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hecate-ui

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UpdatedJuly 23, 2026 at 14:16

Use when working on the Hecate operator UI in `ui/`. Keeps frontend work aligned with Hecate's operator-console workflows, runtime-debugging focus, and React/Vite stack.

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SKILL.md

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Hecate UI skill

Use this skill for any work inside ui/. Backend work uses ../backend/SKILL.md.

Canonical guidance lives here

../../core/project-context.md — toolchain pin (Bun, React 19, Vite, Vitest), bun run test ≠ bun test warning.
../../core/engineering-standards.md — type-name mirroring with the Go side, design-token discipline, anti-patterns.
../../core/workflow.md — operating loop, planning triggers, commit etiquette (UI agent-doc updates use chore:).
../../core/verification.md — UI verification ladder, snapshot review, done criteria.

Product lens

The Hecate UI should feel like:

An operator console.
A runtime control surface.
A debugging and inspection tool.

It should not feel like:

A generic SaaS dashboard full of cards.
A landing page with product-marketing copy.
A toy chat surface without production context.

Default to utility, orientation, and workflow clarity.

Visual thesis

Calm, technical, and deliberate. Dense enough to be useful, sparse enough to scan. Strong hierarchy, minimal chrome, one clear accent system.

Prefer restrained layout, strong type hierarchy, clear sectioning without over-carding, obvious status and health states, meaningful spacing over decorative surfaces.

Avoid card mosaics, oversized hero copy, decorative gradients behind routine product UI, multiple accent colors fighting for attention, visual noise that hides runtime state.

Consistency guardrails

Before adding or changing UI, find the closest existing precedent and reuse it unless the product behavior truly differs. Hecate's UX should feel like one operator console, not a set of unrelated experiments.

Reuse shared primitives for recurring patterns: DropdownPicker, BrandAvatar, CopyableID, TranscriptActivityTimeline, badges, inline errors, and modal/slide-over chrome.
Keep button height, dropdown rhythm, icon treatment, metadata labels, empty-state spacing, and hover/focus affordances consistent across Chats, Tasks, Connections, Observability, and Usage.
Long machine identifiers belong behind compact labels with tooltip + copy affordances. Prefer full context in Details or Task Detail over leaking raw ids into list rows.
If a screen already has an empty, loading, repair, or onboarding precedent, extend that component/copy path instead of adding a second parallel state.
When making Hecate Chat and External Agent behavior more similar, preserve their real runtime differences: Hecate owns task-backed tools; external agents own ACP-native sessions.
Add role/name-based tests for shared controls and view-level tests for every state that previously regressed. E2E should cover cross-view navigation, onboarding, and setup/repair flows when a bug came from app composition.
Before filing a PR or pushing a PR update that touches UI/TypeScript, run the UI verification ladder: cd ui && bun run typecheck, bun run lint, bun run format:check, and bun run test. Add same-change tests for production UI code, and targeted Playwright coverage when the change is a workflow, routing, onboarding, or regression fix. If Go files changed too, run the backend ladder as well.

UX priorities

Every screen should answer the following quickly:

What system am I looking at?
What is its current state?
What can I do here?
What changed or failed?
Where do I go next?

When choosing between "pretty" and "operationally clear," choose clarity.

Accessibility baseline

Accessibility is part of the design pass, not a cleanup pass. Every UI change should preserve keyboard, screen-reader, focus, contrast, and motion ergonomics unless there is an explicit product reason and a documented follow-up.

Use semantic HTML first: buttons for actions, anchors for navigation, labels for form controls, tables for real tables, headings that reflect structure.
Every interactive control needs a visible focus state and a keyboard path. Dropdowns, dialogs, popovers, and slideovers must support Escape / outside dismissal where appropriate and return focus to the trigger.
Icon-only controls need accessible names. Status chips and color-coded states need text, not color alone.
Modal and dialog work must include focus management, aria-modal, labelled titles, and non-trapping escape paths.
Once a destructive confirmation starts its request, keep the dialog modal and disable confirm, Escape, close, and backdrop dismissal until the request settles. This prevents operators from editing context that a successful mutation is about to clear.
Keep contrast readable in the dark operator theme. Muted text can be quiet, but it still needs to be legible against panels and borders.
Respect reduced-motion expectations. Motion should orient; avoid relying on animation to convey state.
Add or update tests for accessibility-sensitive behavior when changing UI primitives: role/name queries, focus movement, disabled states, and keyboard interactions are preferred over brittle DOM selectors.

Information architecture

Organize the UI around operator jobs, not components:

Understand local runtime readiness and current configuration.
Inspect providers and models.
Run and compare requests.
Inspect trace and runtime metadata.
Manage Connections, local cleanup, and policy-adjacent state.
Inspect usage events and reported cost where available.

Views are task-shaped, not component-shaped. If a page mixes too many concerns, split it.

Section responsibilities

Each section has exactly one job: orient, inspect, compare, edit, or confirm. If a section tries to explain the whole system at once, break it apart.

