Settings interlude (owner request, 2026-09-19): the route now also returns
rolePins: Record<BackgroundModelRole, {model: {provider, id},
thinkingLevel}> — the six background roles' RESOLVED models (the user's
agent-models override falling back to the config.ts MODELS pin), so the
settings UI shows each role row's 'Default: <actual pinned model>' instead
of a generic config caption. Same resolution the agent factories use
(effectiveSettings), so the caption can never drift from what runs.
Pure projection (rolePinsFor) + the fs wrapper (catalogRolePins); pins
tested against config defaults and model/thinkingLevel-only overrides.
BACKGROUND_MODEL_PINS exported from stores.ts for the test (was local).
Settings interlude (owner request, 2026-09-19): the route now also returns
rolePins: Record<BackgroundModelRole, {model: {provider, id},
thinkingLevel}> — the six background roles' RESOLVED models (the user's
agent-models override falling back to the config.ts MODELS pin), so the
settings UI shows each role row's 'Default: <actual pinned model>' instead
of a generic config caption. Same resolution the agent factories use
(effectiveSettings), so the caption can never drift from what runs.
Pure projection (rolePinsFor) + the fs wrapper (catalogRolePins); pins
tested against config defaults and model/thinkingLevel-only overrides.
BACKGROUND_MODEL_PINS exported from stores.ts for the test (was local).
Owner report: the scrollbar pressed against the slider content. Panel
w-64 -> w-72 and the inner scroll column gains pr-2.5, so the spacing
is concentric: content -> 10px -> scrollbar -> 10px -> panel edge. The
scrollbar itself is NOT moved — it keeps its distance from the panel's
right border; the panel simply widens to give it air.
- Corner rounding back (owner, 2026-09-20): the four controls return to
rounded-xl — 16px in this theme, identical to the composer shell's
rounded-2xl (verified computed-style equal). Inner elements (search
input, import button, cost hover) stay concentric: 16 - 4px padding
= rounded-lg (12px), the composer's own concentric math.
- Equal spacing: the cluster pins 8px from BOTH edges (top-2 + right-2),
still flush with the sidebar toggle's header band (top 8px).
- Stacking: the actions row is now relative + z-20 — an open settings or
coverage dropdown paints over the cost number below it (owner report:
it layered ON TOP of the panel, still hoverable/clickable). The row is
a stacking context inside the column, so its dropdowns cover the
number and clicks land on the panel; the number resurfaces untouched
when the panel closes (verified with elementFromPoint).
- Rectangular look (owner, 2026-09-20): the four top-row controls drop
rounded-xl (16px theme) to rounded-sm (4px) — gear, coverage, search
container + input, import container + button; the cost number's hover
highlight joins the family. Dropdown panels keep their softer cards.
Owner report: the controls folded onto two rows (search+coverage /
import+gear) — the 2026-09-17 flex-wrap kicking in, plus a real bug: my
previous wave moved max-w-[calc(100%-9rem)] onto the shrink-wrapped
column wrapper, where the percentage reference broke and the wrap fired
far too early. Owner wants the controls to read as header content.
- The width cap moves to the absolute column itself (100% resolves
against the full-bleed parent, as before): max-w-[calc(100%-5.5rem)].
- One row, NEVER wraps (owner rejected the two-row fold): search is the
flexible element (w-56 + min-w-0, shrinks under the cap); the other
controls are shrink-0.
- All controls slimmed into the header band: top-2 (8px) matching the
header's py-2, 36px tall matching the toggle's h-9 — size-9 buttons,
h-7 import button, px-1 py-[3px] containers (border included = 36).
- Cost number + pipeline pills stay below the band, unchanged.
Owner-directed placement wave (2026-09-20): the bottom-left stack
overflowed the composer in narrow windows, and the pill chrome was
too prominent for a passive number.
- The cost surface is now JUST a number (cumulative dollars) top
right, below the actions row — no pill container, hover-highlight
kept, dropdown breakdown kept, viewport-capped + scrollable.
- Same dismiss pattern as the settings gear: outside click or Escape
closes (shared usePopoverDismiss; two dropdowns never open at once).
- Running-pipeline pills moved under the cost number in the same
top-right column — one right-aligned column grows downward from the
top, so no window width can push chrome over the composer.
- Cluster namer bills the money channel now: per-step usage + model
captured via onStep, persisted as NamingRunUsage records to
data/graph/naming-runs.jsonl (idempotent per startedAt; failed/aborted
runs persist too — money spent either way). callUsage promoted to
extraction.ts module scope for reuse.
- core/cost-summary.ts: the pure fold behind the pill — chat runs,
notes-source runs, and naming runs into stage totals (extraction /
audit / naming) + newest-first recent runs. Dollars INFERRED read-time
via prices.ts, never stored; unpriced models excluded-but-counted
(render '—', never a silent zero); tokens always sum.
