Distillation

<observations> Date: Jul 11, 2026

🔴 (13:14) User confirmed corner swap plan: base layer top corners become ` (left) and - (right); RAISE layer top corners become Esc (left) and GUI (right) — Esc/GUI now ONLY on RAISE, not base.
🔴 (13:14) User clarified point 3: Left thumb = RAISE; ADJUST reached as a held combo (both RAISE thumbs together), not a separate dedicated key.
🔴 (13:14) User clarified point 4: new arrow cluster (right hand) should be placed one row below original spec — RAISE rows 2-3 instead of rows 1-2 — to avoid colliding with number row.
🔴 (13:14) User stated: "Switching to QWERTY via ADJUST resets after a power cycle." — reported as annoying/noted limitation (Colemak compiled as layer 0, ZMK can't persist default layer to flash).
🔴 (13:14) User reported bug: key release timeouts feel like an issue — pressing SPACE then T quickly triggers ALT+T instead of "space" then "T".
🟡 (13:14) Investigation: root cause of ALT+T bug — Space/Alt mod-tap (&mt) uses hold-preferred flavor with 200ms tapping term; any key pressed within 200ms of Space resolves as HOLD (Alt) instead of tap (Space), causing rolling "space t" to fire ALT+T.
🟡 (13:14) Fix decision: switch only the Space key to a custom tap-preferred mod-tap behavior named smt (tapping-term 200ms, quick-tap-ms 175ms) — hold only triggers if physically held past 200ms, ignoring interrupt keys; DEL/CTRL and RET/RCTRL left unchanged (hold-preferred) since they're deliberately used as held modifiers.
🟡 (13:14) Alternatives considered for space-timing fix: (1) tap-preferred flavor — chosen; (2) balanced flavor — rejected, still triggers hold if interrupting key released while space still held; (3) require-prior-idle-ms (150ms) — rejected/set aside in favor of tap-preferred, deemed riskier for DEL/CTRL if applied broadly.
🟡 (13:14) Decision: for ADJUST access, both thumb keys set to &lt_tog RAISE RAISE (tap-toggle, hold-momentary) preserving prior toggle behavior; ADJUST triggered via a ZMK combo (not conditional_layers) since RAISE+RAISE can't form a conditional tri-layer combination.

Distillation

Observations