Hecate-specific UI rules

Do not add auth, tenant, or account-management UI unless the product model changes again.
Provider and model selection exposes local and cloud distinctions clearly.
In Chats, use the shared agent-picker shell. Hecate is the built-in choice and owns provider/model selection; its tools toggle switches between direct model chat and Hecate-owned task execution. Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and Grok Build choices create External Agent sessions where adapter/workspace/native session diagnostics belong.
Hecate-owned chats store provider/model state on the session and durable runtime snapshots on each message. Tools-on turns create or continue a backing task and should show per-turn task links in the transcript. Chats may resolve pending task approvals inline; Tasks remains canonical for artifacts, retry/resume, full event history, and patch review. While a task-backed segment is active, the whole Hecate Chat session is busy: keep provider/model controls locked to the segment snapshot. If the operator submits another prompt, queue it locally in the composer and send it after the task finishes, is stopped, or reaches a terminal approval outcome. Treat this as browser-local operator state, not a server-side message. Persist one logical record per queue item (never a stale whole-array rewrite), but give every mutation a new immutable physical key containing queue-lineage generation, random revision, and item id. Verify the new revision before retiring the exact old revision. Merge same-origin same-profile tab changes through storage events; duplicate surviving revisions make lineage ambiguous, so quarantine the whole queue until an exact cleanup event lets every row rebuild from the recovered logical snapshot. Remove malformed item keys during explicit browser-queue cleanup. Before the message POST starts, synchronously write through and verify a submitting state plus the current transcript message-id baseline. Fail closed before dispatch when the durable fence cannot be confirmed. A durable submitting record recovered after reload or observed from another tab is a local reconcile_required projection: do not rewrite, remove, retry, or otherwise mutate that foreign fence. Only an explicit Check status action may claim an exact matching keyed fence for replay, without changing its durable payload. Send the queued runtime snapshot, including tools_enabled, verbatim even if current capability state has changed. Parse stored submitting and legacy retry markers as reconcile_required; never auto-resend them. Only known local or pre-commit failures become retryable. For current keyed ambiguous outcomes, Check status safely replays the exact key/payload and uses message_request.committed_message_id; keep it at the FIFO head until a terminal assistant for that user appears before the next user turn. Observe SSE and authoritative polling concurrently to close subscription races. Content/baseline matching is only for legacy unkeyed records. A server-proven chat.client_request_conflict must preserve typed provenance, bypass content matching even when text is identical, and remain blocked; the operator reviews/removes it and a later submission uses a new queue id. Keep the item blocked with clear manual-review copy when proof is impossible. Preserve FIFO, and disable editing, removal, retry, and status checks while submitting or a destructive chat-ownership reservation is active.
Hecate Chat exposes workspace posture as Managed workspace (persistent/ephemeral) versus Current folder (in_place). New project-free chats explicitly default to managed execution; project-linked creation reflects the Cairnline Project default. Keep the selector editable only before a backing task exists, explain that Current folder writes to the live checkout, and render review/files against the generated managed workspace returned by the session. External Agent chats do not expose this selector because ACP sessions use their selected workspace in place.
Successful keyed message responses expose message_request.replay and the exact committed user-message id. A replay can return before its assistant is terminal: keep that queue item at the FIFO head, observe the live session stream, and poll the authoritative session as a fallback until a terminal assistant is proven after that user message and before the next user turn. Treat missing metadata, missing exact-turn terminal proof, timeout, or stale destructive-mutation ownership as reconcile_required; never let later queued work overtake it.
An admitted External Agent turn is server-owned after its running assistant is durable. When app hydration or chat selection finds an authoritatively busy External Agent session, or a session whose durable tail is a user message, without a locally owned submit, follow that session from the app lifetime: subscribe to its typed stream, apply the initial and live snapshots, reconcile approval events, and retry an unexpected stream close with bounded backoff. Treat an initial idle snapshot after a trailing user message as an admission gap, not terminal proof. The locally owned submit stream must use the same bounded reconnect behavior rather than leaving ownership with a dead stream. After every reconnect, refetch pending approvals because approval events are not replayed. Abort that local observer on terminal state, chat switch, or unmount without calling the cancellation endpoint. Do not create a second observer while the local submit already owns one, and preserve accepted-Stop fences so a reordered snapshot or approval cannot restore cancelled work. A passive observer treats 409 chat.session_not_running for a trailing-user admission gap as authoritative interruption and stops reconnecting. A local observer paired with a replacement submit retries that response until its POST is admitted or settles, because the stream can inspect the previous orphan immediately before the new POST registers its turn. Treat a session GET 404 as authoritative deletion: install the durable deletion fence and remove the ghost session instead of retrying indefinitely.
Treat POST /chat/sessions/{id}/cancel 202 as a signal acknowledgement, not a terminal session snapshot. Keep a session/turn-scoped fence after the acknowledgement, suppress reordered busy snapshots and approval requests, and settle only from the matching turn stream/POST or a GET begun after the accepted Stop. Bound the visible cancellation owner so a hanging read cannot wedge controls, but retain the terminal fence until proof arrives. On a rejected Stop, remove the provisional fence before launching independent, epoch-checked session and approval catch-ups. If a retry fails over an older accepted fence, restore that fence with a renewed bounded settlement window and keep waiting on the original turn's terminal path.
Queue storage failures are operator-visible safety state, never a silent memory-only success. Initial enqueue must return synchronous admission success before clearing the composer. A failed ready-item edit keeps the new text visible as blocked/retryable and best-effort removes the older durable ready payload so reload cannot auto-send stale content. Never remove a stored submitting/reconcile fence merely because a safer local transition failed to persist. Mark local failure fields non-durable, pause FIFO drain, and install unload protection until retry/remove succeeds. Session/project deletion and explicit all-session queue cleanup must verify removals and surface manual clear-site-data guidance. Persist the originating project id in new queue snapshots solely for browser cleanup; project deletion must inspect the durable per-item store, not only the current tab's session summaries. Preserve an explicit empty project id for newly project-free records, reserve an absent id for legacy unknown ownership, and make unknown, malformed, or unreadable records fail cleanup closed. Quarantine absent-owner records after any project tombstone because unrelated ownership cannot be proven. Advance a profile-wide project-deletion tombstone before cleanup; check it before and after enqueue, react to its storage event, and purge matching records during initialization so a late tab cannot resurrect deleted-project prompts. Apply the same generation-scoped fence to a deleted session, using only its canonical id and no prompt-bearing metadata. Explicit all-session queue cleanup may advance the profile-wide queue-lineage epoch before cleanup; the disabled server reset endpoint does not invoke this browser action. For an ordinary logical Remove, first write an immutable tombstone scoped by generation, item id, and SHA-256 of the exact canonical payload without its storage revision. Suppress only matching payloads. Preserve a different same-id ready payload as a local queue-id conflict that says Remove and submit again; do not label it as a server-proven chat.client_request_conflict. Preserve a different same-id submitting payload as a fence that explicit Check status can claim. A surviving tombstoned immutable revision is a known cleanup failure: keep its raw source fingerprint behind the UI projection so Remove can retry after reload. Tombstones are prompt-free but equality-revealing and remain until reset. Stamp every item, item tombstone, project tombstone, and session tombstone with the generation observed before its write and scope its storage key by that generation, so old cleanup cannot address a current-generation same-id replacement. Treat unreadable or noncanonical epoch/item metadata and an absent epoch paired with nonzero item generations as blocked/unknown, never as deletion or a virgin profile. Migrate mutable unscoped/revisionless rows by copying them to an immutable revision and writing a SHA-256 marker. Do not get/get/remove the mutable row: a concurrent replacement can land at the delete boundary. Keep matching legacy rows as suppressed shadows; surface a changed shadow as conflict. Snapshot raw old-generation item revisions, project and session tombstones, item tombstones, migration markers, and the prompt-bearing legacy whole-array key first, remove only unchanged old records after the epoch changes, then post-audit every keyed namespace and the legacy array. Stale tabs clear/quarantine only their local view, ignore later item events, and refuse writes until reload. They must never delete a same-ID current-generation record owned by a fresh tab.
Chat attachment drafts are in-memory File values only. Never put File, Blob URLs, or base64 into persisted state/localStorage. Hecate-owned Tools-off turns accept only PNG/JPEG/WebP with explicitly supported image_input; External Agent turns accept up to four arbitrary non-empty files through the ACP resource-block path. Apply the shared 5 MiB per-file and 12 MiB combined limits. Allow drafts to move into an External Agent target, but block Tools-on switching and any move into a Hecate route that cannot accept every selected file. Busy-queue submission and chat-session/project switching remain blocked while drafts exist. Register a beforeunload warning while visible or submitted-but-unsettled memory-only drafts exist, and announce draft additions and removals through one polite live region. On submit, synchronously acquire a tokenized owner and atomically clear the exact prompt and File snapshot before the first async boundary; later composer edits are a different turn and visible Remove controls must never mutate the submitted snapshot. Stored transcript previews must keep the filename and a load control accessible before deferred loading, reserve stable dimensions, use the runtime-token-aware API client, create object URLs from fetched Blobs, revoke every URL, abort body reads that move outside the viewport, and unload previews again when they move well outside the viewport. Render every non-image transcript file as inert metadata plus an explicit guarded Download action; never inline-render active content, and revoke the download object URL only after the synthetic anchor click has been processed. Transfer focus when a draft Remove button or stored-preview Load/Retry button unmounts: prefer the next relevant action, then the attachment picker, loading status, or loaded image link, but transfer only while focus still belongs to the disappearing control so delayed loads never steal focus back from the operator. Once submission begins, keep a single session owner until the turn settles, even before a newly created session id can be bound. Block compact and every ownership/session mutation while that owner is live. Project links and browser-history routes are not escape hatches: keep rendering the last accepted project and replace a rejected cross-project route while an attachment draft or turn owns the current context. While an attachment turn is live, reject even an explicit text-only follow-up without clearing it or creating a browser queue record; the operator may send that retained composer text only after the attachment response reaches a known outcome. Never auto-queue newer unsent composer text. On a definite rejection, restore the original prompt and Files without overwriting that newer text. After an attachment message POST becomes ambiguous, reconcile with an authoritative session GET: never auto-resend; retain server drafts for network/proxy ambiguity, but delete and restore local Files after a known pre-commit rejection or a Hecate-shaped HTTP error whose successful GET proves no commit. Attachment uploads are a separate commit boundary with no idempotency key or draft-list recovery endpoint: treat transport failures and every upload 5xx as ambiguous, including Hecate-shaped errors, restore the exact local prompt and Files, delete only previously acknowledged drafts, and never auto-retry. Retry a failed draft DELETE once without logging attachment ids. If cleanup still fails, preserve the typed submission error, restore the local Files, and add an explicit warning that retained server copies may consume draft quota until a later upload reclaims them after 24 hours; direct the operator to that triggered reclamation or immediate chat deletion, never automatic expiry.
