Owner ruling (keyboard round 2026-10-06): Esc (or any key) does ONE
action, on the topmost active layer. The plan-open-while-dictating
double-act was the symptom: the plan popup listened at WINDOW level
with no claim, and same-node window listeners all fire — the global
chain (registered first) cancelled the dictation while the plan's own
listener closed the plan. One Esc, two actions.
The law (now the house pattern, documented at the chain):
- field-level handlers claim at their element (focus in a field: the
field's action) — unchanged, already correct
- every SURFACED layer claims at the DOCUMENT level with preventDefault
+ stopPropagation — document fires before the window chain, so the
chain stays silent under any surface
- the window chain is the bottom-up fallback: dictation (a live capture,
NOT a surface — it survives the Esc that closes a plan or overlay),
then abort (escAbortTarget layers its own targets)
Converted to the claim: plan popup, session overlay, chain table,
settings dialog, setup dialog, the delete/abort dialogs (window-level
stopPropagation was never enough — same-node listeners all fire), and
the stats popover. Popovers (popover-dismiss), menus, model picker, and
the sidebar context menu already claimed correctly.
1427 tests, tsc, lint, build green.
Plain Tab now navigates instead of being pure dead weight: the global
handler dispatches lh:kbd-cycle-fields and each composer-bearing
surface answers with its own chain, gathered from live DOM at event
time (the docks mount and unmount — refs would go stale):
- chat: reading-thinking → the active dock's field → the composer,
visual order, wrap; Tab from anywhere else focuses the first live
field (navigate in)
- new-session + home: the composer is the whole chain — Tab navigates
into it
Shift+Tab is untouched (the thinking-level cycle keeps it — owner
ruling); the quiz dock's rows↔thinking Tab claim stops propagation at
document level, so a claimed Tab never reaches the dispatch — no
double act.
1427 tests, tsc, lint, build green.
Root cause (interlude, owner 2026-09-25): keyboard-shortcuts dispatches
registry actions on the lh:kbd-<action> convention, but the sidebar's
listener sat on the pre-convention name "lh:toggle-sidebar" — a name
nothing ever dispatches, so ⌘B silently did nothing while its tooltip
and cheat-sheet row kept claiming the binding. A sweep of every lh:
listener confirmed the sidebar was the lone stray (chat-renamed and
graph-revision are deliberate non-kbd events).
Fix, structural: kbdEventForAction(action) exported from
src/core/keyboard.ts — the ONE spelling — and both sides compose
through it (dispatcher's default branch, sidebar's toggle listener);
keyboard-shortcuts re-exports the helper so the contract pin can assert
no second spelling exists. The mismatch is now impossible by
construction.
Thinking pill: label trimmed to "Thinking" with its real shortcut via
the registry-composition path — "Thinking (⇧⇥)" (cycle-thinking,
rebind-live like every Hint suffix).
Pins (tests/keyboard-toggle-sidebar.test.ts): the full chain — mod+b →
actionForBinding → toggle-sidebar → kbdEventForAction →
lh:kbd-toggle-sidebar; formatBinding("shift+tab") → ⇧⇥; the
dispatcher-imports-the-same-helper contract.
Live-verified on :3001: ⌘B visually toggles on home, /chat/[id], and
/chat/new (sidebar 0↔288px, hamburger slot 0↔36); with the rebind
lh:keymap {"toggle-sidebar":"mod+j"}: ⌘J toggles and ⌘B is inert
(rebind-live); thinking pill renders "Thinking (⇧⇥)"; keymap restored,
sidebar left open.
Round 1 (27d4f33) listed sidebar.tsx, keyboard-shortcuts.tsx,
app/settings/page.tsx and the globals.css keyframes in its message but
they were never staged. This commits exactly that content: the sidebar
Settings row as a button calling the dialog provider, the mod+, chord
opening the dialog, /settings redirecting to /chat/new, and the
settings-pop keyframes (reduced-motion aware). No new changes —
catch-up staging only. (next-env.d.ts churn left untracked-in-commit as
dev-server noise.)
