The fourteen styles

Your tree's outline is derived, like everything else here. Not the ornaments hung on it - the shape of the thing. These are the fourteen shapes it can take and the reading behind each one.

How one gets chosen

The styles are a ladder, not a score. Each rung asks one question about how an account works, in the order below, and the first rung that matches wins. Nothing is weighted against anything else and there is no total to maximise.

Two rungs sit outside the ladder. Below 52 active weeks there is not enough evidence to claim anything, and the tree is drawn as a moss ball. Past that floor, an account that matches no rung gets moyogi - which is not a failure state, it is the tree kodama drew before styles existed.

Priority order, read straight off FORM_LADDER. Re-ordering the engine re-orders this table.
# Style Reads as
1 ikadabuki builds on other people's work
2 yoseUe spread across many communities
3 bunjin wrote one thing a lot of people use
4 sekijoju one long-lived project
5 kabudachi a genuine polyglot
6 sokan two worlds at once
7 chokkan a metronome
8 hokidachi even and wide
9 neagari a long history, quiet lately
10 fukinagashi pulled away, but still here
11 sharimiki came back from a long absence
12 shakan one big codebase

The styles

One specimen each, drawn at 2026-07-15 from an account written to be the shortest history that lands on that rung. Every one goes through the same selector a real account does.

kokedama - a bound moss ball

too new to claim anything

No pot at all: the roots are bound into a moss ball.

A bonsai drawn in the kokedama style: No pot at all: the roots are bound into a moss ball.

ikadabuki - a raft

builds on other people's work

Several trunks rising off one fallen stem, like a raft.

A bonsai drawn in the ikadabuki style: Several trunks rising off one fallen stem, like a raft.

yoseUe - a forest planting

spread across many communities

A stand of graded trunks in one tray - a forest, not a tree.

A bonsai drawn in the yoseUe style: A stand of graded trunks in one tray - a forest, not a tree.

bunjin - a literati

wrote one thing a lot of people use

A long sparse trunk with the foliage gathered high.

A bonsai drawn in the bunjin style: A long sparse trunk with the foliage gathered high.

sekijoju - root over rock

one long-lived project

Roots gripping a stone. The receipt names the repository it stands for.

A bonsai drawn in the sekijoju style: Roots gripping a stone. The receipt names the repository it stands for.

kabudachi - a clump

a genuine polyglot

A clump of trunks from a single root mass.

A bonsai drawn in the kabudachi style: A clump of trunks from a single root mass.

sokan - a twin trunk

two worlds at once

Two trunks from one base, one clearly the elder.

A bonsai drawn in the sokan style: Two trunks from one base, one clearly the elder.

chokkan - a formal upright

a metronome

A formal upright: straight axis, no lean, symmetric crown.

A bonsai drawn in the chokkan style: A formal upright: straight axis, no lean, symmetric crown.

hokidachi - a broom

even and wide

A broom - the trunk splits high into an even fan.

A bonsai drawn in the hokidachi style: A broom - the trunk splits high into an even fan.

neagari - an exposed root

a long history, quiet lately

Roots flared clear of the soil, a long life above ground.

A bonsai drawn in the neagari style: Roots flared clear of the soil, a long life above ground.

fukinagashi - a windswept

pulled away, but still here

Every branch swept to one side, as if by a prevailing wind.

A bonsai drawn in the fukinagashi style: Every branch swept to one side, as if by a prevailing wind.

sharimiki - deadwood

came back from a long absence

A bleached deadwood vein running the trunk beside the living wood.

A bonsai drawn in the sharimiki style: A bleached deadwood vein running the trunk beside the living wood.

shakan - a slant

one big codebase

A slant: the whole tree leaning off the vertical.

A bonsai drawn in the shakan style: A slant: the whole tree leaning off the vertical.

moyogi - an informal upright

nothing the ladder has a name for

The informal upright - gentle curves, and the tree kodama has always drawn.

A bonsai drawn in the moyogi style: The informal upright - gentle curves, and the tree kodama has always drawn.

What this is not

A style is a reading, not a ranking. There is no best one and no rare one worth chasing: kokedama is not a lower score than moyogi, and a forest is not worth more than a slant. The ladder is ordered by how specific a claim is, so the narrow structural questions get asked before the broad ones about rhythm - that is all the order means.

Nothing here is purchasable, and nothing is random. The style is recomputed from public history every time the tree is drawn, so it can change when the way you work changes. Open the receipts for any account to see the figures behind its own tree, or the growth grammar for the thirteen signals that fill the shape in.