Owner decision 2026-09-22: 'it doesn't make sense to have any default
model configured anywhere; the application is bring your own keys.'
config.ts: MODELS deleted; ModelRole becomes an explicit 9-role union;
DEFAULT_THINKING_ORDER (medium, low, high, minimal, xhigh, max) bakes
the unset-level default — first entry the model supports; explicitly
set levels keep pi's native nearest-clamp.
core/settings-resolution: the factory layer dissolves — the chain is
role override → slot → NOTHING. resolveSettings(record) takes no
factory. Empty chains resolve to null/undefined; a thinkingLevel-only
slot is inert (stored, never run). resolveConversationSpec: chat.model
override over the strong slot, null when both empty. resolveRoleSpec
spans all nine roles for the job/extraction engines.
Refusal envelope (core/settings.ts): modelsNotConfigured(missing) —
{error, code: 'models_not_configured', missing: [slot tiers]} +
ModelsNotConfiguredError with .envelope. Per-need gates, each honest:
- chat-handler: universal turn gate (new + continuing turns) returns
503 before beginTurn — no liveness, no write-ahead persist, no graph
trigger before the gate fires.
- runner.runJob: unresolvable engine lands the job as error with the
envelope wording; no phantom loop, no result steer.
- extraction: refuseIfStagesUnconfigured throws before any stage
(turn-service info-skips so coverage retries next turn; the import
route surfaces per-file code+missing); labeler-less runs skip
cluster naming with a console line and still merge.
Write side: slot entries must carry a model — level-only slot writes
are 400s (absent slot key = clear). piEngineForSpec resolves unset
thinking levels via DEFAULT_THINKING_ORDER; piEngineFor now throws
honestly; thinkingLevelFor/modelIdFor deleted; teacher-agent, pi-run,
visual-maker, pdf-reader all read engine.level.
model-catalog: defaults/slots/rolePins null when the chain is empty
(contracts nullable) — no phantom ids in payloads. Stores drop
MODEL_PINS entirely.
Tests: pin-leaners converted to explicit injection (per-chat model
pins on scripted chats — exactly what the setup flow writes; faux
engines for agent-construction tests). New coverage: the 503 gate
envelope, the runner refusal, the extraction refusal + labeler skip.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 815/815, build.
Item 1 — no Default in the slot selectors (owner, fix wave): a
"default" model is not a thing in this app. Picking Default used to
delete the slot and re-arm the first-run gate — incoherent. Now the
model menus carry NO clear row at all (a slot holds a pick or reads
"—"), the thinking menus carry a "—" row (menu-none) that clears only
the thinking pin, and the hint line is the roster only — the resolved
factory pin is never named. Master's amendment confirmed: the
factory-pin hint is SUPERSEDED entirely (Platform removes the pins).
Item 2 — the composer control IS the strong slot (owner: "one and the
same"): ModelControl (model-picker.tsx) reads the raw models section
(GET /api/settings) and the federated catalog, and writes
PUT /api/settings/models via composeSlotModel — the same seam the
settings Agent section and SetupDialog use. Props retired: chatId,
settings, onSaved, fallbackModelId, noDefaultModel — the control is
self-sufficient and identical on every surface (composer, home dock,
/chat/new). The per-chat model PUT is gone from the UI; legacy
per-chat overrides keep resolving server-side. StatsBar/DockOverlay
plumbing slimmed accordingly; chat.tsx drops its per-chat settings
state and initialSettings prop.
Item 3 — the composer catalog cache no longer freezes per page load:
fetchCatalog(force) invalidates, and every model-menu open revalidates
in the background (stale-while-revalidate — cached list shows
instantly, the fresh federation swaps in). Owner's repro verified live:
a key saved mid-session widens the menu without a reload.
Item 4 — stale doc comments fixed: model-catalog.ts's "OpenRouter
catalog"/"multi-provider future" (Platform's file — mechanical,
flagged for review) and model-picker's retired "config-pinned"/
per-chat-PUT narrative.
Live-verified on 3001: unpicked slots read "—" everywhere; model
menus have no clear row; the "—" thinking row clears the pin but
keeps the model; composer pick writes strong and preserves cheap/
vision siblings; thinking pill writes strong.thinkingLevel; groq key
added mid-session appears in the open menu without reload. Caught in
live verification: the record fetch was mapping the WHOLE settings
record into the models section (picks never wrote) — fixed to read
body.settings.models.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 807/807, build.
Fix wave (2026-09-20), two owner-approved fixes:
Fix 1 — the searchAvailable gate was dead code on the live wiring path:
createTeacherTools RECEIVED ctx.searchAvailable but dropped it when
building the inner JobToolContext, so jobTools' research gate always took
its ?? true default (jobTools-direct tests passed; the production path
never saw the signal). Threaded through — the gate now reads the live
server signal on the teacher registry too.
Fix 2 — the prober registry gains the research + pdf dispatch tools
(owner ruling, 2026-09-20): these two are phase-omnipresent — the prober
can verify facts or read learner PDFs while assessing. demo/visual stay
teach-phase-only (they need the lesson's plan context). Same gating as
the teacher side: toggle-filtered, research subject to the search gate
(honestly absent when no engine is live — the prober's dispatch closes
over the SAME jobTools builder, one gate, one semantics). probe_done
stays always-on-by-construction; the learner-fs set untouched.
- ProberToolContext (extends ProbeDoneContext with the job wiring);
createProberAgent takes it; chat-handler injects jobStore + spawn +
searchAvailable into the prober ctx.
- TeacherToolContext.spawn's stale input union fixed (PdfInput was
missing from the TYPE — runtime already passed it).
- Tests: the threaded-gate describe in web-search.test.ts pins the LIVE
factory path both ways (teacher + prober); question-tools' registry
key-sets gain research/pdf; the prober toggle test pins the
research:false path.
Gates: typecheck, 807/807 tests, lint, build — all green.
The teacher registry drops the research tool when no search engine is
live (chat-handler's searchAvailable, 2026-09-20) — the settings row
now grays on the SAME /api/search signal, so the row and the actual
registry availability can never disagree (Teacher-stream flag,
2026-09-22, routed by master).
- researchToolUnavailable (pure): research grays exactly when the live
status says unavailable; a loading/failed fetch grays nothing; the
other tools never touch the search port.
- The row: whole-row dim (graph-view graying) + disabled toggle + the
status reason as the hint — the same line the search-engine row
under it speaks from.
