diff --git a/docs/development/ui-core.md b/docs/development/ui-core.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..380a70b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/development/ui-core.md
@@ -0,0 +1,158 @@
+# UI Core + frontends — design
+
+Status: 📋 draft for review (2026-09-24). Branch: `wio-tracker-l2`.
+
+## Why
+
+The Wio Tracker L2 (320×240 colour touch LCD, no joystick) gets a new LVGL 9
+interface. Rather than a second, parallel copy of everything Solo does, the
+application logic moves out of `ui-new` into a hardware-independent **UI Core**
+that every frontend shares:
+
+| Frontend | Devices | Toolkit | Input |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| `ui-lvgl` (rich) | Wio Tracker L2 first; later other ESP32-S3 colour boards | LVGL 9 | pointer (touch) + focus (buttons, CardKB) |
+| `ui-new` (lite) | OLED / e-ink / nRF52 (Wio L1, T-Echo Lite, Heltec, …) | `DisplayDriver` | focus (joystick, buttons, CardKB) |
+
+A feature written once in the Core (live share, locator, unread tracking, a new
+setting) then shows up on both. `ui-new` is not rewritten: it is re-pointed at
+the Core and stays the lite frontend.
+
+Non-goals: changing the mesh protocol, `MyMesh`, persistence formats
+(`NodePrefs` layout, `/scopes1`, trail files), or the companion app protocol.
+
+## Current state
+
+`ui-new` is 18.5k lines. `UITask` implements `AbstractUITask` (the interface
+`MyMesh` calls into) *and* hosts the screens, so logic and drawing are
+interleaved. Classified:
+
+**Models — already UI-free, move as-is**
+- `MessageHistory.h` — channel (48) / DM (32) rings, unread counters + overflow flags.
+- `Trail.h` / `TrailStore`, waypoints (`WaypointsView` storage half), `ScopeList.h`.
+
+**Engines — logic living inside `UITask.cpp` / `UITask.h`**
+- Unread tracking — DM unread table (`_dm_unread_table`, `newMsg`, `addDMMsg`, `reconcileDMUnread`), room unread.
+- Notifications — `showAlert`, `notify`, `SoundNotifier`, LED (`userLedHandler`), wake-on-message (`checkDisplayOn`, auto-off).
+- Live share — session timer, movement/heartbeat gate, `sendLocationShare`, scope guard, `onSharedLocation`/live-track expiry.
+- Locator — geofence state machine, proximity beeper (`evaluateLocator`, `fireLocator`, targets).
+- Trail — sampling, auto-pause, low-battery auto-save.
+- Course over ground — `pushCogFix`, `currentCourse`, `currentLocation`.
+- Clock tools — alarm / countdown / ring (`evaluateAlarm`, `tickClockTools`, `fireClockAlert`).
+- Ping — `startPing`, `handlePingResult`.
+- Device controls — GPS on/off, GPIO (`setGpioMode`, bot GPIO), buzzer mode/volume, brightness, radio apply (`applyTxPower`, `applyApc`, `applyRadioParams`, …).
+- Bot hooks — `botSetGPS`, `botBuzz`, `botSetGPIO`, …
+
+**Screen-embedded logic (harder to extract)**
+- `SettingsScreen.h` (1.3k lines) — ~40 items, each with inline get/format/step/apply code.
+- `NearbyScreen.h` — contact discovery/sorting; `AdminScreen.h` — repeater admin session; `BotScreen.h`; `RepeaterScreen.h`; `MessagesScreen.h` (2.6k lines) — list ordering, favourites, context-menu actions mixed with rendering.
+
+**Pure view / widgets — stay in `ui-new`**
+- Rendering of every screen, `KeyboardWidget`, `PopupMenu`, `AccordionList`, `TabBar`, `icons.h`, `GfxUtils.h`, marquee, badges.
+
+## Architecture
+
+```
+ MyMesh ──(AbstractUITask callbacks)──► UiCore ──events──► Frontend (ui-new | ui-lvgl)
+   ▲                                      │  ▲                  │
+   └──────────── mesh actions ────────────┘  └──── actions ─────┘
+                                   engines, models, settings schema
+ Platform services (per board): Sound, DisplayPower, Input sources, Led
+```
+
+### 1. `UiCore` owns the mesh-facing interface
+
+`UiCore` implements `AbstractUITask`. `MyMesh` keeps calling exactly the same
+methods; they land in the Core, which updates models/engines and emits events.
+The frontend no longer implements `AbstractUITask` at all. This is the single
+point that makes both frontends receive identical behaviour.
+
+### 2. Engines
+
+One class per engine from the inventory above, each with `begin(prefs, …)`,
+`loop(now_ms)` and a small public API. No drawing, no `DisplayDriver`, no
+screen pointers. Engines that need to show something emit an event
+(`AlertRequested{text, ms}`, `LocShareEnded`, `AlarmFired`, …) instead of
+calling `showAlert()` directly.
