Owner ruling (keyboard round 2026-10-06): Esc (or any key) does ONE
action, on the topmost active layer. The plan-open-while-dictating
double-act was the symptom: the plan popup listened at WINDOW level
with no claim, and same-node window listeners all fire — the global
chain (registered first) cancelled the dictation while the plan's own
listener closed the plan. One Esc, two actions.
The law (now the house pattern, documented at the chain):
- field-level handlers claim at their element (focus in a field: the
field's action) — unchanged, already correct
- every SURFACED layer claims at the DOCUMENT level with preventDefault
+ stopPropagation — document fires before the window chain, so the
chain stays silent under any surface
- the window chain is the bottom-up fallback: dictation (a live capture,
NOT a surface — it survives the Esc that closes a plan or overlay),
then abort (escAbortTarget layers its own targets)
Converted to the claim: plan popup, session overlay, chain table,
settings dialog, setup dialog, the delete/abort dialogs (window-level
stopPropagation was never enough — same-node listeners all fire), and
the stats popover. Popovers (popover-dismiss), menus, model picker, and
the sidebar context menu already claimed correctly.
1427 tests, tsc, lint, build green.
amosblomqvist
e523bea670