Two live-caught fixes while here:
- The reason line refreshed IN the pick handler raced the section PUT
(the hint could contradict the trigger it sits under — caught with a
Brave pin: trigger 'Brave', hint still 'tavily (auto)'). The refresh
now keys on the agent prop's engine pin, so it reads post-write
state.
- The engine menu options render from a map without React keys
(console warning) — keyed.
Live-verified on 3001: no engine key → research dimmed with reason,
siblings untouched; Tavily key saved + section reopened → row alive
('search engine: tavily (auto)'); Brave pinned without its key → both
rows gray with the honest missing-key reason; Automatic restored.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 803/803, build.
Chunk B, item 3 of the search port + slots wave (2026-09-20): the flagged
gap closed — ExtractionModels deps were engine VALUES, keeping
extractor/auditor/labeler config-pin-bound while the job runner went
slot-native. The pipeline now takes the runner's exact treatment:
- ExtractionPipelineDeps.engineFor: (role) => PiEngine — resolved FRESH
per stage call, so a settings PUT between stages lands. Direct test
values (extractor/auditor/labeler) remain the priority seam, checked
FIRST; absent values fall to the chain; absent chain → config pins
(unchanged).
- All six stage call sites (chat + notes extract/audit, the cluster
namer x2) resolve through stageEngine(role, direct).
- chat-handler's extraction composition injects the full chain —
piEngineForSpec(resolveRoleSpec(role, readSettings(), MODEL_PINS)) —
same wiring as the job runner.
Chunk B, item 4 (session-level slot-anchored model picks): VERIFIED
already complete from Platform's model-slots wave — the conversation
engine chain (chat-handler) anchors on effective.models.strong, the
picker's default surface (catalogDefaultsFor) falls back to strong,
both pinned in tests. No phase split (user decision, 2026-09-20).
Capability-filtered pickers live in the settings UI (main 343be10).
Tests: engineFor fills the stages end-to-end (both propositions merged
through the chain, consulted in pipeline order) + the direct-value
priority pin (engineFor that throws when consulted).
Gates: typecheck, 795/795 tests, lint, build — all green.
Chunk A of the search port wave (2026-09-20), per master's assignment:
- web.ts: the Google Custom Search backend is gone — web_search now runs
on the core search port (SearchProvider), injected as a dependency
(import law: the tool never imports server code). createWebTools(search)
resolves the LIVE provider fresh per call; null = the honest
unavailability string (no silent fallback, owner decision). web_fetch
unchanged (needs no engine).
- runner: JobRunnerDeps.searchProvider — the server composition threaded
into the researcher; jobs already in flight when a key disappears still
fail honestly through the same seam, never crash.
- jobTools: the research dispatch tool DROPS from the teacher's registry
when ctx.searchAvailable() is false (owner decision: registry-level
drop — the model never sees the tool, no doomed dispatch, no error
card). Absent seam = available (tests). chat-handler injects
server/searchAvailable + searchProvider.
- tests: stubFetch (the Google wire stub) retired; jobs.test.ts threads
a recording stub provider through all four research runners and asserts
the scripted query hit the port; new web-search.test.ts covers the
factory contract (null → honest string, hits, error strings, fresh
resolution, web_fetch independence) + the registry drop matrix.
Gates: typecheck, 793/793 tests, lint, build — all green.
Chunk B (owner-designed, model-slots wave) on the merged engine surface
(main 1d66a17):
AGENT SECTION — SLOTS ONLY (owner ruling)
- The six per-role model rows are GONE; three slot rows instead:
Strong (Prober + Teacher), Cheap (five workhorse roles), Vision
(visual maker + PDF reader), roster + resolved-default in every hint.
- Slot dropdowns share the app's menu language over the FEDERATED
catalog (/api/models = keyed providers only, fresh per call — saving
a key in Keys immediately widens the picker); the vision slot
filters to image-capable models (Model.input); the menu's highlight
now matches provider+id (ids can collide across providers).
- Slots write the new models section (PUT /api/settings/models) through
the dialog's write seam; per-role overrides stay schema-only.
- ModelMenuList rows read 'provider · id' — federation makes the
provider bookkeeping-relevant. Usage stamps render provider-qualified
(prettyModel(qualified): 'Glm 5.3 Flash · openrouter') in the stats
bar's turn lines.
SEARCH ENGINE (search wave: no default, owner)
- A row in Tools: Tavily/Brave via the shared-menu look, Automatic =
the pin removed (auto-activation). The live reason line comes from
/api/search; no engine key at all grays the whole row + disables the
trigger (a keyless choice would only block auto-activation).
FIRST-RUN SETUP FLOW (owner design A: composer CTA + send interception)
- Chats cannot start until all three slots are picked — no defaults
for 33 providers (slotsConfigured: all three slot models required).
- The graph view's new-session dock (home) shows a 'Set up your models'
CTA while unconfigured; submitting a topic opens the SetupDialog WITH
THE DRAFT PRESERVED; Save stores the models section and the queued
message sends. Same interception on /chat/new sends.
- STAGED BY DEPENDENCY (owner: keys first, models after): no keyed
provider → stage 1 deep-links the settings dialog on Keys (open now
takes a section); a saved key reopens at stage 2 on the next submit.
- Stage 2: Strong → Cheap → Vision pickers (federated, vision-filtered,
all three required). Closable without configuring — browsing stays
possible; the gate is the send, not the dialog. Layered Esc: an open
slot menu eats Esc before the dialog.
- Two closure bugs caught live: onDone→start/send captured the stale
pre-save 'configured' (the flow now forces the replayed send); menu-Esc
used to close the whole dialog.
Settings-dialog provider: open(section?) lands on a section (stage 1
deep-link). Tests: composeSlotModel/composeSearchEngine pure, slot SSR
replacing role rows, slotsConfigured/setupStage first-run gates,
provider-qualified prettyModel. Gates: typecheck, lint, 792/792, build.
The owner called the old section messy; the redesign is theirs:
- MINIMAL TABLE: provider label left, masked status right (…tail ·
chars · env), description hints GONE (they took too much space),
the 'Get a key ↗' link a tiny muted guest on curated rows. Rows
read as clean key-value pairs.
- ENV-OWNED ROWS ARE READ-ONLY (owner ruling): a real environment
variable owns the value — the row dims (graph-view graying) and no
paste field renders, because a paste box on a key the UI cannot
make live would mislead. Clicking does nothing.
- OPENROUTER UN-PINNED (owner ruling): one provider among 33 — a row
only when stored, otherwise it's an option in the Add dropdown like
everyone else. No synthesis, no lifeline description.
