HexLife · k-state CA builder

Hexagonal by construction. Neighborhood rules expose the canonical six equidistant slots SW · NW · N · NE · SE · S. Block rules rewrite a three-cell triangle top · down-right · below, cycling a seamless three-phase partition.

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Live Wasm preview

booting…

Generation: 0
Grid: —
Active chunks: —
Rule table: —

One lookup-table entry

See and edit a transition

Current cells

Choose a state for every location.

Next cells

Choose what the rule writes.

Saved rule

Whole-rule physics checks

Preset invariant: —
Strict census conservation: —
Rotational isotropy: —

These are reported, never enforced. Gravity should break isotropy; reactions can change individual states while preserving physical families.

Standalone package example

The generated page uses only the published npm entrypoints. Custom transition edits are appended as table overrides.

Why two backends?

neighborhood is a dense anisotropic k⁷ table: centre plus six hex neighbours. It is capped at four states. block is a k³ triangle rewrite, scales to sixteen states, and can arbitrate transport without creating or deleting competing particles.

Why hexagons?

All six neighbours are equidistant, so direction-independent rules inherit six-fold lattice symmetry. Direction enters only when the model asks for it—gravity in the coffee examples—not because diagonal cells are farther away.

Where host physics lives

The rule owns local transport and reactions. Initial conditions, pour schedules and cup outlets belong to the host page and call setCells or setCell, which wakes the engine's exact chunk-activity tracker.