Individual chat deletion and project deletion are destructive chat-ownership mutations. Route every entry point through a shared tokenized ownership reservation acquired synchronously before the backend request, release it on every outcome, then fence chat state centrally after success. While it is held, reject attachment draft additions and attachment-turn acquisition, pause queued delivery, and block competing chat/session ownership changes. Explicit and first-message session creation must hold the reciprocal create reservation so destructive acquisition fails until the server create settles. Fence deferred stream/tool-continuation writes against the current queue-lineage generation and session/project tombstones after every await. Before writing a returned session into summaries, active state, or per-session target/tools maps, reject and tombstone it when that generation changed or its requested/returned project is tombstoned. Ordinary navigation may still leave a successfully created session in the sidebar. After the backend confirms a single-chat delete, write and verify a generation-scoped, prompt-free durable session tombstone before removing any matching browser-queue record. Queue reads, writes, enqueue admission, submitting-fence checks, storage events, reload migration, and queue cleanup must honor that tombstone so another tab cannot resurrect work for the deleted session. Verify removal of every matching durable record before tombstoning local chat state or closing its confirmation modal. If either the fence or cleanup cannot be verified, retain the row as a retry surface and direct the operator to free browser storage or clear Hecate site data; the backend DELETE is idempotent for that retry.
Hecate-owned chat slash commands are local UI shortcuts, not External Agent ACP commands. Keep project-shaping commands (/proposal, /plan, /work, /handoff, /review) on the Project Assistant proposal/confirmation rail; navigation commands such as /diff, /model, /settings, /status, /task, /project, and /connections may open Hecate UI surfaces but must not send prompt text or mutate project records directly.
Use the shared features/transcript primitives for runtime storytelling. Task Detail and Hecate Chat should share TranscriptActivityTimeline labels and Details grouping instead of growing separate task/activity renderers. Task Detail may add Task-specific advanced disclosures, but keep that debug layer out of Chats unless the operator explicitly asks for it.
Transcript rows should have one source of truth for noisy details. Do not repeat captured command/read output both in the compact row and in the output preview card. Do not render raw captured diffs in the transcript when the message already has a workspace-changes badge or the side-panel diff viewer. Group repetitive command rows into a single expandable summary that reveals commands and captured output together.
Keep workspace review and workspace browsing as separate UI surfaces. The workspace changes panel's Review tab owns changed-file diffs, copy, and discard actions; the Files tab owns the full workspace tree. Keep the full tree collapsed by default and expand matching directories only when the operator searches or opens them. When the workspace panel is visible, refresh it after an active chat/agent turn settles so the operator sees live changes without pressing Refresh; keep the explicit Refresh action for manual rechecks and recovery. Bind every discard confirmation and request to the opaque revision from the exact reviewed diff, fail closed when it is absent, and disable discard while agent work is queued, running, or awaiting approval. Treat the content-derived token as sensitive operational metadata: it can reveal equality with a known complete unstaged tracked patch, so never persist or log it. The backend remains the authority for revision drift, active-work conflicts, and staged-state refusal. When workspace review or discard returns 422 invalid_request because the scoped workspace has staged changes, never retain a previous revision or render a false clean state. Tell the operator to unstage the changes, refresh, review the newly visible index-to-worktree patch, and confirm again. Do not imply that this surface reviews staged or untracked layers.
External Agent sessions store their workspace and native ACP session id. New UI affordances should preserve that continuity instead of treating every prompt as a one-off subprocess.
Model capability badges are guidance and guardrails for tools, not a reason to hide plain chat. Hecate Chat should remain available when a model is routable; task-backed tools-on turns require tool_calling="basic" or parallel. Unknown local/custom models should show a clear capability indicator, fall back to direct model chat rather than failing the whole transcript, and suggest choosing a known tool-capable model for task-backed turns. Put the fallback state in the chat header/status line, not as a noisy composer warning. Connections shows observed provider/catalog capability metadata, not a global "tools on/off" override editor. For a ready model whose tool support is unknown, Connections may offer an explicit Verify tool support action. Keep it opt-in and visibly capable of incurring one provider request; never trigger it from page load, model refresh, or Chat send. Render only the safe tool_verification outcome/times/reason, refresh the shared model list after it settles, and do not offer it for Auto, unready, or already-known models.
Hecate image attachments are independent of the Tools toggle. Keep the PNG/JPEG/WebP and confirmed image_input gates in both direct-model and task-backed modes; never reintroduce UI copy that asks operators to disable tools merely to attach an image.
Stale selected-model readiness is a composition blocker, not a post-send error toast. If the selected model is not in the current model picker for the selected route, hide/disable send and show the selected model, provider route, discovered-model count, health, blocked-by, last-error, and repair steps. The empty-state "compact" version may be shorter, but it must still include discovered-model count and at least a short remediation list; don't reduce it to a dead-end warning. If the backend provides a suggested replacement model, expose it as an action that switches to the suggested provider/model pair explicitly; don't silently widen a stale route back to a hidden fallback.
Chat send blockers should flow through resolveChatSetupRepairState in ui/src/lib/chat-setup-readiness.ts. Keep the empty state, composer notice, and disabled-send copy aligned there instead of adding one-off branches to ChatView.
Projects UI keeps top-level data loading, selected-project orchestration, and mutation dispatch in ProjectsView; do not add large rendering branches back to that parent. Project selection and persisted right-panel width live in useProjectViewController, and Project Assistant orchestration lives in useProjectAssistantController.
Project workspace UI is split by surface. The selected-project shell, onboarding, workspace tabs, work inbox, and empty blocks live behind ProjectWorkspaceView. Work item detail, assignment rows, handoff-linked start controls, launch preflight state, and chat-draft shaping live in ProjectWorkItemDetail. Timeline/decision-log rows live in ProjectTimelinePanel; attention/health popovers live in ProjectHealthPanel; project memory/context review lives in ProjectMemoryPanel; project skill registry UI lives in ProjectSkillsPanel. Keep rendering and form tests colocated with the component that owns the surface, and add parent-page tests only when loading, controller wiring, or mutation orchestration changes.
Project defaults/root editing lives in ProjectSettingsPanel plus CreateProjectWorktreeModal. Agent Preset and project role editing lives in ProfilesModal and RolesModal, with shared profile/role form mapping in projectProfilesRoles.ts. Work item, assignment, and handoff editing lives in ProjectWorkItemModals, ProjectAssignmentModals, and ProjectHandoffModal, with payload/ref shaping in projectWorkForms.ts; keep project state loading and mutations in the parent page. Shared project UI string/id helpers live in projectUtils.ts; display-label helpers live in projectDisplay.ts; status option lists and form-safe status normalization live in projectWorkForms.ts.
Project sources are context_sources: operator-managed provenance metadata for URLs, local paths, notes, external references, and discovered workspace guidance. Source add/edit/delete form mapping lives in projectSources.ts. Render only http/https locators as links; show every other locator as plain escaped text. Source notes are metadata, not project memory, until the operator promotes or rewrites them as memory.
External Agent availability belongs in the picker; optional launch diagnostics belong in Connections and can also inform picker detail. Distinguish missing binaries, required remote credentials, auth/billing problems, unsupported versions, and managed-launcher issues without sending users to raw logs first. Catalog discovery means only that an eligible app path was found: render it as Available, never Ready. Missing/rejected executables and absent required remote credentials are launch blockers. Cached auth, billing, version, or probe failures are advisory and must not disable agent selection, New chat, attachments, or Send; the operator may have repaired the app since that diagnostic ran.
Opening Chats or Connections must not probe, start, authenticate, or otherwise execute a discovered app. New chat re-resolves the current executable and prepares a fresh ACP session for the real chat. Direct ACP peers start during that setup. Embedded bridges may run bounded provider discovery during setup while deferring their prompt-serving vendor invocation and prompt-time auth result until the first message, which is authoritative for that deferred work. POST /agent-adapters/{id}/probe is an optional disposable diagnostic, not a prerequisite or launch authority. Its accessible name/help text must say that it starts a temporary ACP session and may execute the app for diagnostics.
Route every passive External Agent catalog read—dashboard hydration, manual Refresh, and the post-diagnostic re-read—through loadAgentAdapterCatalog. That provider/model slice owns request ordering and the merge between catalog-owned available/status/error/path/ remote-credential fields and cached diagnostic evidence. Never commit an API catalog response through the raw setAgentAdapters fixture/projection setter.
To smoke-test adapter states without uninstalling local tools, use just dev-no-agent-adapters or just dev-agent-adapters 'claude_code=no_auth,codex=ready,cursor_agent=app_missing'. These fixture env vars are test/development-only and intentionally absent from .env.example; do not write tests that expect a forced-ready adapter to run a real session.
External Agent usage is adapter-reported. Show it as helpful telemetry with the "reported by adapter · not enforced by Hecate" caveat, never as Hecate-enforced billing.
External Agent file changes are already applied to the selected workspace when Hecate captures them. UI copy should say "inspect" / "revert" / "keep", not "apply", unless the backend grows a true staged-artifact flow.
Project assignment UI reads canonical backend contracts. turn_kind is the chat turn discriminator, and project assignment runtime links come from execution_ref / activity linked ids. Do not infer task-backed, direct-model, or external-agent state from legacy execution_mode, tools_enabled, raw task_id, raw run_id, or chat_session_id fields. Project rows, activity, health, and timeline surfaces should use ui/src/features/projects/projectAssignmentViewModels.ts instead of reconstructing status/link logic in components. Keep compact assignment row evidence separate from the full Context Inspector: the row summarizes canonical refs and warnings, while the inspector renders the persisted packet sections the agent actually saw.
Do not add UI "compatibility" fallback chains for contracts that the backend has already made canonical. If a current feature appears to need old raw fields or inferred state, update the view model / API contract deliberately instead of rebuilding the removed fallback in a component.
Project assignment launch controls must review /assignments/{assignment_id}/preflight before dispatch. Use the shared Context Inspector panel for the launch packet, then call start only from the operator's confirm action. This applies to normal assignment rows and handoff-linked starts.
Reviewer follow-through stays handoff-based. A request-review action may prefill a handoff to a work item's reviewer_role_ids and carry source assignment/run/chat/context refs, but creating the follow-up assignment and starting it remain separate operator actions.
Review outcomes are kind="review" collaboration artifacts. The V1 cockpit entry point is an assignment whose role appears in the work item's reviewer_role_ids; work without configured reviewer roles should surface setup guidance instead of a generic record-review button. Keep the record action separate from follow-up handoff creation; review artifacts may offer an explicit follow-up assignment action, but it must create/link the handoff first and leave execution start as a separate operator action. Review artifacts can carry structured review_verdict, review_risk, review_follow_up_required, and reviewed_assignment_id fields for triage, but the UI must not mark work done, blocked, or dispatched from those fields without an explicit operator action.
Work closeout is explicit operator state. The Projects UI may compute and display closeout readiness from completed assignments, pending handoffs, and review follow-up artifacts, but marking a work item done must stay a deliberate operator action through the work-item update path. The guided closeout button should stay disabled while blockers remain; the existing edit-work-item status field is the manual override path.
Project evidence is generic provenance, not a GitHub/project-management assumption. Evidence-link artifacts may represent source docs, tickets, design files, deployments, PRs, meeting notes, local references, or other operator-provided proof. UI copy should say "evidence" or "source", not "GitHub" or "code", unless the specific artifact metadata says so.
Projects are durable work areas, not necessarily repos. Creation and onboarding should allow a name/purpose without a workspace root; root, Git, worktree, AGENTS.md, and skills affordances are code/file-backed options, not prerequisites for every project.
Stable provider ordering. Do not sort provider lists by health, blocked state, or availability unless explicitly asked. Fixed alphabetical/preset order within each section.
Runtime metadata first-class, not tucked in debug crumbs.
Trace and failure details readable without scanning raw JSON first.
Cost, cache, routing, and retry behavior visible in plain language.
Dangerous or privileged actions visually separated from routine actions.
Short tab labels OK for navigation; the active view uses a more descriptive section header inside the page.
No duplicate summary surfaces. If data is already visible on the page, prefer hierarchy fixes, clearer labels, or progressive disclosure over adding a second persistent surface that restates the same state.
Docs-only updates to ui/AGENTS.md and ui/SKILL.md use chore:, not docs: (project-wide rule in ../../core/workflow.md; restated here because it's UI-doc-adjacent).