- ROW INTERACTION (owner choice): clicking a writable row unfolds a
paste field + Save (+ Delete for a file-sourced value) beneath it;
success folds it back to rest; Esc folds without closing the dialog
(claimed at document CAPTURE phase — the only stopPropagation that
outruns both React handlers and the dialog's window listener; the
React-level attempt leaked and closed the dialog, caught live).
- ADD-PROVIDER = the table's last row, in the app's shared dropdown
language: new ProviderMenuList (fuzzy search + arrow-walk + Enter
over the 33 pi-ai providers, label + envVar rows) in the shared
model-menu.tsx, portaled and fixed-positioned like the role menus.
Picking one unfolds a paste row; Save stores, Cancel/Esc folds.
- Tools & services (Deepgram + the Google pair) keep their own group,
same table look, same unfold interaction.
- Unknown auth.json vars stay read-only dimmed rows.
Tests: classifyKeys re-pinned (openrouter rides the normal provider
classification; addable drops stored keys), keyStatusLine minimal
('not set' for absent, ' · env' marker for environment-owned). Gates:
typecheck, lint, 759/759, build.
Live-verified: add→save→replace→delete round-trips, fold-on-save,
Esc layering both flows, env-owned rows read-only, addable count
31→30→31.
Model slots wave (2026-09-20), chunk B:
- settings: new `models` section {strong, cheap, vision} slots (each
field independent, same shape as a role override); ROLE_SLOT maps all
nine roles to tiers (strong=prober+teacher, cheap=researcher/
demoBuilder/extractor/auditor/labeler, vision=visualMaker+pdfReader);
resolution chain per role: override → slot → factory pin.
- config: ModelSpec gains provider (all pins openrouter, the BYOK
default); MODEL_PINS in stores.ts now spans all nine roles (the strong
slot's factory rep IS the prober pin).
- engine: piModels() registers EVERY builtin provider catalog;
piEngineForSpec(resolved spec) is the new engine factory (pi-ai
resolves per-provider keys from env itself); piEngineFor stays as the
config-pin fallback. chat-handler resolves the conversation chain
(chat override → strong slot → pin) and injects engineFor into the job
runner, closing the old gap where per-role overrides never reached
job engines.
- /api/models: models federate ONLY keyed providers (providers surface
with keyPresent, env-wins, fresh per call); slots (resolved tier pins)
join rolePins; catalogDefaultsFor inherits the strong slot; the models
settings section gets the same catalog gate as chat.
- pricing: PRICES/CONTEXT_LIMITS uniformly keyed provider:id
(regenerated from ALL pi-ai catalogs, 1354 keys); usage stamps
(TurnUsage, JobUsage, extraction stages) switch to provider:id —
owner decision: no legacy compat, old stamps render unpriced.
Search port + model slots wave, chunk A (owner design, 2026-09-20):
- core/search.ts: SearchHit + SearchProvider port + SearchStatus —
pure, browser-safe; adapters arrive as injected dependencies.
- server/search.ts: Tavily + Brave adapters (wire shapes VERIFIED
against docs.tavily.com's OpenAPI + Brave's dashboard docs — Tavily
auth is the Bearer header, not the legacy body api_key; Brave is
X-Subscription-Token) + engine resolution per owner decisions: a key
ALONE activates its engine (no engine choice needed), explicit
agent.search.engine pins the preference (both keys: Tavily first),
a pinned engine with a missing key is honestly unavailable — no
silent fallback, no default engine.
- Curated keys catalog: GOOGLE_SEARCH_API_KEY/GOOGLE_CSE_ID retire
(CSE closed to new customers, dies Jan 2027 — stored values become
preserved unknown vars); TAVILY_API_KEY (tvly- shape) + BRAVE_API_KEY
(length guard) join. UI keys-section TOOL_IDS now derives from the
catalog — cannot drift.
- GET /api/search: {available, engine, reason} — the honest status for
the settings gray-out; researcher-disable semantics ride the same
signal (Teacher stream rewires the tool onto the port).
- agent.search settings field (schema + sanitizer + strict parser);
web.ts's WebSearchResult is now the core SearchHit (re-exported).
Owner-approved design (2026-09-20): a Keys section right after General,
two groups over the merged auth API (GET /api/keys masked statuses,
PUT/DELETE /api/keys/:id, immediate effect, shape-gated 400s):
- Model providers: OpenRouter pinned as an always-visible row (the
app's lifeline — synthesized when absent so first boot shows it),
stored provider keys render as they appear, and an Add-provider
dropdown lists every pi-ai provider that takes an API key. The
dropdown reads GET /api/keys' optional providers array — the
Platform interlude (master-routed) derives it from pi-ai's own
env-key table; until it lands the group shows a pending note
(rolePins pattern — absent field, no drift, no guessed routes).
- Tools & services: the curated rows — Deepgram (dictation) and the
Google pair (search key + CSE ID) — with description hints and docs
links (external links route through the Electron shell to the real
browser).
- Rows: always-visible paste inputs (owner choice; no reveal —
plaintext never returns from the store), masked status line
(…tail · chars · environment|saved), the shadowedByEnv explanation
when a real env var owns the name, per-row inline 400 messages, Save
on Enter/button, Delete when present (env-owned keys honestly keep
their env status after a file delete).
- Unknown auth.json vars surface as read-only dimmed rows — preserved
by the store, not editable through the curated surface.
classifyKeys/keyStatusLine pure exports drive the two-group
projection; tests: SSR loading state, first-boot synthesis, provider
row classification, addable filtering, unknown-var read-only status
line formatting. Nav grows to six sections (Keys second).
Live-verified: nav order, structure, bad-paste 400s inline, save
round-trip with env-shadow explanation, delete round-trip, env-owned
OpenRouter status stability. Gates: typecheck, lint, 748/748, build.
Provider-keys interlude (owner spec, 2026-09-19): any pi-compatible
provider's key is manageable, not just the curated set.
GET /api/keys now also returns providers: {id, envVar, label}[] — every
pi-ai provider that takes a plain api-key env var (33 today), derived
from pi-ai's own provider→env-var table. No-drift mechanism: the table
is generated from pi-ai (builtinProviders + findEnvKeys over a
truthy-for-every-var proxy env) and pinned by
tests/auth-provider-keys.test.ts, which re-derives the truth at test
time and asserts EXACT equality — a pi-ai upgrade fails the gate loudly.