- GET /api/graph/costs (src/server graphCosts composition, thin route).
- Graph view: bottom-left cost pill (cumulative dollars headline) +
expandable breakdown panel (stage rows with tokens secondary, recent
runs with time/title/merged/cost); fetched on mount, refetched when a
pipeline run finishes; merged into one bottom-left stack with the
running-pipeline pills.
- Tests: pure-fold suite, naming capture wiring (full importNotes ->
naming path), store idempotency + strict reads.
The auth/keys wave (2026-09-19): the server now owns the flat auth.json
map directly (LH_AUTH_FILE from main.cjs; repo-root auth.json in dev,
gitignored). The store reflects itself into the child's env at boot with
fill-gap precedence — real env (incl. .env.local in dev) always wins —
so every consumer keeps its plain process.env reads and saved keys take
effect immediately, no restart; main.cjs's spawn-time injection retired
(an env copy would shadow every settings-page change).
Curated 4-key catalog (OpenRouter, Deepgram, Google search pair) with
shape-only validation (no live pings — owner decision), 400s on bad
pastes, last-4+length masking (plaintext never leaves the store),
unknown file vars preserved + surfaced. Routes: GET /api/keys,
PUT/DELETE /api/keys/:id. Tests: catalog/store/composition, with the
env-sanitizing prologue (a dev shell may export real keys; tests use
throwaway values only).
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 other half-wired seam: Platform's settings 'agent.prompts' switches
had no consumer in the agent layer, and their effectivePromptSegments
mirrored the PRE-sources-v1 loader — the shared/ fragments dir (the
learner-files doctrine) was invisible to it, so a naive delegation would
have silently dropped the segment from both agents' prompts.
- src/core/prompt-segments.ts (NEW, pure): the mirror-layout path
grammar + segment types, defined exactly once; core stays zero-IO.
- src/agent/prompt-segments.ts (NEW, the CANONICAL discovery): base +
shared/ + per-agent fragments, override resolution, allSegmentPaths.
Composition is an agent concern; the agent layer reads its own tree
(the architecture law pins agent and store apart — the first direct
refactor attempt tripped the enforced import/no-restricted-paths
zone, hence the three-layer split).
- src/store/prompt-overrides.ts: slimmed to the override-file CRUD
behind the core port; shares the core grammar. Its doc no longer
claims to be the canonical mirror.
- teacher-agent: composeInstructions(kind, switches?) composes through
effectivePromptSegments — a segment whose switch is ON and whose
override file exists composes the override text. Switches-less calls
use the cached pure-source composition (byte-identical to the old
loader, pinned by test); AgentBuildOptions.promptSwitches threads
effective.agent.prompts per turn, composing fresh so override-file
writes flip the very next turn.
- server barrel: re-exports the agent module's resolution for the
settings routes (server→agent, the lawful direction).
Tests: byte-identical source pin, override swap-in (on/off/file-absent),
shared/ overridability in both agents, agent-construction threading,
updated segment-list pins with shared/ in composition order. This file
keeps owning PROMPTS_OVERRIDE_DIR (parallel-test discipline).
Gates: 671/671, typecheck, lint, build.
Reconciliation of the diverged tool-toggles seam (2026-09-19, master's
P2): Platform injected the resolved delta as an ad-hoc intersection on
AgentBuildOptions while the factories' enabled? param sat unread — the
seam was inert on both sides.
- teacher-agent: AgentBuildOptions gains toolToggles?: EnabledTools;
both constructors thread it to the factories (createTeacherTools /
createProberTools). An explicitly injected opts.tools registry is
never filtered — the caller owns it.
- Vocabulary ADJUDICATED with the user (2026-09-19): TOGGLEABLE_TOOLS is
the definitive list — the job tools only (research/demo/visual/pdf).
quiz/ask_user_question stay always-on forever (the prober's flow is
graded-quiz brackets -> probe_done; quiz-off collapses assessment and
teaching doctrine is built on graded verification — the wedge danger);
the learner-fs set, plan tools, and probe_done also always-on.
- settings-body (write side): unknown tool keys reject with 400 + the
supported list, mirroring the prompt-switch validation; the read-side
sanitizer stays lenient for forward-compat.
- chat-handler: the intersection is gone (field now first-class) and the
seam comment states the adjudicated vocabulary.
Gates: typecheck, 28 new/updated tests green (tool-toggles-bridge,
question-tools, settings-body), chat-flow + settings suites green.
Root cause of the live-test bugs (2026-09-19): pi passes every run's
AbortSignal to tool execute, but toPiTool dropped it — agent.abort()
only landed at the next step boundary, so a long local grep held its
turn hostage until the dev server's memory restart killed the run
mid-tool, freezing the record at its write-ahead state (the 'went
back in time' rollback).