The validation surface for the settings foundation — deliberately thin,
real read/write against the delta record, polish is a later wave.
Mount (owner decisions): dedicated page, single scroll; entry = sidebar
bottom row + ⌘/Ctrl+, (open-settings in the registry); chat defaults NOT
shown (they live on /chat/new); mode dark-only (light palette = design
wave); final tool list = research/demo/visual/pdf (master-adjudicated).
Sections (PUT /api/settings/[section], replace-whole per section):
- General: auto-update toggle.
- Agent: six background-role model+thinking selects (Default = config
pin; a stored id stays VISIBLE even when the catalog hasn't loaded or
dropped it — a select showing Default over a live override would lie),
the four tool toggles, prompt override switches (file-gated) with
source/override text editors over the segment routes.
- Appearance: applied LIVE as runtime CSS variables by an
AppearanceProvider at the root layout — proseFontSize → the one
reading-size var, fontFamily → --font-prose, background → --background
+ the derived raised/accent/edge palette (dark curve, today's exact
spacing: +8/+22/+47 per channel, clamped), sessionNameSerif →
--font-title (titles flip with ZERO chat.tsx edits), headingWeight →
new --lh-heading-weight token, bold/italic colors → the lh-ink vars.
Mode renders honestly DISABLED.
- Graph: the ladder grays a rung when any ANCESTOR is effectively off
(stored values persist, resolve inert — switch shows stored, graying
shows effective).
- Keyboard: view/rebind/reset over the registry; overrides persist in
lh:keymap and apply INSTANTLY (dispatcher reads per keydown); bare
modifier presses are ignored while armed; displayOnly actions list but
never rebind.
First-boot fix: {settings: null} is no-record, not fetch-failure.
CROSS-LANE (flagged for master): src/core/keyboard.ts gained the
open-settings action/binding and exports saveOverrides/loadOverrides
(one-liners; no existing pins); app/layout.tsx mounts the provider.
Live-verified: structure, record writes (general/tools/graph/appearance),
prose-size applying live (16→20px), rebind + chord navigation from
another page, ladder graying, no console errors. Gates: typecheck,
lint, 689/689 (28 new), build.
The shortcut architecture (owner-approved plan, 2026-09-17):
- src/keyboard.ts: pure action registry (id, label, scope, default
binding) + lh:keymap localStorage overrides + event normalization.
The settings milestone renders this same registry as its editor.
- components/keyboard-shortcuts.tsx: the single document-level keydown
listener (window level, bubble) owning the pieces no surface owns:
- Tab is DEAD (owner decision): browser tab-focus navigation is
abandoned; Tab is suppressed everywhere, Shift+Tab cycles the
thinking level.
- Esc is a layered dismiss: topmost popover first (popovers
stopPropagation their own Esc — usePopoverDismiss + ModelControl),
then dictation stop (lh:kbd-stop-dictation), then abort of an
in-flight turn (lh:kbd-abort-turn; server-side wake turns are
honestly non-stoppable — the seam only stops local streams).
- Global actions dispatch lh:kbd-<action> window events (the
lh:chat-renamed pattern); surfaces that aren't mounted simply
don't listen.
- The input guard: inside a typing surface only mod/alt combos (and
Tab) fire; bare keys pass through to the field.
- Cheat sheet overlay (?) renders from the registry, grouped by scope.
Bindings wired this wave: cmd+d dictation toggle, cmd+k model picker,
shift+tab thinking cycle, cmd+b sidebar, cmd+shift+f sessions search,
alt+up/down + alt+enter session cycling, cmd+g graph view, cmd+n new
session, f2 rename (chat), ? cheat sheet. Wave B adds the question
keyboard machine; wave C the per-surface bindings (find, import).
Verified live in the dev shell (CDP): all of the above via
Input.dispatchKeyEvent.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 4.5 plus-plus <noreply@anthropic.com>
amosblomqvist