Owner-spec exclusions: github-copilot (OAuth), amazon-bedrock (AWS),
google-vertex (ADC), azure-openai-responses (base URL), the cloudflare
pair; anthropic keeps ANTHROPIC_API_KEY only. OPENROUTER_API_KEY
graduates from the curated catalog to the provider table (dedupe — the
UI pins it always-visible); curated stays Deepgram + the Google search
pair. Statuses: curated + present vars + unknown file vars — absent
provider keys never spam rows; the dropdown is discovery.
Write side: PUT/DELETE accept provider env vars (generic truncation
guard — trim, no whitespace, ≥12; family checks stay on the curated
three). Present-in-env provider vars surface as status rows so
env-wins/shadow semantics stay honest.
- Toggle (owner bug report): the ON disc sat flush against the pill's
right edge — translate-x-4.5 left only a 1px sliver; now translate-x-4
for a 2px inner inset both states (off: 3px left inset; on: 3px right
inset — measured live, symmetric).
- Toggle colors (owner ask): ON is a gray track (muted-foreground) with
a WHITE disc (foreground) — the full-white track was too loud; OFF
stays the muted track with the gray disc.
- Nav spacing (owner ask): gap-1 between the section nav buttons so the
hover highlights no longer touch.
- Role dropdowns (owner ask): the menus were clipped by the dialog's
overflow frame — they now portal to document.body with fixed
positioning against their trigger (AnchoredMenu), right-aligned,
repositioned on scroll/resize, so they flow over the whole screen
outside the settings dialog. Verified: a bottom-row menu extends
137px past the dialog's bottom edge; search + pick + Default-clear
work through the portal; Esc and inside-dialog clicks close the menu
but not the dialog.
- Thinking trigger (owner ask): fixed w-20 — the width the Default
state needs — so picking levels no longer shifts the row; the model
trigger takes the same width as a minimum (its values vary in length).
- Role hints (owner ask): ALWAYS visible and naming the actual default —
'Default: <model>'. The resolved per-role pins are not client-side
yet: master routed rolePins to the Platform stream (GET /api/models
extension, standalone commit); until that merge the rows read the
'config pin' fallback and light up on rebase. rolePins also lets the
thinking list use the pinned model's real supportedLevels when it's
in the catalog.
Also: staging repair commit 270db53 — the round-1 dialog rewiring
(sidebar row, chord, redirect, keyframes) was listed in 27d4f33's
message but never staged; committed as catch-up.
Live-verified on the worktree dev server. Gates: typecheck, lint,
701/701.
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.)
- Toggle knob (bug report): the knob span had no left anchor, so it sat
at its inline static position — right-edge in off, overflowing in on.
Now left-0 + the intended 2px/18px translate; verified live: 3px from
left when off, 1px right inset both states.
- Role model/thinking dropdowns (owner ask): the EXACT chat model
selector dropdown, not a lookalike — the fuzzy-search + arrow-walk +
Enter machine moved from model-picker.tsx into the shared
components/settings/model-menu.tsx (ModelMenuList/ThinkingMenuList),
ModelControl now renders the same bodies, and the agent roles open
them downward with a pinned Default row (clears the override). The
collapsed trigger keeps the thin select look (owner: 'the collapsed
look is good'). Esc claims and closes only the menu (the dialog
stays); a backdrop click is left to the dialog's own close.
- Sub-groups (owner ask): SettingsGroup — Models / Tools / System
prompts inside Agent, each with a separator + quiet label; section
headings more pronounced (text-sm, full-foreground).
- Graying (owner ask): graph-view render-panel convention — the WHOLE
row dims (opacity-40) and the control locks; the row owns the dim so
no double-opacity. Applied to the graph ladder, the mode row, and
prompt rows without an override file. The 'needs X on' prose is gone.
- Hints pruned (owner ask): mechanics-explaining lines removed — the
ladder mention, 'App-level behavior', 'Applied live as CSS
variables', per-row explanations. Only the keyboard storage note
stays, reworded 'Stored on this device' (desktop app — localStorage
is the Chromium profile in Application Support, not 'this browser').
Live-verified: knob geometry both states + PUT round-trip, menu
search/pick/clear through the record, thinking set/clear, Esc layering,
ladder dim 0.4 with siblings full, pruned phrases absent. Gates:
typecheck, lint, 701/701.
The dialog's content wrapper added px-6 py-5 ON TOP of SettingsSection's
own padding (48px horizontal, 81px top — measured live). The wrapper is
now bare; the section component owns its rhythm, and the loading/error
states carry their own padding. Section box now spans the scroll column
(61px from the dialog top = the 60px header band), text inset 24px.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 701/701.
Owner decisions this wave: a centered modal over everything (not a page
— a settings column in the main area next to the session list would read
as two sidebars), left section nav in the dialog, modal-only (the
/settings URL redirects to /chat/new), light mode deferred to its own
wave (the mode control stays honestly disabled). An actual OS window is
an Electron-round feature — the sections are surface-agnostic (API +
localStorage only), so the shell re-mounts there with near-zero churn.
- components/settings/settings-dialog.tsx: SettingsDialogProvider at
the AppShell level (portal-rendered dialog, z-50 over the dock/graph
chrome). ~920×620 centered frame, 60px header with the quiet CMU
title + ✕, w-44 text-only nav (session-list mono language, active =
bg-accent, no icons), one scrolling content column mounting one
section at a time. Escape / backdrop / ✕ all close. 150ms fade+2%
settle scale (settings-pop), reduced-motion honored. The record +
single write seam moved here from the thin page: one record instance
per dialog, section switches never refetch, appearance writes still
restyle the app LIVE behind the dialog.
- Entry points rewired: the sidebar Settings row is a button calling
open(); the mod+, chord opens the dialog instead of routing.
- app/settings/page.tsx: redirect to /chat/new (nothing links into a
dead page).
- SettingsDialogBody exported without the portal — the SSR-testable
frame (portals render nothing under renderToStaticMarkup).
Live-verified: exact centering, all three close paths, chord open,
appearance prose-size restyles the chat behind the open dialog
(16→20px), section switching retains the record, keyboard section
renders all 21 rows, no console errors. Gates: typecheck, lint,
701/701 (5 new dialog tests), build.
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.