- lh-tool: execute ctx gains signal (parent + timeout combined); every
call races a 30s system-level timeout with a 250ms cooperative grace —
abort kills a stuck tool but lets a poll-the-signal tool deliver its
partial results. Pre-aborted signals never fire listeners: checked
upfront. toolTimeoutMs is the test seam (pdfModelOverride idiom).
- fs-shared: walkFiles returns {timedOut, aborted} instead of throwing —
abort yields partial results.
- grep: the scan phase was unbounded (the walk's 10s deadline only
bounded collection) — same budget now checked per file; find/grep
check the signal and return partials with a notice.
- pending/chat: streamingToolActivity names the ACTUAL running tool —
a part sits input-streaming through its whole execution, so the old
shimmer called minutes-long greps 'Writing a question…'.
Tests: toPiTool guard (forward, abort, timeout, grace, question
bypass, ToolInputError passthrough), walk mid-abort, find/grep
pre-abort + mid-run abort, activity labels. Gates: 617/617.
Live-smoke follow-up the user approved (2026-09-19): the GEB read showed
"78 pages consulted" when the reader genuinely READ ~12 - pdf_search hit
snippets inflated the count. PdfResult now carries both:
- pagesRead: extract/render output entered the loop - the honest count
the badge and brief footer show ("read N pages", "Pages read: ...").
- pagesConsulted: every page whose content entered the loop, search-hit
context lines included - unchanged, still the citation audit set (the
reader's instructions still say "Pages consulted: N, N, ..." and the
footer still lists it when it exceeds the read set).
The unread-finish gate deliberately stays on CONSULTED: search hits are
genuine consultation (anti-fabrication duty), so a search-only brief is
honest and must deliver - pagesRead is a reporting refinement, not a
delivery gate. Pinned by the search-only faux test (read [], consulted
[1], delivered).
UI tolerates pre-split persisted records via ?? fallbacks (old steers
lack pagesRead).
User pivot (2026-09-19): no attachments UI at all. Pasting paths is native
for technical users and alien for everyone else - so the agent gets the
tools to find what the learner merely NAMES. The learner communicates in
messages; the agent locates and reads. Zero cross-stream seams: paths
already live in tool parts, so the sources "list" is the transcript.
- ls/find/grep: pi-verbatim schemas, descriptions, and output formats
(fd's glob semantics, rg's path:line: match format, pi's truncation
notices), ported to pure Node - no binaries, no shell-out, read-only by
construction. Deltas from pi: home-anchored resolution (the harness has
no cwd), .gitignore replaced by hard noise exclusions
(node_modules/.git/Library/.Trash), 10s walk timeout with partial results.
- read: description swapped to pi-verbatim (doctrine moved to the prompt);
relative paths now resolve against the learner's home like the rest.
- prompts/shared/05-learner-files.md: one minimal doctrine fragment
composed into BOTH agents (composeInstructions grew a shared/ dir,
before the agent's own fragments). teacher/30-jobs.md keeps only the
pdf-dispatch addendum.
- ToolCallCard: the generic quiet tool-call card the user specced -
collapsed one-liner (tool name + headline argument), expandable to full
input/output, errors red, image payloads never render. Registered for
read/ls/find/grep.
- ui-message.ts: TeacherUITools entries for the four tools (mechanical).
- tests: fs-tools suite (glob semantics, pi formats, exclusions, limits),
registry/card renders, shared-fragment composition pins, tool-registry
key updates, read re-anchor.
The browser e2e check on the live dispatch session found the tool-pdf
part rendered NO card: the artifact renderer registry had no pdf entry
(the doc comment literally says "add your renderer here"), and the typed
TeacherUITools union + the chat.tsx job-part enumerations (poll cadence,
dispatch nudge, settle-sync) all missed the new tool kind.
- PdfJobCard in job-card.tsx: the research JobCard idiom, kind pdf —
registered in artifacts/index.ts.
- ui-message.ts: pdf entry in TeacherUITools (fire-and-forget ack output).
- chat.tsx: two mechanical "tool-pdf" additions to the research/demo/visual
enumerations — UI-stream file, flagged for review at merge (same
treatment as the activity-dock type-forced entries).
- demos.test.tsx: live/settled dispatch-card renders + registry pin.
Live dispatch smoke against the Turbopack dev server (master's ask,
2026-09-19) caught two things unit tests cannot - they run unbundled:
- Bundling pdfjs-dist broke its node fake-worker: the chunk-relative
pdf.worker.mjs import 404s inside .next/dev/server/chunks. Fix:
serverExternalPackages + tracing includes for legacy/ + standard_fonts/
(next.config.ts - a clearly-marked seam, same precedent as bcdcd51; the
standalone output now ships the worker and font files, verified).
- Real-world PDFs warned about missing standardFontDataUrl (non-embedded
standard fonts silently fall back) and flooded the log with JBIG2
warnings on scanned files. Fix: standardFontsDir() + verbosity 0 in
both the node ops and the headless canvas shim.