Layout guidance

Default app layout: top-level shell + primary navigation/mode switch + main workspace + optional secondary inspector. Layout primitives over card wrappers.

Cards only when the card itself is the interaction boundary:

A selectable provider target.
A provider credential or readiness record with contained actions.
A focused result panel that benefits from separation.

Do not add a new persistent inspector, side rail, dashboard block, or summary panel without explicit user approval first. Improve the existing workspace before expanding the surface area.

Copy guidance

Product UI copy, not marketing copy.

Good labels: Session, Chats, Provider Routing, Runtime Output, Trace, Usage, Policy.

Good supporting copy explains scope, freshness, operator impact, and the next action. Bad supporting copy is hype, mood statements, abstract claims, or a repeated explanation of what Hecate is.

Motion guidance

Motion supports orientation, not decoration. Allowed: view transitions that help users understand context shifts; subtle reveal of runtime output or trace detail; emphasis for status changes or async loading. Avoid ornamental motion or large attention-grabbing effects in core workflows.

Code organization

src/
  app/                  app shell, top-level orchestration, route/mode switching
    AppShell.tsx        the chrome (nav, theme, header) — consumes slice hooks directly
    App.tsx             mounts slice providers + <RootEffects />
    state/              the canonical state surface — every UI piece reads from here
      runtime.tsx         health, session, RTK availability, copy-command transient
      chat.tsx            chat sessions, composer state, in-flight machinery
      projects.tsx        project list, active project scope, create/rename/delete
      providersAndModels.tsx  provider status, presets, model catalog, agent adapters
      approvals.tsx       pending approvals + agent-chat grants
      retention.tsx       retention runs + subsystems
      usage.tsx           cost summary + recent events
      settings.tsx        server config snapshot + settings error + notice banner
      derived.ts          cross-slice derived selectors (useChatTarget, useRuntimeDerivedState, ...)
      rootEffects.ts      <RootEffects /> — dashboard-load, RTK-sync, queued-message-drain
      coordinators/
        chat.ts           submission + lifecycle + targeting + files + approvals (the big one)
        providers.ts      provider CRUD + readiness actions
        dashboard.ts      loadDashboard + refreshes
        settings.ts       runSettingsMutation + setNoticeMessage
        agentAdapters.ts  adapter credential + probe ops
        policy.ts         policy rule CRUD
        retention.ts      runRetention (wires the slice's Result to the notice banner)
        wired.ts          useWiredXActions — composes the cross-slice param graph once per view
        overrides.tsx     test-only CoordinatorOverridesContext for action stubs
  features/
    runs/               TasksView, TaskDetail, NewTaskSlideOver — agent task list + run replay (the headline UI)
    chats/              ChatView, ChatSidebar, ChatComposer, ChatHeader, ChatTranscript, ChatSettingsPanel, HecateTaskApprovalsBanner, ...
    projects/           ProjectsView, ProjectScopePanel, projectInsights — project identity, cockpit, memory/context, work coordination
    transcript/         reusable transcript pieces for Chats and Task Detail
    overview/           ConnectYourClient, ObservabilityView — request history + trace drilldown
    connections/        ConnectionsPanel — provider readiness, external-agent setup/grants
    settings/           SettingsView — local data cleanup / retention controls
    providers/          provider catalog/editor components used by Connections
    shared/             primitives, pickers, overlays; ui.ts is a compatibility barrel
    usage/              UsageView
  lib/
    api.ts              fetch wrappers + streamTaskRun (SSE consumer)
    persistedState.ts   useState wrapper that mirrors to localStorage with a schema guard
    format.ts, markdown.ts, provider-utils.ts, runtime-utils.ts
  types/                TypeScript mirrors of Go API types — keep in lockstep with pkg/types/ and internal/api/
    chat.ts, task.ts, provider.ts, model.ts, agent-adapter.ts, trace.ts, usage.ts, retention.ts, runtime.ts
  test/                 shared test setup
    runtime-console-test-composer.ts   test-only composer that aggregates slices + coordinators into the legacy {state, actions} shape
    runtime-console-fixture.ts         default fixture state + action stubs
    runtime-console-render.tsx         withRuntimeConsole(ui, fixture) wraps in slice providers seeded with fixture state
  styles.css            design tokens, .dropdown-menu rule, animations

There is no src/components/. Reusable primitives live in src/features/shared/; feature-specific components live with their feature.

When a file gets crowded, split by responsibility, not arbitrary line count: view shell vs data hooks; presentation vs transport; domain formatting vs generic utilities.