11 commits on fbeca36: minimal-color rounds 1-2 (phase color retired,
the braille spinner is the one working indicator; the chip is label-only),
typography rounds 1-5 (three-font rule enforced — CMU titles, Source Sans
session titles, JetBrains mono; snapped type ladder in globals.css with
the xxs rung merged into xs; lh-input caret at the font-metric floor;
session titles at prose size, message counts and active-row weight dropped,
ISO dates), header rounds 6/6b/6c/6d (60px top bar aligned to the sidebar
LH band; the open-sidebar toggle matches the close glyph at size-4 both
ways; SidebarToggle always-mounted with a lockstep animated slot — no more
one-frame title jump; title at text-3xl).
Semantic change folded in: `busy` in the chats list now means exactly "a
teach turn is in flight" — background jobs no longer spin the session row
(the sidebar's Background agents section is their channel).
Merge fallout fixed in the merge: components/graph-coverage.tsx (main's
coverage panel) held the last three text-xxs uses; with the rung deleted
they silently lost their size — mechanically swapped to text-xs, matching
lh-ui's own swap in graph-context-marker.tsx.
No file overlap with main's waves since fbeca36 (extraction coverage,
lh-graph merge, world-scale bake) — clean auto-merge. Gates: typecheck,
eslint, 496/496 tests, build. Live-verified on the dev server: 60px
header with 32px CMU title, label-only chip, snapped ladder active
(--lh-prose-size 16px, no --text-xxs rule anywhere), sidebar rows with
ISO dates, animated sidebar toggle with no header jump.
When the sidebar toggled, the header's toggle mounted/unmounted in a
single frame, so its 48px footprint (button + gap) popped and dragged
the title and chips sideways while the sidebar was still mid-slide —
'kind of masked by the motion, but very much noticeable.'
The toggle is now ALWAYS MOUNTED, owning a slot whose width+margin
animate in lockstep with the sidebar's own width transition (same
duration-200, same easing, both gated on mount so no load flash):
- when open the slot is exactly ZERO (w-0 with -mr-3 cancelling the
header's gap-3) — resting layouts are pixel-identical to the old
conditional render;
- the icon fades with the slot (opacity in the same 200ms) and is
clipped by it as the slot collapses — no popping in either direction;
hidden state is pointer-events-none, aria-hidden, tabIndex -1;
- the mount-gating rule grows to transition-[width,margin,opacity].
rAF-verified both directions: the title's x-path is monotone from
frame one (old bug teleported 48px in one frame; the margin blip
caught on the way is also gone), icon opacity eases 0.12→1 over the
slide. Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
The header toggle's PanelLeftOpenIcon was size-5 while the sidebar's
close icon was size-4 — the button visibly grew when the sidebar closed.
The small look is the standard: both glyphs are size-4 in identical
size-9 boxes now.
Live: open glyph 16px, close glyph 16px, button boxes 36px both states.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
h-10 → h-15 (60px) in both the chat header and the /chat/new draft
header. 60px is an alignment, not just a size: it equals the sidebar's
LH wordmark band, so the header's border-b continues that band's bottom
edge as one horizontal line across the app — the sidebar's 'New session'
row begins exactly where the chat column's chrome ends.
Live: header border-b at y=60, wordmark band bottom at y=60. Gates:
typecheck, lint, 469/469.
Three declutter moves, all trivially reversible:
- The meta line drops the message count (idle meta is now just how long
ago). The count informed no decision — clutter. messageCount still
rides the API payload, so this is a one-line flip in sessionMeta if
it's ever wanted.
- The active row is marked by the background alone: weight was a second
channel doing the same job, and the flip made selected titles jump.
- Dates beyond the week render ISO (YYYY-MM-DD, zero-padded) instead of
M/D/YYYY — the US convention swapped for the international standard:
unambiguous in any locale, sorts lexically. A user-locale setting can
come later — it's a format-function swap.
Also dropped the row's vestigial text-sm: both lines carry explicit
sizes now (16px title, 11px meta).
Live: active weight 400 + bg-accent, metas '17m ago' /
'Waiting for your answer · 1d ago', no counts. Gates: typecheck, lint,
469/469.
The system: the ladder is the truth, everything snaps to it.
- Prose snaps to the ladder's 16px rung (--lh-prose-size 16.5→16; the
half-pixel was a reskin-era hand-tune with no visible payoff and a
system cost). lh-prose, lh-input, and the session titles all read the
one variable — one reading size, now a ladder citizen. @theme inline
inlines literals without emitting runtime vars, so the variable can't
var()-link to --text-lg: documented as the one deliberate duplication
(change one, change both).
- The 10px rung merges into 11px: one pixel apart was a distinction with
no visible difference, and 10px sits at the mono legibility floor —
quiet labels (Sessions, Background agents, dock hints, model-picker
footers) get their quiet from color + tracking, not a notch of size.
All 13 text-xxs uses → text-xs; --text-xxs token removed.
- Derived constant follows: TEXT_CAP_SCALE 16.5/12.5 → 16/12.5 (1.32 →
1.28; test pin 232.32px → 225.28px) — the plan-graph text cap now
tracks the snapped prose size.
Live: title 16px, Sessions/Background-agents labels 11px, composer 16px
with the 20px lh-input line box. Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
Lane note: components/graph-context-marker.tsx (graph-stream file) had a
mechanical text-xxs → text-xs swap — required: the token removal
otherwise leaves a dead class in their file.
Titles were 14px (text-base); the user read them as still-small next to
the prose they open into. They now pull --lh-prose-size (16.5px) — the
same token lh-prose/lh-input render at, so the picker's titles and the
session's prose share one standard Source Sans 3 size (text-(length:…) —
the v4 var shorthand alone doesn't type-resolve). Meta stays 11px mono.
Live: title 16.5px vs meta 11px, row 54px. Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
- lh-input: lh-prose's 1.5 reading leading made typing carets tower
(~25px box on 16.5px text, ~2.1× the glyphs — the caret fills the line
box in Chromium). Inputs are not paragraphs: 1.25 leading drops the
caret to ~21px, the font-metric floor (as close to the glyphs as
Chromium will draw). Swapped on every typing surface — composer
(chat + home), the thinking field, answer + editable-Other inputs, the
model search; rendered prose (message.tsx container, option
descriptions, chat.tsx pre-wrap) keeps lh-prose 1.5. Same family and
size as prose; only leading differs.
- Session titles: 14px (text-base) — Source Sans at 12.5px read as
small as the 11px mono meta under them; the title now holds its rank.
Live: title "Source Sans 3" 14px vs meta "JetBrains Mono" 11px, row
52px; composer line box 20.625px (was 24.75px).
Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469.