Verified live end-to-end on GEB (802pp, text layer): teacher dispatch,
12-step read with vision renders, brief with accurate page citations,
wake turn folding the resolution (Chapter IX, pp. 268-270) into the
lesson. Scanned/DRM Polya correctly refuses to fabricate citations.
Learner source files, on the teacher's own terms (nothing auto-injects):
- read tool (src/agent/tools/read.ts): pi-read port — path/offset/limit,
2000-line/50KB truncation with use-offset continuation notices, image
files (jpg/png/gif/webp/bmp) returned as native image content parts
(new LhToolImageResult escape hatch in lh-tool.ts). Always-on in both
the prober and teacher registries (user-decided 2026-09).
- pdf-reader sub-agent (JobKind 'pdf', toggleable, ack-and-steer): triage
via pdf_info (pdfjs text layer: per-page text/image/math-density),
targeted pdf_extract, regex pdf_search (hits count as consultation),
and pdf_render — pages painted by pdfjs onto a canvas shim in headless
Chrome (the pdfium viewer doesn't paint headless), screenshot fed back
image-in-the-loop (visual-maker idiom, providerSafePng applied). The
unread-finish gate bounces a zero-consultation brief once. Teacher gets
a text brief with page citations only; renders never leave the loop.
- MODELS.pdfReader = qwen/qwen3.8-flash (user override 2026-09-19: the
look-at-renders workload wants the vision-proven model; catalog listed
glm-5.3-flash as image-capable but qwen is the known-good daily driver).
- UI: PdfCompleteBadge + PdfBriefCard (steer-card, job-card), dispatch
card + activity-dock kind entries (type-forced, flagged for UI review).
- Prompts: 'Learner source files' section in teacher/30-jobs.md; read
line in prober/10-probe-doctrine.md. Doctrine rides tool descriptions
per the self-contained-tools principle.
One key, master pre-approved content (2026-09 master sync): the pdf-reader
is of the teacher/researcher family — dense image→text extraction wants the
stronger multimodal; qwen/qwen3.8-flash stays specialized for visualMaker
(generation). Owner can override in one line after live testing.
Part 1 — tool availability (the settings seam, machinery generic):
- core/pending.ts: TOGGLEABLE_TOOLS (today: research, demo, visual —
the model-facing tool names), EnabledTools = the JSON-native seam
shape Partial<Record<string, boolean>> (absent key = enabled, so old
records behave exactly as today), filterEnabledTools shared helper.
quiz/ask_user_question are always-on FOR NOW (user-decided); the
filtering is generic so future toggleables (question-tool variants,
the read tool, …) need no factory change.
- createProberTools/createTeacherTools take enabled?: EnabledTools; the
composition root (chat-handler, Platform's lane this wave) passes the
resolved settings through. probe_done is re-added after the filter —
always-on by construction (it ends the phase; a prober that can never
conclude is a lockout).
- Prompts stay STATIC under toggles this wave (user-decided); standing
principle recorded: tools ship self-contained usage guidance in their
descriptions; system prompts reference only always-on tools.
Part 2 — phase-based question-writing principles (user-locked wording,
drafted with the user over three iterations):
- NEW teacher/21-question-principles.md (composes after 20-teaching):
answerable-by-reasoning-from-the-session (the fairness rule that
filters unanswerable questions without forbidding visible answers),
never-just-reciting-your-words-back, PREFER problems that apply the
knowledge (preference, not hard rule — honest recall is the fallback,
not the habit), catch-confusion-early-and-nameable (wrong options as
real misconceptions), answer-is-signal-not-verdict.
- prober/10-probe-doctrine.md: 'no rush' retired; quick-measurement
directive in — every question moves an edge (bracket, narrow, or
characterize); a bracketed strand is done.
Tests: TOGGLEABLE_TOOLS pin, prober/teacher filtering (absent = full,
false drops exactly that tool, probe_done survives), prompt pins (the
principles compose verbatim into the teacher prompt, the no-rush
framing is gone from the prober). 547/547, typecheck/lint/build green.
Owner reframe (2026-09-18): the model + thinking + context controls on
the home graph view and /chat/new are not a draft overlay on a baked-in
default — they ARE the settings page for the default model, and the
user's last choice IS the default. BYOK first boot has no keys and
possibly no OpenRouter, so there is NO default to show: the controls
render 'no model' ('—') until the first pick.
The flash was the deeper symptom: the surfaces rendered from client
state that started empty and fetched truth afterward, so every visit
flashed the config pin (GLM/low — a dev artifact) for a few frames.
Fix at the root: both pages are now force-dynamic server components
that read the record (readDefaultSettings → initialSettings) and hand
it to the client — the first frame shows truth. Dynamic routes aren't
cached client-side (staleTimes.dynamic = 0), so every navigation
re-reads the record; the useDefaultSettings hook keeps only save-side
state (optimistic set + PUT). The GET-on-mount and its touch-guard are
gone.
