# Architecture

Unicode Tools is a relocatable static React application. Pure text operations
live in `src/unicode/model.ts`, while catalog loading, search, character detail,
Unihan lookup, and confusable analysis run through a dedicated module worker.
Reusable encoding, scalar, grapheme, normalization and download primitives come
from `@add-ideas/toolbox-helpers`.

The build contains compressed-by-HTTP JSON shards rather than a runtime
database. A small manifest and dictionaries load first. The first catalog query
loads assigned character shards, emoji and named sequences once in the worker;
the roughly 5 MiB Unihan selection is fetched only after an explicit request.
Results and displayed mapping lists are capped. The UI retains no database or
persistent search history.

`scripts/generate-unicode-data.mjs` converts checksum-pinned Unicode 17.0
archives and text files into deterministic checked-in source data. It derives
names, aliases, general categories, scripts, blocks, ages, bidi and case
properties, emoji, named sequences, selected Unihan fields, and UTS #39
confusable mappings. Private-use and surrogate ranges are not expanded into
synthetic catalog records.

Rendering, normalization and grapheme segmentation use the current browser and
operating-system Unicode implementation, which can differ from the pinned
catalog version. The interface discloses that boundary.