- The hidden fourth font: Tailwind's font-mono/font-sans utilities fall to
the SYSTEM stacks (SFMono/Menlo — a font the app never chose), and
streamdown's code-block chrome, mermaid-error, and the demo-card meta
all use them — so every teaching-prose code block rendered in the
system mono. Fixed at the token level: @theme now aliases --font-mono →
JetBrains Mono and --font-sans → Source Sans 3, so every utility use
resolves to the app's three fonts (chrome=JetBrains, prose=Source Sans,
display=CMU bold).
- Session titles: Source Sans 3 (the human-words voice — the same font
the words were typed in; mono = machine data stays on the meta line).
One rule, finally applied to the picker too. CMU bold titles are the
queued experiment if this reads wrong live.
Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469. Live: title "Source Sans 3" 12.5px,
meta "JetBrains Mono" 11px; code blocks now JetBrains.
The world-scale pivot (2026-09-17): node/label/arrowhead sizes were
calibrated as "screen px at fit zoom", a unit whose meaning depended on
the graph's own extent — a 13-node graph at kFit 3.65 rendered 5.3x
smaller nodes than a 338-node graph at kFit 0.69, with no slider values
able to reproduce the dense feel. Sizes are now canonical WORLD units
(graph-canvas.ts drops the ÷kFit division in geometry/regions/hit-test);
kFit survives only as the label-gate 1x reference. The renderer's module
doc and the SIZE SEMANTICS block in render-settings.ts carry the story.
Camera becomes pure persisted view state: {k, x, y} stored to localStorage
(lh.graph.camera.v1, 250ms debounce, flush on unmount), restored on mount
via the new initialCamera constructor arg; the hardcoded fit() runs only
on first-ever open. A pin test locks the d3 zoomIdentity composition.
Region blur becomes world units too (the last span-coupled quantity): the
old bitmap-px reach scaled with graph span, so the 2026-09-14
search-filter collapse fix is now structural (blurW = tuning.blur; the
cellRef anchor is gone). Charge default bumps to -240 (single source:
CHARGE_STRENGTH in layout.ts; CHARGE_RANGE re-anchored so -240 sits
dead-center).
The 2026-09-17 bake — the user's live-tuned defaults (nodeSize 2,
edgeWidth 1, arrowLength 2, labelSize 3, labelZoom 4 / "8x", dilation 20,
blur 20, edgeAlpha 0.2, bitmap 256) — plus the ladder pivot: every
non-physics knob moves on a hand-authored 11-stop ladder (x1.5/x1.33
series, quarter/half steps at the low end), default dead-center at slider
position 50, step 10 = one stop per detent. The sanitizer snaps ANY
incoming value to the nearest stop (ties break low), so stored files can
never hold 2.18137...977-style artifacts; pre-pivot files (sizeUnits !=
"world") reset only the four resemanticized size fields. Physics sliders
keep the fine-grained log mapping.
The label cross-fade becomes PROPORTIONAL to the gate (span = gate x
LABELS_FADE_RATIO): the old absolute 0.5-ratio span read as a 100%
relative change at the old 0.5 gate but a 12% sliver at the tuned 8x —
"lower zoom levels naturally produce a longer transitionary period".
At the 8x default the node→cluster handoff now fades across one full
ladder stop (8x -> 12x). labelZoomDisplay is absolute (ratio / 0.5) so
the tuned gate keeps reading "8x" now that 4 IS the default.
Gates: 495/495 tests, tsc/eslint/build clean.
Presentation-only reorder (user 2026-09-17): the Depth anchor select
and its three gray-out-able sliders (Depth strength, Depth spacing,
Base ring radius) move below Friction to the very bottom of the
Physics section, so the always-active general forces come first and
the conditional group reads as a self-contained sub-section at the
end. No schema, wiring, or behavior changes — verified identical DOM
order live, gray-out still follows the stored depth mode.
Dependency graying everywhere, consistent across sections (user
2026-09-17 — chose "gray out children" over hiding rows, so the layout
stays stable and the required-by relationship stays visible):
- Background colors off → Dilation, Blur, Edge alpha, Bitmap
resolution dim (opacity-40) + lock (native disabled). It's a COMPUTE
switch, so the whole region tune section follows it.
- Cluster labels off → Cluster label size dims + locks. Decoupled from
Background colors (labels follow their own toggle, by design
2026-09-16): label controls stay live while regions are off.
- Depth anchor off → Depth strength + Depth spacing dim + lock.
- Base ring radius is radial-only: dims + locks unless Depth anchor is
Radial (vertical doesn't use a ring).
SettingSlider gains an optional `disabled` prop (row opacity-40 +
range input disabled); the two select rows dim + disable inline. Pure
UI — no schema or renderer changes.
- Draw order: the cluster-label block moves from layer 5 to THE LAST
layer of draw() — labels can never be occluded by node labels or
hover names (user 2026-09-17; chose "topmost" after reassessing that
discs were never actually on top — the white-out over discs is
source-over compositing of the 85%-alpha text over near-white node
fill, an optical contrast flip, not a draw-order bug).
- clusterLabelSize: new persisted setting (default 14 = the old
REGION_LABEL_SIZE constant, so rendering is pixel-identical). Screen
px at ANY zoom (drawn at size/k — camera-compensated, UI-like, same
law as before). Log-slider range [7, 28] puts the default dead-center
per the house slider law. Sanitized: old persisted files (no field)
fall back to 14.
- Panel: the Cluster labels checkbox moves from the Labels section
into Regions (user: cluster settings live with regions), joined by
the new "Cluster label size" slider. Labels stay decoupled from the
Background colors compute switch, as designed on 2026-09-16.
Per-node speed is invisible inside a cluster blob (still neighbors'
skeleton strokes dominate the local area), and per-cluster max-speed
couples everything: dragging ONE node dimmed the whole cluster's blob
to nothing — including disconnected members at near-zero velocity.
Neither granularity is right, so the idea is withdrawn entirely.
Manual revert of the velocity parts (a git revert of 154f6c8 would
have resurrected the frame fade): weight ramp, position stamps, EMA
state, motion-pending flush, per-edge stroke batching, and the tests.
Region splat is back to full-opacity coverage at rest AND in motion
(2026-09-14 no-stacking invariant). The regions.enabled compute off
switch stays.
The linear prev→cur bitmap blend between rebuilds was verified working
but made no visible difference — the 3-frame bitmap cadence was already
below perceptual threshold for large blurred blobs; the churn during
fast drags is the SHAPE, not the cadence. Rolled back entirely (no
extra per-frame blits).