ModelControl gains noDefaultModel (the default surfaces only): unset
settings render no model/level, never the catalog pin; the thinking
menu no-ops until a model exists. Chat surfaces keep the catalog
fallback — the engine runs the config pin when a session record has no
override, so the control keeps showing what will actually run.
Renamed draft→default throughout: data/default-settings.json,
GET/PUT /api/settings/defaults, useDefaultSettings. New sessions
still inherit the default on creation exactly as before.
Live-verified: first-boot 'no model' with zero flash, picker +
Shift+Tab cycle, values held across session→/chat/new→home roundtrips
and a reload (10×100ms samples, never the old default), zero console
errors.
Both new-session pages (the home graph view's topic dock and /chat/new)
held their model + thinking + knowledge-context choices in plain
useState(undefined) — every navigation reset them to config defaults.
Now both surfaces read/write ONE server-side record
(data/draft-settings.json via GET/PUT /api/settings/draft, the
render-settings pattern): whatever the learner last left the controls on
is what every later visit shows. useDraftSettings loads on mount with a
touch-guard (a slow GET never clobbers a fast choice), saves
optimistically. Session creation still carries the choice into the new
chat exactly as before; per-session settings are untouched.
The PUT validation is the exact per-chat contract — parseSettingsBody
extracted verbatim from app/api/chats/[id]/settings and shared by both
routes (unknown model/level → 400 with the supported list, never a
silent clamp). 400s on garbage, {} = the clear-overrides write.
Live-verified: Cmd+K+Enter model pick, Shift+Tab thinking cycle, context
slider — all held across home → session → home → /chat/new, and carried
into a created session's record.
The wake pump fires its turn with the steer INSIDE the request body but
dequeues the queue entry only after the turn returns 200 — so the entry
is still queued when the handler claims. The record doesn't carry the
steer yet (write-ahead persist hasn't run), so claimSteers claimed it a
SECOND time and the handler appended it: outgoing = [...body, ...claimed]
held two copies of the same deterministic steer id, and the write-ahead
persist saved that for the whole wake turn. The client's adoption poll
rendered both -> React duplicate-key warning (steer_ctx_<chatId>).
withMessageIds deduped only at onFinish, so the final record looked clean.
Fix: claimSteers(chatId, incoming) — a queued steer whose id is already in
the turn's incoming list is being delivered BY this very turn: finalized
and resolved, never appended again.
The walked row's ring-1 is a box-shadow painted OUTSIDE the border box;
the list's overflow-y-auto makes overflow-x clip at the padding box too
(CSS: a non-visible axis forces the other to auto), so the 1px halo was
shaved on both sides. Replaced with the quiz rows' bg-accent/40 filled
tint and added px-1 to the list so the highlight never touches the
edges (owner round 5).
Owner polish pair before the settings milestone:
- Model menu: arrows walk the filtered results (clamped, no wrap) while
focus stays in the search field; Enter picks the walked row or, with no
walk yet, the first result; typing resets the walk; click and Enter
share one pickModel path; walked row gets a muted ring + scrollIntoView;
cheat-sheet display entries added.
- Graph: window resizes re-anchor the camera so the world point under the
pre-resize viewport center stays under the new center — the graph stays
visually still while scaling (was top-left pinned). viewW/H tracked in
syncSize; re-anchor applied through the zoom behavior (persistence and
card-dismiss unchanged); kFit refresh as before. Pixel-verified: 7/7
center samples identical across a 300x200 shrink.
Tab/arrow focus on quiz/question option buttons and the don't-know row
showed Chromium's default focus ring — the abandoned look. outline-none
on the row buttons keeps the walk ring (bg-accent/40) as the only focus
indicator, so the appearance is identical before and after Tab.
Owner live-test rounds on waves A/B:
- Alt+arrows no longer ALSO walk the question rows (dock ignores
alt/meta/ctrl combos; session cycling keeps them exclusively)
- question walk clamps at the ends — no wrap (faster to navigate)
- plain Tab toggles focus between the thinking field and the answer
rows (walked row by default); focus follows the walk while in the
rows; Shift+Tab stays the global thinking-level cycle
- Esc in the sessions search blurs back to normal (claims the key so
the window Esc chain does not fire)
- cheat sheet gains the Tab-in-question display entry
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>
The settings panel (16 sliders ≈ 900px) overflowed past the window
bottom at short heights and stretched the whole page scrollable. The
coverage dropdown's pattern is the standard for top-anchored popups
overflowing viewport bounds: max-h-[60vh] keeps a floor of free space
above the window bottom at any height, and the inner column gets
overflow-y-auto (which also zeroes the flex item's automatic
min-height so it actually shrinks) — the panel scrolls internally, the
page never scrolls.