State + action architecture

Views read slice state and call coordinator actions directly — there is no facade hook. The shape is:

Slice hooks (useRuntime, useChat, useSettings, useProvidersAndModels, useApprovals, useRetention, useUsage) — each owns a useReducer-backed state slice and exposes {state, actions}. Views call them and destructure only the fields they use.
Coordinator hooks (useChatActions, useProviderActions, useDashboardActions, useSettingsActions, useAgentAdapterActions, usePolicyActions, useRetentionActions) — each owns the cross-slice action implementations for a domain. Most coordinators take a small parameter bag for cross-coordinator wiring; the wired.ts hooks (useWiredSettingsActions, useWiredDashboardActions, useWiredProviderActions, useWiredPolicyActions) resolve that wiring once and are what views typically call.
Derived selectors (derived.ts) — useChatTarget, useRuntimeDerivedState, useNewChatAgentID — for cross-slice values that don't belong in any single slice's state.
Root effects (rootEffects.ts) — <RootEffects /> is mounted once in App.tsx and owns all cross-slice effects (dashboard-load on mount, approvals catch-up on session switch, RTK-sync, notice auto-dismiss, provider/model default cascade, queued-message-drain). Don't add cross-slice effects inside views.

A typical view looks like:

function MyView() {
  const chat = useChat(); // slice state + actions
  const { providers } = useProvidersAndModels().state;
  const chatTarget = useChatTarget(); // derived selector
  const { submitChat } = useChatActions({ chatTarget, setNoticeMessage });
  // ... or, more often, the wired variant that resolves the param bag for you:
  const { runSettingsMutation } = useWiredSettingsActions();
  return <div>...</div>;
}

Tests use withRuntimeConsole(ui, fixture) from src/test/runtime-console-render.tsx — it mounts all slice providers seeded with fixture state and an overrides context for action stubs. The 2284-LOC composition regression suite at src/test/runtime-console-composition.test.tsx exercises slices + coordinators end-to-end via the test-only runtime-console-test-composer.ts. Per-view tests don't need to touch the composer.

State and data rules

Keep remote data shapes close to the API contracts.
Normalize only where the UI benefits from it.
Make loading, empty, and error states explicit.
Prefer derived display helpers over inline formatting logic scattered across JSX.
Avoid giant top-level components that fetch, normalize, render, and mutate everything at once.

Chat dictation ownership

ChatDictationControl owns client speech recognition, browser microphone, and provider-transcription request lifecycle; ChatComposer owns only insertion into the editable message. Keep these boundaries when changing dictation:

build one typed route list from the /hecate/v1/dictation/options provider snapshot plus the presence of a client Web Speech constructor. When no route has been saved, prefer the first available provider (the backend orders providers local first). Preserve an unavailable saved route until the operator explicitly chooses another one. Never implicitly select the browser-managed route;
do not call experimental static Web Speech language-pack or on-device availability APIs while the composer mounts. Some engines advertise those methods without a usable speech service and may terminate the renderer when queried. Do not infer local processing from a browser name or a generic Web Speech constructor;
label generic Web Speech as a browser-managed service that may use the browser vendor's cloud. It is an explicit route, not a fallback, and its audio must not be represented as entering Hecate;
detect secure-context and SpeechRecognition support for client routes, and getUserMedia plus MediaRecorder support for provider recording. Keep client recognition failures, capture failures, and provider readiness failures distinct so “unsupported browser,” “permission denied,” and “connect a transcription provider” remain actionable states;
explain that speech-to-text routing is independent of the selected chat model or External Agent. A Claude-only setup may use a client speech route; it needs a separate provider credential only for provider transcription. Permission-denied copy must point browser users to site controls and desktop users to the operating-system microphone privacy settings;
keep Connections → Speech-to-text route readiness aligned with the same typed provider-options snapshot: it must show each explicit provider route, its local/cloud boundary, default model, and bounded repair reason. Client routes are capability-detected in the composer. Do not treat a Claude Code, Codex, or other External Agent sign-in as a transcription credential;
show the exact route and disclosure boundary before recording/listening, and never silently select a different client service or provider after a failure;
cap recording duration and client-side bytes, stop every MediaStreamTrack on stop/error/unmount/chat switch, abort the HTTP request on unmount, and keep the route selector disabled while audio is live. Client recognizers need the equivalent stop/abort cleanup, a stale-event generation fence, and a bounded finalization watchdog. No dictation audio crosses Tauri IPC;
insert returned text at the textarea selection with readable boundary spacing, restore focus/cursor, and never call submit automatically;
preserve ordinary OS text input: macOS Dictation and Windows voice typing (Win+H) work through the focused textarea without a Hecate route. Their privacy boundary belongs to the OS. Text-to-speech/read-aloud is a separate output capability and must not be folded into dictation routing;
keep Web Speech and MediaRecorder/getUserMedia/API mocks in focused component tests. Test recognition stop/abort, track cleanup, and unmount-before-disclosure, not just happy transcripts. Keep Playwright paths for client recognition and provider capture into an editable draft; mock the recognizer/device stream/recorder rather than depending on CI audio hardware.

The API owns real media sniffing, size/read/concurrency limits, and the provider generation fence for the provider branch only. Client Web Speech routes do not call it. The UI disclosure copy must not claim a kind=local custom URL is enforced loopback egress.

Chat read-aloud ownership

useReadAloud owns the browser speech-synthesis lifecycle for Chat; ChatTranscript owns the single active response and TranscriptMessageRow only renders the accessible action. Keep these boundaries when changing text-to-speech:

treat read aloud as client playback, not a model, provider, preset, ACP, or External Agent capability. Every settled assistant response reaches the same shared transcript path;
require both Web Speech synthesis and an explicit voice whose localService property is true. Never leave utterance.voice unset or silently select a remote voice. Explain how to install or enable a system voice when none is available;
revalidate the selected local voice before every chunk and after voiceschanged. If that exact voice identity disappears, stop and report it; never switch an active response to another voice or browser default;
start only from the operator's Read aloud action. Do not auto-read a new response, mutable streaming text, tool activity, or status changes;
derive speech text from the persisted visible assistant content, not DOM textContent. Flatten Markdown deterministically, speak link labels rather than destinations, retain inline code and literal JSX/HTML-like source and entity spelling, replace URI-shaped visible values—including labels, inline code, and tag-like attribute values—with “link,” mark fenced code as omitted, and exclude attachments, MCP Apps, activities, diffs, raw output, timing, usage, context packets, and debug bundles. Keep link parsing in the shared Markdown parser; do not add a speech-only Markdown grammar or interpret visible tag-like source as HTML;
keep one controller for the transcript because speechSynthesis has a page-global queue. Starting another response cancels the old generation; ignore late completion/error events from cancelled utterances and cancel on chat switch, message invalidation, or unmount;
bound source parsing, total speech text, and each utterance. If a source bound cuts a Markdown destination, omit from that unmatched link start. Preserve the audible truncation notice rather than silently stopping a long answer;
keep the stable Read aloud toggle label, aria-pressed, Stop tooltip/icon, a polite status announcement, keyboard-visible message actions, touch visibility, and reduced-motion behavior aligned. Text-to-speech needs no microphone permission;
route host/voice failures through the existing visible Hecate notice. When that alert handles the error, clear the read-aloud polite live region so assistive technology receives exactly one announcement;
mock both speechSynthesis and SpeechSynthesisUtterance in focused tests. Cover remote-only/unsupported hosts, voice refresh, replacement, Stop, generation races, chat changes, Markdown normalization, and Hecate plus External Agent integration. Native real-machine voice smoke remains a separate platform check.

Voice/rate selection, pause/resume, word highlighting, automatic playback, Task Detail narration, and native Rust fallbacks are outside the initial Chat control. Add them only with explicit UX and platform contracts.

Build / test commands

Command	What it does	When to use
`bun run typecheck`	`tsc -b` — fast type check, no test execution	First sanity check after edits
`bun run lint`	Type-aware Oxc lint checks	Before committing
`bun run format:check`	Oxfmt formatting check	Before committing
`just format-check`	Go + UI + website + docs formatting check	Mixed-surface PRs or CI format failures
`just docs-format-check`	Oxfmt Markdown / `.mdc` formatting check	When UI changes update docs or screenshots
`bun run test`	`vitest run` — full test suite	Before committing
`bun run test:watch`	watch mode	During iteration
`bun run format`	Oxfmt source formatting	Formatting-only cleanup or after formatter drift
`just format`	Local auto-format for Go, UI, website, and docs	Fix formatter drift before pushing
`bun run dev` (or `just ui-dev` from repo root)	Vite dev server on `:5173`, proxying API to `:8765`	Live UI iteration alongside `just dev`

Never bun test — it skips testing-library DOM setup and panics with document[isPrepared]. Always bun run test.