In its place, per the owner: while nodes move fast, their blob fades
out and fades back in on settling. Speed per node = screen px per
frame from position stamps between rebuilds, EMA-smoothed. The blob is
a CLUSTER attribute (still neighbors' skeleton strokes pass right
through a moving node's area — per-node weighting measurably did
nothing), so each cluster's weight = f(max member speed): linear 1→0
between 1.5 and 8 px/frame. Strokes and discs paint at that alpha —
before the blur + final edgeAlpha multiply, so coverage semantics are
unchanged at rest (all weights 1 = the 2026-09-14 no-stacking fix).
Stamps reset on data-object change, NOT geoVersion (the live sim bumps
geoVersion every frame — resetting on it zeroed all speeds; caught
live). regionMotionPending keeps rebuilding after the sim stops until
weights converge back to 1, so a blob never freezes at partial opacity.
The region bitmap rebuilds only every REGION_EVERY-th frame while the
live sim runs, so during drags the tints stepped at 1/3 the frame
rate. Between rebuilds draw() now linearly blends the previous final
bitmap into the current one ('lighter' + globalAlpha weights = a true
lerp of the premultiplied pixels — no source-over alpha stacking).
Because box blur and the end-alpha scale are linear operators, lerping
the finished bitmaps is equivalent to fading coverage before the blur,
the mathematically exact form of the user's preferred pipeline. Two
tiny GPU blits per frame; splat/blur/readback still only on rebuilds.
New RegionTuning.enabled is a compute switch (not a paint toggle):
off skips the entire build (splat, blur, readback, blit) — the settings
panel exposes it as "Background colors". Cluster labels stay decoupled
and follow clusterLabels. Old persisted files predate the field and
sanitize to enabled: true.
THE MESSAGE IS THE UNIT OF COVERAGE (vision-extraction-coverage.md): a
per-chat append-only ledger (coverage.jsonl) records which messages the
pipeline has extracted, by content fingerprint over exactly what the
extraction view sees (one shared line builder — core/coverage.ts); the
uncovered remainder is DERIVED at read time, never dual-tracked. A quiz
answer merging into the asking message re-opens only that message;
plan-block data-part attach never re-opens anything.
- The trigger (turn-service) replaces every-3-quiz-answers with
uncovered-tokens >= EXTRACTION.chunkTokens (4096) — quiz-less sessions
extract too, content size is the honest signal.
- runExtraction is now chunked: token-budgeted batches of the oldest
uncovered consecutive messages (a tool call + result never split), each
merged batch checkpointing its messages' coverage atomically — an abort
or error loses at most the in-flight batch; merged batches stay covered.
- Observation refs are batch-tagged (obs:<batchTag>:<sourceId>): re-runs
of the same batch dedupe; a re-opened message's fresh understanding
lands as a new event. Fixes the old obs:p1 position-collision.
- New API: GET /api/graph/coverage (exact per-session derived coverage +
running flags, most-uncovered first) and POST /api/graph/coverage/extract
(manual run for one session, 409 while in flight).
- Graph view chrome: the coverage button opens a panel with every
session's covered/uncovered tokens and a per-session Extract button —
the manual answer to aborted runs, errors, and dormant tails. Renders
even when the graph is empty: an empty graph with uncovered sessions is
exactly when it matters. Polls only while open.
- Notes imports keep the whole-file checkpoint path (coverage undefined).
- Tests: pure-core coverage suite (11), chunked-pipeline suite (3:
multi-batch + no-op, abort-keeps-earlier-batches + remainder re-run,
re-open alone + data-part invisibility), panel render suite (5);
pendingQuizAnswers and its tests deleted as dead code. 486/486.
Live-smoked on real GLM: manual extract of "teach me modal realism" ran
one batch, wrote 4 coverage entries, panel flipped to "1.3k covered ·
complete" with the button disabled, graph refetched (nodes 11), usage
persisted with real stats.
The extraction pipeline stops re-reading whole sessions: coverage is a
per-chat covered-fingerprint ledger at MESSAGE granularity (tool call and
result never separated — they share a message; quiz events not special —
they ride re-opened messages normally), uncovered content is derived at
read time (never dual-tracked), the trigger becomes uncovered tokens >= a
chunk budget (fixing quiz-less sessions that never extract), and runs
checkpoint coverage incrementally per merged batch — abort/error loses
at most one in-flight batch. Manual extract-the-rest falls out of the
diff. Pointer line under vision.md 'Construction'.
The round-1 experiment put the braille spinner in the chip's old dot
slot; rejected live: the pill's curve and the square braille cell fought
for space (visually squeezed), and the chat surface already shows
in-flight work (thinking shimmer, the dock) — the chip stating the phase
is its whole job. PhaseChip back to a label-only pill (busy prop
removed, single-child gap dropped); work-state lives in exactly one
place: the sidebar row's spinner. Doc note + test pin the decision so
it doesn't get re-tried blind. Gates: typecheck, lint, 469/469, build.
Nothing exists purely for decoration: phase color-coding is retired
app-wide (phases only advance — every session ends Teaching — so
phase-as-signal was decoration with a one-time function), and what
state genuinely deserved — 'a turn is in flight' — is now carried by
MOTION alone, in the terminal's own glyph language.
- BrailleSpinner (components/braille-spinner.tsx): the canonical
cli-spinner sequence (⠋⠙⠹⠸⠼⠴⠦⠧⠇⠏) as exact dot bitmaps in a 2×4
braille cell, 80ms/frame (800ms cycle). Pure CSS: one shared keyframes,
frames staggered via animation-delay; no JS timer, no re-render per
frame — cheaper than the old breathing dot. Static contexts (SSR,
prefers-reduced-motion) show frame 0 — a legible glyph, not a blank.
- Sidebar rows: spinner ONLY while a teach turn is in flight; idle and
question-pending render NOTHING (a resting state has no scan value —
the meta line's 'Waiting for your answer' text carries it). The
three-state phase dot (pulse/solid/hollow) and PHASE_FILL/RING maps
are gone.
- Top bar PhaseChip: label-only pill; the old dot slot becomes the
spinner's home while a turn is in flight (busy prop wired from
ChatView's busy = localStream || turnInFlight). Transcript
PhaseDividers drop phase colors for monochrome rules + labels.
- API narrowing (app/api/chats/route.ts + ChatListItem contract):
busy = isTurnRunning ONLY — background jobs no longer count (the
sidebar's Background agents section is their channel; a per-row
spinner would double-signal them).
- globals.css: --phase-* tokens + lh-dot-breathe removed (dead after
the sweep — no remaining users).