Live-verified in the dev shell at emulated 640px and 1000px viewports:
panel caps at exactly 60vh (384px @ 640h, 192px bottom gap), inner
scroll reaches the physics section (412px travel), docScrollable false
at both heights.
Owner's second live test:
- DEFERRED transcript: finals accumulate in a buffer during the run and
flush into the primary input once, when dictation ends (Stop →
CloseStream → Deepgram's last finals → socket close → one joined
append; the 3s safety net covers a missing close). Nothing textual
renders while recording — the meter is the only live feedback. Live
output may return as a toggleable setting at the settings milestone;
deferred is the default behavior.
- ADAPTIVE meter: cell count derives from the measured strip width (4px
pitch, 8-48 cells, ResizeObserver; cells drop their minimum width) so
narrow rows beside the knowledge-context slider fit — verified in the
dev shell: draft 20 cells/83px, chat 48 cells/273px, no overlap.
Owner's first live mic test (2026-09-17) drove four changes:
- ONE primary transcription input at all times: while a quiz/ask
question waits, finals land in its field (text mode → 'Your answer',
select modes → 'Your thinking') via a module-level claim registry
(useDictationTarget in dictation.tsx); the composer is the fallback.
Esc in a question field also stops dictation (threaded through
DockOverlay → QuestionDock).
- No interim results: live words were distracting and shifted the meter.
Params now match the pi dictate extension exactly (no interim_results,
endpointing=300, no utterance_end_ms); the meter's width stays fixed.
- Optimistic meter: the click enters the meter view immediately (Stop
pill + meter within one frame, verified at 150ms in the dev shell);
token mint and mic acquisition run concurrently behind it.
- Wide idle button: the stats-bar middle is one full-width affordance —
a quiet bordered 'Dictate' button when idle (failure text replaces the
label), Stop pill + fixed meter while live.
Live-verified in the Electron dev shell: wide button renders on home
(167px) and chat (358px), meter + Stop appear at 150ms after click,
flat 2px bars in silence, clean return to 'Dictate' on stop.
Two live-verified Deepgram facts from the first real mic-test round:
- /v1/auth/grant returns { access_token }, not { token } — the route now
parses the right field.
- Minted JWTs authenticate over the WebSocket via the "bearer"
subprotocol; ["token", jwt] is rejected at the handshake (token is
for raw API keys only, as in the pi dictate extension).
Also documents the env-precedence gotcha in docs/research/stt.md: a
DEEPGRAM_API_KEY exported in the shell (e.g. .zshrc) silently beats
.env.local in next dev and the desktop authEnv() seam.
Two-band architecture from docs/research/stt.md: renderer captures mic
audio in an AudioWorklet (linear16 16kHz mono, ~128ms frames, per-quantum
RMS for the meter) and streams it directly to Deepgram over WebSocket —
audio never loops through our server. The real key stays server-side;
/api/stt/token mints a short-lived grant token (TTL 300s) per run.
Patterns ported from the owner's pi dictate extension (tuned in real
use): generation counter guarding every async handler, the
latest-RMS-never-resets meter (-50..-10dB window, 60ms tick), mic-first
stop + CloseStream + 3s safety net, endpointing=300 with the
utterance_end_ms=1000 backstop.
UI (owner placement): mic button in the stats bar's middle slot on all
three surfaces (home graph-view, chat, draft); while recording the meter
unfurls to fill the row's free width with the interim ghost at its
flank. Esc ends dictation from the composer. Token mint comes before
getUserMedia so a keyless app fails fast without a TCC prompt; one
automatic reconnect on abnormal socket close, errors surface inline.
Live-smoked the full error path in the dev shell (bar renders on all
three pages, 403 grant failure shows inline, mic untouched). The full
audio path needs a Deepgram key with Member permission to mint tokens.
The sidebar no longer squeezes the page when the window narrows; the
page itself never goes below a comfortable floor (owner decisions,
2026-09-17: 640px min, widen-window on toggle, auto-restore):
- minWidth 640 / minHeight 600 on the BrowserWindow (macOS enforces)
- Below SIDEBAR_AUTOCLOSE (928 = 640 + 288 sidebar) the sidebar
auto-closes, and auto-RESTORES when the window widens past it again —
both fall out of one expression: rendered = pref && !narrow, where
pref is the persisted user choice. Manual closes persist and stay
closed; auto-close never touches the preference.
- Opening the sidebar while narrow asks the shell to widen the window
to 928 first (new lh:expand-window IPC, preload.cjs contextBridge —
the renderer's first and only Electron bridge): the toggle is never a
dead button, and the layout never has to survive narrow + sidebar.
In the plain browser there is no suppression and no widening — a
narrow tab opens the sidebar if the user says so.
- Graph chrome row wraps: max-w-[calc(100%-9rem)] + flex-wrap keeps the
row clear of the header toggle cluster and stacks it onto extra lines
below ~640px instead of overflowing left.
