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.
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 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.
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.
The original vision, restored (owner, 2026-09-15): pre-chat the session-
data side of the under-composer stats bar is free real estate ("—" only),
so the budget slider mounts exactly where session data will sit once a
session exists — via a new StatsBar leftSlot — vertically centered with
the model + thinking pills by the row's own geometry. Short 96px slider
instead of a full-width one; readout abbreviates "1k tok" so >1k budgets
stay on one line ("4.1k tokens" wrapped). Home and /chat/new both.
One shot per chat, fired at the first turn's onFinish: the session's
topic (its only typed message) is embedded as an EmbeddingGemma retrieval
query; the semantically closest graph propositions are selected under the
session's token budget (pure budget, no similarity threshold — the
decided doctrine) and delivered as a marker-only steer through the wake
pipeline, queuing behind pending questions like every sub-agent result.
- contracts: ChatSettings.graphContextTokens (default 1024, max 4096,
step 128, 0 = off); GraphContextData + graphContextText; the
graph-context JobKind + buildGraphContextSteer (id steer_ctx_<chatId>)
- core/graph-context.ts: brute-force cosine top-K, greedy chars/4 fill
under budget, most-recent UnderstandingLevel fold, count cap 64,
parse-don't-cast at the marker seam
- server: embedQuery (role-asymmetric query format, same warm singleton
— vector-space parity by construction); the runner (startGraphContext-
Injection one-shot gates; runGraphContextJob validates ledger parity);
wake branches (chatIdOf/jobIdOf, finalizeJob done, recoverStaleJobs
re-deliver or contextRespawn); abortJob kills context jobs SILENTLY
(nothing was promised in the lesson); turn-service trigger seam
- adapter: data-graph-context flattens to the canonical block (malformed
parts have no model face)
- UI: the budget slider (home dock + /chat/new draft, the session-data
strip); the quiet SystemLine "~537 · 10 propositions"; dock kind
"Knowledge context"; model-picker PUT now spreads settings (a model
pick can no longer clear the sibling override)
Live-smoked end to end on the real embedder + real GLM: seeded ledger
(10 propositions), session on "modal logic: possible worlds and the
necessity box" — job in the dock, queued behind the prober's question,
delivered on the answer, SystemLine in the transcript, wake turn reads
the block and continues the probe. Gates: tsc, lint, 459/459, build.
The sidebar button no longer POSTs a record (no more "Untitled session"
litter): it opens /chat/new, a sessionless draft view visually identical
to a fresh chat (same header + probe chip, the same ConversationEmptyState,
the same composer blob + stats dock). The session comes to exist only
when the learner sends the first message — and that message becomes its
title (startDraftSession: POST /api/chats {title: msg} → PUT the lifted
pre-chat settings → redirect /chat/<id>?prompt=<msg>, whose initialPrompt
path delivers the message as turn 1 — the home composer's proven contract).
- app/chat/new/page.tsx: the static draft route (static beats [id]).
- components/new-session.tsx: DraftShell (pure render seam) + NewSession
(router wiring); the model picker's empty-chatId branch defers its save
and lifts the selection, so pre-chat model/thinking rides the creation.
- components/sidebar.tsx: newSession is a plain router.push("/chat/new").
- tests/render-new-session.test.tsx: 6 pins — the create-on-send contract
(title = message, settings PUT, no-op on empty text) + the shell render.
Live-verified end to end: button → draft (0 creations), pre-chat Qwen
pick, send → exactly one session titled with the message, settings
persisted, redirect + turn 1 running. Gates 431/431.
amosblomqvist