One shot area solve, I suspect this is min+2

Also I feels that same area with better secondary could be achieved by 3 arms

I'd say I was an area main years ago, now I'm not sure about that, let's see how the two predictions above made by my area brain goes

The puzzle is good (should I thank shadowcluster for that), for the theory is interesting by how well you can fit all the glyphs, arms and inputs inside the height-3 zone, and layouts are compared by the number of excess hex out of the area

last bond in the left results in smallest zone, I start ambitiously from 4 excess hex, found it impossible and went all the way up to 8

to slide the chain, arm needs horizonal track which requires 2 excess hex, the vitae-mors glyph need 1, debonder need 1 or it breaks the chain, 3-atom input need 1, iron input need 1 without clever supression

I spent 4 hex on 2 arms to access everything and slide, which could be lower if anyone got less area