Stable envelopes for critical loci

This is the first in a sequence of papers devoted to stable envelopes in critical cohomology and critical $K$-theory for symmetric GIT quotients with potentials and related geometries, and their applications to geometric representation theory and enumerative geometry. In this paper, we construct critical stable envelopes and establish their general properties, including compatibility with dimensional reductions, specializations, Hall products, and other geometric constructions. In particular, for tripled quivers with canonical cubic potentials, the critical stable envelopes reproduce those on Nakajima quiver varieties. These set up foundations for applications in subsequent papers.