Playwright starts Vite with VITE_DISABLE_API_PROXY=1. E2E specs should mock every API route they depend on; missing mocks should fail quietly as 404s, not fall through to the Vite dev proxy and spam ECONNREFUSED for :8765.

Oxc config lives at repo root in .oxlintrc.json and is shared by the UI and website. UI and website lint scripts run oxlint --type-aware, backed by the oxlint-tsgolint package. The config enables the React, JSX accessibility, Vitest, import, TypeScript, Unicorn, and Oxc rule families, with current legacy-noise rules disabled explicitly. Do not loosen the config casually; if a rule is noisy, name the specific rule and why it is disabled.

Markdown and .mdc docs are formatted by Oxfmt through just docs-format / just docs-format-check. Keep lychee for link and anchor validation; Oxfmt does not replace link checking.

Do not mix broad Oxfmt churn into a feature diff unless the task is explicitly a formatting pass. When only UI source drifted, run bun run format; when the PR touches multiple surfaces or CI reports a format failure, run just format, then review the mechanical diff separately from behavior changes.

Test patterns

function setup(overrides: Partial<React.ComponentProps<typeof TaskDetail>> = {}) {
  const props: React.ComponentProps<typeof TaskDetail> = {
    /* sane defaults including new fields like streamModelCallCosts: new Map() */
    ...overrides,
  };
  const user = userEvent.setup();
  return { props, user, render: () => render(<TaskDetail {...props} />) };
}

When the Go side adds a required prop (e.g. streamModelCallCosts), update the setup helper in the affected *.test.tsx files first — TypeScript will surface every test that needs the new value.

UI gotchas

.dropdown-menu has left: 0 baked into the .dropdown-menu rule in styles.css. When using useFloatingDropdownStyle with align="right", the hook explicitly sets left: "auto" to override. Don't remove that — without it the dropdown stretches viewport-wide.
Slideover overflow clipping — dropdowns inside <NewTaskSlideOver> get clipped by the slideover's overflow. Always use useFloatingDropdownStyle (which uses position: fixed to escape) for any dropdown that might appear inside a panel. See ProviderPicker / ModelPicker in shared/ui.tsx for the pattern.
404 on stale task IDs — localStorage may hold a task ID from a prior gateway boot (memory backend resets on restart). TasksView drops the dead row from the list and re-loads. Don't propagate the 404 as an error toast.
Task refresh belongs to the selected task header — the Tasks list is for selection and creation. Keep task/run refresh with the selected task header, next to run controls, so it matches Chat and Project header action placement.
Runtime activity output stays flat when it is standalone — stdout/stderr artifacts with no primary tool row should render inline as output previews. Failed tools keep their richer diagnostics view; don't wrap simple output in nested Artifacts -> Output -> preview disclosures.
Project cockpit action ownership — project-global actions live in the project header. Needs Attention is a dropdown, Project Settings opens the shared right-side inspector pattern, and Work Coordination / Timeline / Memory / Skills are workspace tabs. Needs Attention rows should route to the matching operator surface: settings for setup gaps, Memory for context and candidates, Skills for project skill registry issues, Presets/Roles for broken references, and Work Coordination for assignment/activity issues. Assignment launch preflight must keep Connections as the provider/model readiness repair surface while linking project-local defaults back to Project Settings, Roles, and Agent Presets. Work with Project Assistant Bootstrap through one reviewable proposal path: UI helpers may refresh guidance/skills first, but they should still call the normal draft/apply flow rather than mutating setup directly. New-project onboarding should make setup the primary path, expose row-level actions for missing purpose/defaults/guidance/roles, and move first-work creation after setup instead of leading with an open-ended request box. Work Coordination uses one Work Queue with All / activity filters plus one selected work-item card; don't split the same work state across a separate Activity Inbox, Work Items list, and detail card. Keep the Projects index as a fixed left panel; don't add or restore a collapsed mini-rail until the navigation pattern is redesigned.
render1() + render2() in the same it block — don't. React Testing Library cleanup runs between tests, not within. Split into two its if you need fresh mounts.
Cost-ceiling banner — gates on run.otel_status_message === "cost_ceiling_exceeded" (the specific string). A regression that drops or rewords that string silently breaks the "Raise ceiling & resume" affordance.
Every gateway response is {object, data} — lib/api.ts clients must read payload.data.<field>, not payload.<field>. When mocking, copy the real wire shape, not the fields you happen to need; fixtures that skip the envelope hide production bugs.
Chat snapshots must preserve per-message reference identity. Transcript rows are memoized, so a snapshot that rebuilds every message object re-renders the whole transcript. reconcileChatSession (in app/state) reuses unchanged message objects across snapshots, and projectVisibleMessage (in features/chats/ChatTranscript.tsx) caches its projection in a WeakMap keyed by message identity — keep both in the path. Replacing the messages array wholesale, or remapping it through a fresh .map each render, silently defeats the memoization and the transcript goes back to re-rendering on every token.
No auth surfaces in alpha — do not reintroduce token gates, tenant tabs, or key-management tabs unless the product model changes again.

UI recipes

Add a new SSE-driven UI state field

Add the field to types/runtime.ts TaskRunStreamEventData (matching the Go TaskRunStreamEventData shape exactly).
Accumulate it in TasksView — new useState, populate inside streamTaskRun's onPayload callback, reset in resetRunDetail.
Drill via props to TaskDetail and any consumer.
Add to the setup defaults in affected *.test.tsx files.
Add a focused test asserting the prop reaches the rendered output (see TaskDetail.test.tsx falls back to streamModelCallCosts... for a template).

Add a paired provider+model picker

Reuse ProviderPicker + ModelPicker from features/shared/ui.tsx. Pass modelWarnings to surface capability hints (e.g. "model lacks tool-calling"). Both pickers use useFloatingDropdownStyle — drop them into a slideover with no extra wrapping.

Refresh a snapshot test

Run bun run test -- -u to update committed snapshots. Review the diff carefully — accidental snapshot churn is the most common silent regression vector.

Done criteria

See ../../core/verification.md.

name	hecate-ui
description	Use when working on the Hecate operator UI in `ui/`. Keeps frontend work aligned with Hecate's operator-console workflows, runtime-debugging focus, and React/Vite stack.

Hecate UI skill

Use this skill for any work inside ui/. Backend work uses ../backend/SKILL.md.

Canonical guidance lives here

../../core/project-context.md — toolchain pin (Bun, React 19, Vite, Vitest), bun run test ≠ bun test warning.
../../core/engineering-standards.md — type-name mirroring with the Go side, design-token discipline, anti-patterns.
../../core/workflow.md — operating loop, planning triggers, commit etiquette (UI agent-doc updates use chore:).
../../core/verification.md — UI verification ladder, snapshot review, done criteria.

Product lens

The Hecate UI should feel like:

An operator console.
A runtime control surface.
A debugging and inspection tool.

It should not feel like:

A generic SaaS dashboard full of cards.
A landing page with product-marketing copy.
A toy chat surface without production context.

Default to utility, orientation, and workflow clarity.

Visual thesis

Calm, technical, and deliberate. Dense enough to be useful, sparse enough to scan. Strong hierarchy, minimal chrome, one clear accent system.

Prefer restrained layout, strong type hierarchy, clear sectioning without over-carding, obvious status and health states, meaningful spacing over decorative surfaces.

Avoid card mosaics, oversized hero copy, decorative gradients behind routine product UI, multiple accent colors fighting for attention, visual noise that hides runtime state.