+
+Constraints (the lite frontend runs on nRF52 with ~215 KB flash / ~65 KB RAM
+free): no heap allocation, no RTTI/exceptions, no STL containers, fixed-size
+buffers — the same rules `ui-new` follows today. Extraction must be roughly
+size-neutral on `WioTrackerL1_companion_solo_dual`.
+
+### 3. Events: Core → frontend
+
+A small fixed-size queue of tagged events plus coarse dirty flags
+(`DIRTY_MESSAGES`, `DIRTY_CONTACTS`, `DIRTY_STATUS`, …). The frontend drains
+the queue in its `loop()` and redraws what is dirty. No callbacks into the
+frontend from inside mesh processing — which also keeps the e-ink busy-wait
+pump rule ("never re-enter UI code from the radio path") trivially true.
+
+### 4. Actions: frontend → Core
+
+Plain methods on the Core facade: `sendDM`, `sendChannelMsg`, `markRead`,
+`setLiveShare`, `setLocatorTarget`, `toggleGps`, `startPing`, … Both frontends
+call the same ones, so e.g. "marking a channel read" has one implementation.
+
+### 5. Declarative settings schema
+
+Replaces the per-item code in `SettingsScreen`:
+
+```cpp
+struct SettingDef {
+  const char* id;          // stable key, also used for search / CLI
+  const char* label;
+  uint8_t     section;     // Radio / System / Display / …
+  SettingType type;        // Bool, Enum, Int, Text, Action
+  // accessors over NodePrefs; enum labels; min/max/step
+  int  (*get)(const NodePrefs&);
+  void (*set)(NodePrefs&, int);
+  const char* (*label_for)(int v);        // Enum/Int formatting
+  bool (*visible)(const NodePrefs&);       // build- or state-dependent rows
+  bool (*locked)(const NodePrefs&, const char** why); // "Off while repeating"
+  void (*apply)(UiCore&);                  // side effect after set (radio, display…)
+};
+```
+
+`ui-new` renders it as today's accordion list; `ui-lvgl` as switches, dropdowns
+and sliders. Build-time gating (`FEAT_*`) stays in the table via `#if`, so a
+hidden row costs no flash.
+
+### 6. Platform services
+
+Per-board implementations behind small interfaces: `Sound` (buzzer PWM today;
+I2S ES8311 tone generator on L2), `DisplayPower` (auto-off, brightness), `Led`,
+and input sources. Input reaches frontends in two forms: **focus keys** (the
+existing `KEY_*` codes — joystick, buttons, CardKB) and **pointer events**
+(`down/move/up` with coordinates — touch). LVGL consumes both natively; `ui-new`
+consumes keys only.
+
+## `ui-lvgl` specifics
+
+- LVGL 9 (pinned), memory in a PSRAM pool; partial-render buffers in internal RAM, flush over QSPI via LovyanGFX.
+- Theme tokens (colours, spacing, typography) in one place — the first chance to realise the "Amber Trace" direction in colour.
+- Fonts with full Latin/Polish/Cyrillic coverage.
+- Runs in the WASM sim at 320×240 with mouse as touch, so most UI work needs no flashing.
+- PR #3381's LVGL UI is a reference for platform glue (flush, GT911, PSRAM pool) only; its screens are not adopted.
+
+## Migration plan
+
+Each step keeps `WioTrackerL1_companion_solo_dual` behaviour identical and is
+checked in the sim plus on L1 hardware before the next one.
+
+1. **Skeleton.** `examples/companion_radio/ui-core/`; add it to every solo env's `build_src_filter` / include path. Move `MessageHistory` + DM unread tracking into it; `ui-new` uses them through the Core.
+2. **Engines, one per commit.** Clock tools → ping → course-over-ground → live share → locator → trail → notifications. `UITask` shrinks to screen management + drawing.
+3. **Flip the interface.** `UiCore` implements `AbstractUITask`; `ui-new`'s `UITask` becomes a frontend fed by events.
+4. **Settings schema.** Convert `SettingsScreen` section by section.
+5. **`ui-lvgl` skeleton** for L2 + sim target: boot, home, message list/conversation, keyboard. Then screens by priority.
+6. Contacts/Nearby, Admin, Bot logic extraction as the LVGL screens for them are built.
+
+## Decisions
+
+- **Upstream merge cost accepted** (2026-09-24). Moving code out of `ui-new`
+  will conflict with upstream edits to the same files; this fork's `ui-new` is
+  already heavily diverged, and upstream is itself working toward a larger UI
+  abstraction — revisit alignment when that lands.
+- **Scope is UI only** (2026-09-24). The settings schema and event queue serve
+  the on-device frontends; CLI and companion-app settings/push paths are
+  untouched for now.