Live-verified: idle/pending rows render no indicator, /chat/new chip is
label-only, 10 CSSAnimations at 800ms with correct 80ms stagger, static
frame 0 under reduced motion. Gates: typecheck, lint, 470/470, build.
Lane crossings to flag at merge: app/api/chats/route.ts + the
ChatListItem contract comment (src/core) — the busy-semantics narrowing;
components/chat.tsx one-line busy prop.
The owner's three-part test of the context-injection flow surfaced
timing/visibility bugs, fixed as standing ground rules for ALL background
processes (owner rules, 2026-09-15):
1. THE JOB STARTS AT SEND. triggerGraphContext moves from onFinish to
right after the write-ahead persist in handleChatRequest: its only
input is the first typed message (the topic), just made durable — so
embedding + cosine scan run CONCURRENT with the prober's turn and
the dock blob appears the moment the session starts, not after turn
one finishes. Extraction stays at onFinish (it needs answers
accumulated DURING the turn).
2. DELIVERED CONTENT SHOWS MID-TURN. Steers inserted server-side
(claimed at turn start, persisted write-ahead) used to wait for the
next turn's completion to appear — the full record sync mid-stream
is forbidden (it breaks the SDK's in-place continuation merge), so
adoption was deferred to idle. New append-only seam: core
mergeAdopted() inserts the record's new message ids in canonical
order (in-flight streaming tail kept last) and never rewrites a
local message; any other shape bails to the full-sync-at-idle net.
Wired at three points, no new standing polls:
- turn-start window: three bounded record fetches (400ms/1s/2s)
after a send catch the claimed steer while the turn streams;
self-terminating, survives the submitted->streaming flip.
- jobs-poll settle: mid-turn settles adopt append-only NOW, the
owed full sync still runs at idle.
- wake-adoption poll: each tick adopts persisted wake content, so
steers show at the wake turn's START, not its finish.
The dock stays honest with zero gap: jobs hold "running" while
queued behind a pending question ("delivering context"), then flip
done at claim/delivery — visible from start to delivery, and the
turn-start nudge (useActivity().refresh) clears it within ~150ms.
3. THE MARKER IS CLICKABLE (observability). The knowledge-context
SystemLine becomes GraphContextMarker: quiet line, popover with the
delivered propositions IN DELIVERY ORDER (most similar first — the
order the budget filled), each with its folded understanding level;
Esc / outside pointerdown close. The part data was already the audit
trail — now it's readable at the seam where it landed.
Tests: mergeAdopted unit pins (6), marker render pins (3) — 468/468,
tsc, eslint, build all green; live-smoked end-to-end: blob at send,
marker at t+500ms mid-turn, popover order + levels, instant dock clear.
The converged variant read as two arrows feeding one point; the two-
complete-arrows variant as two arrows next to each other, not coherent.
Owner withdrew the double-shaft idea entirely (2026-09-15); dashed was
already rejected 2026-09-14. Both relation types draw the same plain
single arrow again.
Kept: CanvasEdge.type plumbing from the snapshot (the next
differentiator will need it) and the ArrowGeom named type. Removed:
followsEdgeGeometry, the gap constants, the zoom-drift edge-path
rebuild (edges are back to a single loop in buildGeometry), the ⟹
legend entry, and the glyph tests. Vision doc records the withdrawal
and keeps the still-valid constraints.
Gates: tsc, 429/429 tests, lint, build. Live: canvas coverage 0.477,
no console errors, no legend remnants.
Owner rejected the first cut: two tails converging on one shared head
reads as two arrows feeding a single point, not as parallel strokes.
- followsEdgeGeometry now returns two COMPLETE regular arrows (own shaft
+ own head each), translated ±half-gap along the edge normal —
parallel shafts AND parallel heads, nothing converges. Offset shafts
never clip the source disc; offset tips land a hair outside the target
disc edge (accepted price of parallel heads).
- Gap floors: screen-anchored 3x edgeWidth (dominates at fit/zoomed-out,
unchanged look) OR head-anchored 1.2x arrowLen (world) — without the
head floor, the world-scaled heads merge into one blob at deep zoom
(measured: one 10px band at 5x). max() keeps >= 0.4 arrowLen of clear
space between the heads past the ~1.5x crossover.
- Vision doc revised (2026-09-15) to record the rejection.
Live-verified at 5x fit zoom: two shafts (11.5px gap = widened floor),
two separate ~8px-base heads with clear space between. At fit: 3px gap,
two heads, unchanged. Gates: tsc, 435/435 tests, lint, build.
The continuous 0-4096 dial was precision theater (a 128-token budget is
~2 propositions; nobody wants that granularity). Decided stops (owner,
2026-09-15): 0 / 64 / 256 / 1024 / 4096 / 16384 — the native range walks
positions 0-5 and maps through GRAPH_CONTEXT_TOKENS_STOPS in contracts.
Max rises to 16384 (route range follows); the server still accepts any
integer in range so a stale client cannot brick settings; non-stop
legacy values snap to the nearest stop for the thumb, readout stays
honest.
Per docs/vision-edge-glyph.md: a `follows` edge (the derivation backbone)
draws two parallel shaft tails offset along the edge normal by a fixed
SCREEN-space gap (FOLLOWS_GAP_RATIO x edgeWidth — constant on screen at
every zoom, like the stroke width), converging on the shared single
arrowhead; `supports` keeps the plain single line (dashed was rejected
earlier — not revisited).
- CanvasEdge carries the edge type; graph-view passes it from the snapshot.
- followsEdgeGeometry (pure, tested): offset tails + convergence at the
head base — a strictly-parallel pair would poke out beside the head
whenever the screen-fixed gap exceeds the head's world-scaled base
half-width. The offset tails sit farther from the source center than
the axis start, so the source disc never clips them.
- Edge paths leave buildGeometry: their gap is anchored to the CURRENT
camera scale, so buildEdgePaths(k) rebuilds on geoVersion changes and
camera-scale drift (> EDGE_PATHS_ZOOM_EPSILON) — 0.08ms per rebuild at
211 edges; pans and settle frames reuse the cached paths.
- Legend entry bottom-right: ⟹ follows · → supports.
Live-verified: isolated follows edge (search "likelihood") shows two 1px
shafts with a ~3px centerline gap converging into one 8px-base shared
head; gap measured constant on screen at 0.2x, 1x, and 5x fit zoom while
heads/nodes scale. Gates: tsc, 435/435 tests, lint, build.
amosblomqvist