State machine verified in the Electron dev shell across all six
transitions (auto-close, auto-restore, manual-close-persists,
reopen-widens, browser fallback, wrap at 640/500/360).
Live-resize frame lag: the native window surface resizes before the
compositor has a frame at the new size; the gap showed Electron's
default WHITE window background — glaring on a dark app, at the edges
on shrink. The standard treatment, all three:
- BrowserWindow backgroundColor '#141414' fills the lag with the app bg
- show: false + ready-to-show — the window appears only after the page
has rendered (kills the first-paint white window)
- color-scheme: dark — native widgets and scrollbars render dark
Owner resize-verified in the Electron dev shell.
The home header carried -webkit-app-region: drag after <main> in the
tree, re-adding drag over the graph chrome row's no-drag carve-out —
Electron's mask applies carve-outs only to regions added EARLIER in the
DOM walk, so the gear/search/coverage/import buttons dragged the window.
Fix: a dedicated 52px drag-mask div placed FIRST in the home page DOM;
every carved control (chrome row, node detail card, toggle) comes later
and subtracts correctly. The header loses its app-region entirely — the
mask routes the pixels, the header stays a pure pointer-events container.
Retires the .lh-float-drag CSS class.
Verified live in the Electron dev shell by the owner: chrome row,
sidebar close button, logo, and window drag all work.
Traffic lights (owner report: 'way too low, not aligned with the phase pill'):
measured in the running app — circles centered at 30.75pt vs the pill box's
29.25pt (band 0-59.5, pill box 19-39.5, pill ink 28.75; uppercase glyphs sit
high). trafficLightPosition y 24 -> 22.5 lands the circle centers at 29.25,
exactly on the pill. Owner confirmed aligned after this change.
Rename escape hitbox (owner report): entering rename was already width-of-
title only, but the editing input spanned flex-1 so clicking the rest of the
bar stayed inside the input. The input is now shrink-to-fit
([field-sizing:content], min 8ch / max 70%) and any mousedown outside the
input blurs it, running the existing onBlur commit path; the header drops
lh-drag while renaming so the drag region cannot eat the escape click.
Verified: click-away commits (exactly one PUT), Escape discards, Enter
commits.
Phase pill is pure decoration (owner report: 'should not be interactable
in any way'): no tooltip, pointer-events-none, select-none — part of the
drag surface instead of a carved-out target.
Graph chrome was unclickable in Electron (owner report): home.tsx's
floating drag strip underlays the z-10 controls row, and Electron's
app-region mask ignores z-index, so the region ate their clicks (plain
browser unaffected — DOM hit-testing is fine). lh-no-drag carve-outs on
the chrome row and the node detail card (it is placed imperatively
anywhere, including the top strip).
LhMark home link now mirrors the ghost toggle: same size-9 chip geometry
and hover:bg-accent treatment.
The system title bar disappears (titleBarStyle hiddenInset +
trafficLightPosition {16,24}): the app's own 60px header bands become the
window's drag surface, and the traffic lights float over the sidebar's
mark band, vertically centered on the same line as the chat header's
phase pill (pixel-verified: circle centers y 24–36.5pt, pill box center
30pt).
- electron/main.cjs: hiddenInset chrome; dev shell (LH_DEV_URL) gets its
own userData (-dev suffix) so it never fights the packaged app's
single-instance lock — verified: the lock silently killed the dev
shell while the packaged app was open (that also proved the lock works
across separately-launched builds).
- app/globals.css: .lh-electron-gated utilities — drag/no-drag bands,
92px traffic-light gutter (.lh-lights-gutter / .lh-closed-toggle:
lights end ~75pt + the lights' own 16px edge inset as the gap),
home's floating strip becomes a drag surface only in the shell.
Everything is inert in the plain browser.
- sidebar.tsx: SidebarProvider sets <html class=lh-electron> post-mount
(UA detection; no hydration mismatch, absent in browser); LH wordmark
text replaced by the owner's mark (components/lh-mark.tsx, inlined
icon-no-padding.svg, 24px, home link kept); SidebarToggle gains the
92px margin when closed so it never slides under the static lights.
- chat.tsx: the rename hit-box shrinks to the title text itself —
flex-1 spanned the whole bar, so every click started a rename and the
window lost its grip. Shrink-to-fit + a flex-1 drag spacer (chips stay
right) + hover:bg-accent affordance (clear when hover renames vs
drags; -mx/px cancel for zero shift). The renaming input keeps flex-1
for edit room.
- home.tsx / new-session.tsx / phase-divider.tsx: drag bands + carve-outs.
Live-verified in the dev shell (pixel analysis) and headless browser:
lights/pill/mark centered, 17pt lights→mark gap, rename click→select-all
→Escape roundtrip, browser layout untouched.
Gates: typecheck, eslint, 500/500 tests, build.