Consistency guardrails

Reuse shared primitives for recurring patterns: DropdownPicker, BrandAvatar, CopyableID, TranscriptActivityTimeline, badges, inline errors, and modal/slide-over chrome.
Keep button height, dropdown rhythm, icon treatment, metadata labels, empty-state spacing, and hover/focus affordances consistent across Chats, Tasks, Connections, Observability, and Usage.
Long machine identifiers belong behind compact labels with tooltip + copy affordances. Prefer full context in Details or Task Detail over leaking raw ids into list rows.
If a screen already has an empty, loading, repair, or onboarding precedent, extend that component/copy path instead of adding a second parallel state.
When making Hecate Chat and External Agent behavior more similar, preserve their real runtime differences: Hecate owns task-backed tools; external agents own ACP-native sessions.
Add role/name-based tests for shared controls and view-level tests for every state that previously regressed. E2E should cover cross-view navigation, onboarding, and setup/repair flows when a bug came from app composition.
Before filing a PR or pushing a PR update that touches UI/TypeScript, run the UI verification ladder: cd ui && bun run typecheck, bun run lint, bun run format:check, and bun run test. Add same-change tests for production UI code, and targeted Playwright coverage when the change is a workflow, routing, onboarding, or regression fix. If Go files changed too, run the backend ladder as well.

UX priorities

Every screen should answer the following quickly:

What system am I looking at?
What is its current state?
What can I do here?
What changed or failed?
Where do I go next?

When choosing between "pretty" and "operationally clear," choose clarity.

Accessibility baseline

Use semantic HTML first: buttons for actions, anchors for navigation, labels for form controls, tables for real tables, headings that reflect structure.
Every interactive control needs a visible focus state and a keyboard path. Dropdowns, dialogs, popovers, and slideovers must support Escape / outside dismissal where appropriate and return focus to the trigger.
Icon-only controls need accessible names. Status chips and color-coded states need text, not color alone.
Modal and dialog work must include focus management, aria-modal, labelled titles, and non-trapping escape paths.
Once a destructive confirmation starts its request, keep the dialog modal and disable confirm, Escape, close, and backdrop dismissal until the request settles. This prevents operators from editing context that a successful mutation is about to clear.
Keep contrast readable in the dark operator theme. Muted text can be quiet, but it still needs to be legible against panels and borders.
Respect reduced-motion expectations. Motion should orient; avoid relying on animation to convey state.
Add or update tests for accessibility-sensitive behavior when changing UI primitives: role/name queries, focus movement, disabled states, and keyboard interactions are preferred over brittle DOM selectors.

Information architecture

Organize the UI around operator jobs, not components:

Understand local runtime readiness and current configuration.
Inspect providers and models.
Run and compare requests.
Inspect trace and runtime metadata.
Manage Connections, local cleanup, and policy-adjacent state.
Inspect usage events and reported cost where available.

Views are task-shaped, not component-shaped. If a page mixes too many concerns, split it.

Section responsibilities

Each section has exactly one job: orient, inspect, compare, edit, or confirm. If a section tries to explain the whole system at once, break it apart.

