraries
/r/contour-bloom, /r/tidal-planet	Example rigs
/r/controller-lab	Every controller family in one rig
/docs	Documentation inside the app
/docs/controls	The controller catalog
/web	Connected web projects
/?fixture=empty, /?fixture=error, /?fixture=loading, /?fixture=long	Library states for QA

Use one engine

The repository is an npm workspace with independent public packages. Engines do not require the ParamRig editor. React controls are optional; the 3D host supplies its own Three.js dependency.

Package	Integration guide
@paramrig/core	Rig contracts, values and validation
@paramrig/audio	Synthesis, blocks, WAV and wavetables
@paramrig/audio-labs	Generation, variation and fusion
@paramrig/audio-browser	Independent Web Audio players
@paramrig/vector	Drawing, layout, browser rendering and exports
@paramrig/scene	Scene engine, host renderer and optional viewer
@paramrig/controls	Controlled React inputs and explicit styles
@paramrig/web	Connected web projects

Standalone examples install only the packages they use. The Vector + React example demonstrates optional controls alongside an engine. Separate packages reduce installation; sub-entries select what a bundler loads.

Build only the application domains you need with docker compose run --rm app npm run build:modules -- --modules=audio,vector. The normal build still produces the complete suite in dist. See module boundaries and build budgets and the release process.

Tune a project you are building

The Web workspace opens a page from your own development server beside the controls its agent exposed. You change values, select DOM elements, draw on what you see, and approve a batch. The batch is written into the project, where the agent that maintains it can read the note, the element it points at, and the values you settled on.

In the project you are tuning:

npm install --save-dev @paramrig/web

Then, from this repository, point the optional web profile at it:

PARAMRIG_PROJECT_DIR=/absolute/path/to/project docker compose --profile web up -d

Open /web and pick the project. Without PARAMRIG_PROJECT_DIR, the profile starts with the bundled Fieldnotes example instead.

_{A running page beside the controls its own agent exposed.}

The service only writes inside the project's .paramrig directory. It does not start the application, install anything in it, or touch its source. docs/web-workspace.md covers the setup and the file handoff. packages/web-sdk/README.md is the integration guide, with the manifest fields, the binding kinds, the data-paramrig-* attributes and JSON Schema for the manifest, the batch and the response.

Inside the workbench

66 controllers, 11 families

One value contract, several instruments. A number can be a field, a stepper, a bar, a logarithmic scale, a stepped scale, a knob, an angle dial or a seed. The same definitions drive the catalog at /docs/controls, the inspector, the vector and scene editors, and the Controller lab.

Numbers, position and dimensions, color and appearance, choices, text and typography, curves and profiles, resources, scene instruments, actions, collections, value sources and animation. docs/CONTROLLERS.md has the contracts and the limits.

Three editors that carry their own controls

A document can be a drawing, or a drawing that carries a rig. Bind an element's property to a parameter and the document becomes tunable without leaving it. The same is true of a 3D scene and of a sound.

Vector documents	3D scenes
Paths, networks and planar regions, text, frames, guides, boolean operations, export presets. Fills, strokes, effects and node positions can all be bound to a controller.	Objects, modifiers, lights, cameras, materials and world settings, with the same binding vocabulary. Edit and Tune share one WebGL context.

Sound effects. Four layers — two oscillators, two noise generators — each with wavetables or plain shapes, a filter of eight models, three insert slots and an amplifier envelope; eight modulation slots that are each an envelope or an oscillator; three performers with a drawn row of sixteen steps; three master effects. The engine is a pure function of a patch and a sample rate, with no Web Audio in it, so what you hear while tuning and what lands in the exported file cannot drift apart. /docs/audio-rigs has the paths a control can be bound to.

Timeline, snapshots, history

Grouped tracks with zoom, keyframe selection and dragging, copy, paste and delete, precise time, value and easing controls, and a playback range. A whole drag records as one action. The History tab keeps the last 100 actions of the session. Snapshots can be named, restored with their reference, and removed, and those actions undo too. Reference and Current sample animated values at the same playhead position.

Right-click a control to reset it or animate it. Shift+F10 opens the same menu from the keyboard, and small screens get an actions button. Keys, track labels, backgrounds, group headers and the ruler have context menus of their own.

Examples

Example	Renderer	What it shows
Contour bloom	SVG	Shape, relief and motion from a handful of numbers
Tidal planet	3D	A procedural planet, with two animated tracks
Surface studies	HTML / CSS	Material and light
Type specimen	HTML / CSS	Rhythm and hierarchy
Controller lab	HTML / CSS	Every controller family at once
Desk study	Scene	A lamp and two props, arranged, with six controls
Paper lantern	Scene	A 3D document that carries its own rig
Aperture mark	Vector	A drawing that carries its own rig
Aperture poster	Vector	A poster laid out with guides, bound to eight controls

Examples come from src/rigs/registry.ts. docs/ADDING-A-RIG.md shows how to add a study without editing the workspace shell.

Documentation

Document	What it covers
docs/local-docker-development.md	Commands, routes, rebuilds
docs/CONTROLLERS.md	Controller contracts and limits
docs/ADDING-A-RIG.md	Adding a rig
docs/web-workspace.md	The connected web workspace
packages/web-sdk/README.md	The @paramrig/web integration guide
docs/scene-editor-keymap.md	Scene editor keys

What it does not do yet

Examples are bundled, and the workbench does not watch a folder on disk. An export is a file the agent reads, not a patch applied to your source. Undo reaches back a hundred actions and no further. Drafts and snapshots live in browser storage, and selection, track visibility and the keyframe clipboard are gone after a reload. There is no account, no AI chat and no telemetry.

Contributing

CONTRIBUTING.md has the checks to run and how a pull request lands. AGENTS.md has the repository conventions, including the rule against AI signatures in commit messages. English is the canonical language for the application, APIs, rig definitions, documentation and error messages, and translations derive from that source. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

The approved Coform logo and the branding study are in assets/brand/. The application self-hosts Public Sans from public/fonts/, and the wordmark is vector geometry rather than a font.

Licensing

ParamRig is MIT licensed. The terms are in LICENSE, and both package.json files declare it. packages/web-sdk carries its own copy so the published package travels with it.

That covers ParamRig's own code. Runtime dependencies keep their own licences, listed in package.json, and the bundled Public Sans keeps the SIL Open Font License that ships beside it in public/fonts/PublicSans-OFL.txt.