The web app becomes a desktop app without changing shape: the Electron
shell spawns the Next standalone server on a loopback port and points a
sandboxed window at it. All app logic stays in the Next server.
Bands:
1. LH_DATA_DIR seam (config.ts): PATHS.data/chats/graph derive from
process.env.LH_DATA_DIR (else repo data/, unchanged in dev). New
PATHS.modelCache routes the transformers.js embedding-model cache
(~300MB) to <data>/models when the seam is set — the default cache
inside node_modules is read-only in a packaged bundle. All existing
fs writes flow through PATHS; teacherPrompt stays ROOT-anchored
(read-only asset, ships inside the bundle by design).
tests/data-dir-seam.test.ts covers set/unset via child process.
2. Standalone build (next.config.ts + scripts/build-server.mjs):
output 'standalone'; outputFileTracingExcludes data/**/* keeps the
repo's real session data out of the bundle (verified: an unexcluded
scratch build traced 34 files / 716K of real chats + ledgers).
Two empirically-verified tracer gaps required outputFileTracingIncludes:
pi-ai's provider catalog (JSON import attributes — 39 files, 500s on
/api/models without them) and onnxruntime-node's sibling dylib
(libonnxruntime.dlopen via @rpath). build-server.mjs copies public/
and .next/static per docs, refuses a leaked data/ dir, and asserts
the runtime-read prompt .md assets are traced.
3. Electron shell (electron/main.cjs, no preload):
- single-instance lock (two instances would fight over the data dir);
- free port via listen(0); spawn via process.execPath +
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 with PORT/HOSTNAME=127.0.0.1/LH_DATA_DIR;
- BYOK: userData/auth.json, flat {VAR: value} JSON, mode 0600,
merged into the child env only when absent from the real env
(auth UI is the settings milestone; file is hand-editable);
- poll until the server answers (no ready event), then open a
contextIsolation+sandbox window; deny-by-default permission
handler (media allowed only from the loopback origin — mic/STT
groundwork); will-navigate pinned to origin, window.open denied
with external links to the system browser; macOS Edit-menu roles;
- quit path SIGTERM→3s→SIGKILL + exit/SIGHUP nets; child stdout
mirrored to userData/logs/main.log;
- dev mode via LH_DEV_URL: no spawn, points at next dev (HMR).
4. Packaging (electron-builder.yml + build/entitlements.mac.plist):
files = electron shell only; the whole .next payload ships via
extraResources from .next (filter standalone/**/*) — NOT from
.next/standalone directly: electron-builder hard-excludes a copy's
root node_modules and the default pattern is a literal match, so
node_modules/ and .next/ were silently dropped and the server died
with 'Cannot find module next'. Asar holds no native code.
Unsigned (identity: null) until a Developer ID cert exists; hardened
runtime + audio-input entitlements laid now for the STT milestone.
desktop:dev / desktop:dist scripts (electron 44, electron-builder 26).
Live smoke of the packaged .app: server up on a random loopback port,
all API routes 200, a real GLM chat turn answered end-to-end via
auth.json BYOK, chat persisted under userData/data, second instance
exited via the lock, no orphaned server child after quit.
Gates: typecheck, eslint, 500/500 tests (+2 data-dir-seam), build.
Rename (owner ask): clicking the header title opens edit mode with the
whole title selected — typing replaces, arrows move inside. Enter or a
click away commits (PUT /api/chats/:id); Escape and an empty commit
discard. renameChat joins the ChatStore port; like saveSettings it is
NOT conversation activity — updatedAt stays put so sidebar order never
churns on a rename. The sidebar patch is instant: the header dispatches
lh:chat-renamed and SessionsSidebar folds it into its snapshot (the 2.5s
poll is only a backstop). Sidebar right-click rename is DELIBERATELY
deferred: it needs a real context-menu system, which gets its own pass
later (owner decision, 2026-09-17).
Graph chrome:
- The extraction-coverage button moves between search and import; the
gear keeps the far-right corner. Coverage still renders on an EMPTY
graph (that is exactly when it matters).
- The no-match search note no longer shifts its siblings: the chrome
row is items-start (every button is 44px tall, so top alignment pins
the row while the search container grows downward).
- Popovers dismiss properly: pointerdown anywhere outside the control's
root (button + panel) closes it, and so does Escape. Two panels can
never be open at once — the sibling chrome buttons are outside the open
root, so pointerdown closes the first before the click opens the
second. New shared hook components/popover-dismiss.ts, wired into
both the settings gear and the coverage control.
Gates: typecheck, eslint, 498/498 (+2 rename store tests), build.
Live-verified: select-all/focus/Enter/Escape/empty/blur round-trip,
updatedAt untouched, sidebar instant patch; chrome order + frozen
positions under a no-match query; popover close via canvas, search
input, Esc, mutual exclusion, toggle intact.
amosblomqvist