Text begins as characters
A sequence can contain a base consonant, virama, following consonants, and vowel signs. Unicode records the logical text while the shaping engine determines the visual order.
Substitutions select conjunct forms
GSUB lookups may choose an ottakshara, ligature, contextual base, or reph form. Many resulting glyphs are unencoded and can only be reached through shaping.
Positioning completes the cluster
GPOS anchors and offsets place marks around the selected base and conjunct forms. Validation should compare glyph IDs, advances, and offsets across representative Kannada clusters.