Hecate-specific UI rules

Do not add auth, tenant, or account-management UI unless the product model changes again.
Provider and model selection exposes local and cloud distinctions clearly.
In Chats, use the shared agent-picker shell. Hecate is the built-in choice and owns provider/model selection; its tools toggle switches between direct model chat and Hecate-owned task execution. Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and Grok Build choices create External Agent sessions where adapter/workspace/native session diagnostics belong.
Hecate-owned chats store provider/model state on the session and durable runtime snapshots on each message. Tools-on turns create or continue a backing task and should show per-turn task links in the transcript. Chats may resolve pending task approvals inline; Tasks remains canonical for artifacts, retry/resume, full event history, and patch review. While a task-backed segment is active, the whole Hecate Chat session is busy: keep provider/model controls locked to the segment snapshot. If the operator submits another prompt, queue it locally in the composer and send it after the task finishes, is stopped, or reaches a terminal approval outcome. Treat this as browser-local operator state, not a server-side message. Persist one logical record per queue item (never a stale whole-array rewrite), but give every mutation a new immutable physical key containing queue-lineage generation, random revision, and item id. Verify the new revision before retiring the exact old revision. Merge same-origin same-profile tab changes through storage events; duplicate surviving revisions make lineage ambiguous, so quarantine the whole queue until an exact cleanup event lets every row rebuild from the recovered logical snapshot. Remove malformed item keys during explicit browser-queue cleanup. Before the message POST starts, synchronously write through and verify a submitting state plus the current transcript message-id baseline. Fail closed before dispatch when the durable fence cannot be confirmed. A durable submitting record recovered after reload or observed from another tab is a local reconcile_required projection: do not rewrite, remove, retry, or otherwise mutate that foreign fence. Only an explicit Check status action may claim an exact matching keyed fence for replay, without changing its durable payload. Send the queued runtime snapshot, including tools_enabled, verbatim even if current capability state has changed. Parse stored submitting and legacy retry markers as reconcile_required; never auto-resend them. Only known local or pre-commit failures become retryable. For current keyed ambiguous outcomes, Check status safely replays the exact key/payload and uses message_request.committed_message_id; keep it at the FIFO head until a terminal assistant for that user appears before the next user turn. Observe SSE and authoritative polling concurrently to close subscription races. Content/baseline matching is only for legacy unkeyed records. A server-proven chat.client_request_conflict must preserve typed provenance, bypass content matching even when text is identical, and remain blocked; the operator reviews/removes it and a later submission uses a new queue id. Keep the item blocked with clear manual-review copy when proof is impossible. Preserve FIFO, and disable editing, removal, retry, and status checks while submitting or a destructive chat-ownership reservation is active.
Hecate Chat exposes workspace posture as Managed workspace (persistent/ephemeral) versus Current folder (in_place). New project-free chats explicitly default to managed execution; project-linked creation reflects the Cairnline Project default. Keep the selector editable only before a backing task exists, explain that Current folder writes to the live checkout, and render review/files against the generated managed workspace returned by the session. External Agent chats do not expose this selector because ACP sessions use their selected workspace in place.
Successful keyed message responses expose message_request.replay and the exact committed user-message id. A replay can return before its assistant is terminal: keep that queue item at the FIFO head, observe the live session stream, and poll the authoritative session as a fallback until a terminal assistant is proven after that user message and before the next user turn. Treat missing metadata, missing exact-turn terminal proof, timeout, or stale destructive-mutation ownership as reconcile_required; never let later queued work overtake it.
An admitted External Agent turn is server-owned after its running assistant is durable. When app hydration or chat selection finds an authoritatively busy External Agent session, or a session whose durable tail is a user message, without a locally owned submit, follow that session from the app lifetime: subscribe to its typed stream, apply the initial and live snapshots, reconcile approval events, and retry an unexpected stream close with bounded backoff. Treat an initial idle snapshot after a trailing user message as an admission gap, not terminal proof. The locally owned submit stream must use the same bounded reconnect behavior rather than leaving ownership with a dead stream. After every reconnect, refetch pending approvals because approval events are not replayed. Abort that local observer on terminal state, chat switch, or unmount without calling the cancellation endpoint. Do not create a second observer while the local submit already owns one, and preserve accepted-Stop fences so a reordered snapshot or approval cannot restore cancelled work. A passive observer treats 409 chat.session_not_running for a trailing-user admission gap as authoritative interruption and stops reconnecting. A local observer paired with a replacement submit retries that response until its POST is admitted or settles, because the stream can inspect the previous orphan immediately before the new POST registers its turn. Treat a session GET 404 as authoritative deletion: install the durable deletion fence and remove the ghost session instead of retrying indefinitely.
Treat POST /chat/sessions/{id}/cancel 202 as a signal acknowledgement, not a terminal session snapshot. Keep a session/turn-scoped fence after the acknowledgement, suppress reordered busy snapshots and approval requests, and settle only from the matching turn stream/POST or a GET begun after the accepted Stop. Bound the visible cancellation owner so a hanging read cannot wedge controls, but retain the terminal fence until proof arrives. On a rejected Stop, remove the provisional fence before launching independent, epoch-checked session and approval catch-ups. If a retry fails over an older accepted fence, restore that fence with a renewed bounded settlement window and keep waiting on the original turn's terminal path.
Queue storage failures are operator-visible safety state, never a silent memory-only success. Initial enqueue must return synchronous admission success before clearing the composer. A failed ready-item edit keeps the new text visible as blocked/retryable and best-effort removes the older durable ready payload so reload cannot auto-send stale content. Never remove a stored submitting/reconcile fence merely because a safer local transition failed to persist. Mark local failure fields non-durable, pause FIFO drain, and install unload protection until retry/remove succeeds. Session/project deletion and explicit all-session queue cleanup must verify removals and surface manual clear-site-data guidance. Persist the originating project id in new queue snapshots solely for browser cleanup; project deletion must inspect the durable per-item store, not only the current tab's session summaries. Preserve an explicit empty project id for newly project-free records, reserve an absent id for legacy unknown ownership, and make unknown, malformed, or unreadable records fail cleanup closed. Quarantine absent-owner records after any project tombstone because unrelated ownership cannot be proven. Advance a profile-wide project-deletion tombstone before cleanup; check it before and after enqueue, react to its storage event, and purge matching records during initialization so a late tab cannot resurrect deleted-project prompts. Apply the same generation-scoped fence to a deleted session, using only its canonical id and no prompt-bearing metadata. Explicit all-session queue cleanup may advance the profile-wide queue-lineage epoch before cleanup; the disabled server reset endpoint does not invoke this browser action. For an ordinary logical Remove, first write an immutable tombstone scoped by generation, item id, and SHA-256 of the exact canonical payload without its storage revision. Suppress only matching payloads. Preserve a different same-id ready payload as a local queue-id conflict that says Remove and submit again; do not label it as a server-proven chat.client_request_conflict. Preserve a different same-id submitting payload as a fence that explicit Check status can claim. A surviving tombstoned immutable revision is a known cleanup failure: keep its raw source fingerprint behind the UI projection so Remove can retry after reload. Tombstones are prompt-free but equality-revealing and remain until reset. Stamp every item, item tombstone, project tombstone, and session tombstone with the generation observed before its write and scope its storage key by that generation, so old cleanup cannot address a current-generation same-id replacement. Treat unreadable or noncanonical epoch/item metadata and an absent epoch paired with nonzero item generations as blocked/unknown, never as deletion or a virgin profile. Migrate mutable unscoped/revisionless rows by copying them to an immutable revision and writing a SHA-256 marker. Do not get/get/remove the mutable row: a concurrent replacement can land at the delete boundary. Keep matching legacy rows as suppressed shadows; surface a changed shadow as conflict. Snapshot raw old-generation item revisions, project and session tombstones, item tombstones, migration markers, and the prompt-bearing legacy whole-array key first, remove only unchanged old records after the epoch changes, then post-audit every keyed namespace and the legacy array. Stale tabs clear/quarantine only their local view, ignore later item events, and refuse writes until reload. They must never delete a same-ID current-generation record owned by a fresh tab.
Chat attachment drafts are in-memory File values only. Never put File, Blob URLs, or base64 into persisted state/localStorage. Hecate-owned Tools-off turns accept only PNG/JPEG/WebP with explicitly supported image_input; External Agent turns accept up to four arbitrary non-empty files through the ACP resource-block path. Apply the shared 5 MiB per-file and 12 MiB combined limits. Allow drafts to move into an External Agent target, but block Tools-on switching and any move into a Hecate route that cannot accept every selected file. Busy-queue submission and chat-session/project switching remain blocked while drafts exist. Register a beforeunload warning while visible or submitted-but-unsettled memory-only drafts exist, and announce draft additions and removals through one polite live region. On submit, synchronously acquire a tokenized owner and atomically clear the exact prompt and File snapshot before the first async boundary; later composer edits are a different turn and visible Remove controls must never mutate the submitted snapshot. Stored transcript previews must keep the filename and a load control accessible before deferred loading, reserve stable dimensions, use the runtime-token-aware API client, create object URLs from fetched Blobs, revoke every URL, abort body reads that move outside the viewport, and unload previews again when they move well outside the viewport. Render every non-image transcript file as inert metadata plus an explicit guarded Download action; never inline-render active content, and revoke the download object URL only after the synthetic anchor click has been processed. Transfer focus when a draft Remove button or stored-preview Load/Retry button unmounts: prefer the next relevant action, then the attachment picker, loading status, or loaded image link, but transfer only while focus still belongs to the disappearing control so delayed loads never steal focus back from the operator. Once submission begins, keep a single session owner until the turn settles, even before a newly created session id can be bound. Block compact and every ownership/session mutation while that owner is live. Project links and browser-history routes are not escape hatches: keep rendering the last accepted project and replace a rejected cross-project route while an attachment draft or turn owns the current context. While an attachment turn is live, reject even an explicit text-only follow-up without clearing it or creating a browser queue record; the operator may send that retained composer text only after the attachment response reaches a known outcome. Never auto-queue newer unsent composer text. On a definite rejection, restore the original prompt and Files without overwriting that newer text. After an attachment message POST becomes ambiguous, reconcile with an authoritative session GET: never auto-resend; retain server drafts for network/proxy ambiguity, but delete and restore local Files after a known pre-commit rejection or a Hecate-shaped HTTP error whose successful GET proves no commit. Attachment uploads are a separate commit boundary with no idempotency key or draft-list recovery endpoint: treat transport failures and every upload 5xx as ambiguous, including Hecate-shaped errors, restore the exact local prompt and Files, delete only previously acknowledged drafts, and never auto-retry. Retry a failed draft DELETE once without logging attachment ids. If cleanup still fails, preserve the typed submission error, restore the local Files, and add an explicit warning that retained server copies may consume draft quota until a later upload reclaims them after 24 hours; direct the operator to that triggered reclamation or immediate chat deletion, never automatic expiry.
Individual chat deletion and project deletion are destructive chat-ownership mutations. Route every entry point through a shared tokenized ownership reservation acquired synchronously before the backend request, release it on every outcome, then fence chat state centrally after success. While it is held, reject attachment draft additions and attachment-turn acquisition, pause queued delivery, and block competing chat/session ownership changes. Explicit and first-message session creation must hold the reciprocal create reservation so destructive acquisition fails until the server create settles. Fence deferred stream/tool-continuation writes against the current queue-lineage generation and session/project tombstones after every await. Before writing a returned session into summaries, active state, or per-session target/tools maps, reject and tombstone it when that generation changed or its requested/returned project is tombstoned. Ordinary navigation may still leave a successfully created session in the sidebar. After the backend confirms a single-chat delete, write and verify a generation-scoped, prompt-free durable session tombstone before removing any matching browser-queue record. Queue reads, writes, enqueue admission, submitting-fence checks, storage events, reload migration, and queue cleanup must honor that tombstone so another tab cannot resurrect work for the deleted session. Verify removal of every matching durable record before tombstoning local chat state or closing its confirmation modal. If either the fence or cleanup cannot be verified, retain the row as a retry surface and direct the operator to free browser storage or clear Hecate site data; the backend DELETE is idempotent for that retry.
Hecate-owned chat slash commands are local UI shortcuts, not External Agent ACP commands. Keep project-shaping commands (/proposal, /plan, /work, /handoff, /review) on the Project Assistant proposal/confirmation rail; navigation commands such as /diff, /model, /settings, /status, /task, /project, and /connections may open Hecate UI surfaces but must not send prompt text or mutate project records directly.
Use the shared features/transcript primitives for runtime storytelling. Task Detail and Hecate Chat should share TranscriptActivityTimeline labels and Details grouping instead of growing separate task/activity renderers. Task Detail may add Task-specific advanced disclosures, but keep that debug layer out of Chats unless the operator explicitly asks for it.
Transcript rows should have one source of truth for noisy details. Do not repeat captured command/read output both in the compact row and in the output preview card. Do not render raw captured diffs in the transcript when the message already has a workspace-changes badge or the side-panel diff viewer. Group repetitive command rows into a single expandable summary that reveals commands and captured output together.
Keep workspace review and workspace browsing as separate UI surfaces. The workspace changes panel's Review tab owns changed-file diffs, copy, and discard actions; the Files tab owns the full workspace tree. Keep the full tree collapsed by default and expand matching directories only when the operator searches or opens them. When the workspace panel is visible, refresh it after an active chat/agent turn settles so the operator sees live changes without pressing Refresh; keep the explicit Refresh action for manual rechecks and recovery. Bind every discard confirmation and request to the opaque revision from the exact reviewed diff, fail closed when it is absent, and disable discard while agent work is queued, running, or awaiting approval. Treat the content-derived token as sensitive operational metadata: it can reveal equality with a known complete unstaged tracked patch, so never persist or log it. The backend remains the authority for revision drift, active-work conflicts, and staged-state refusal. When workspace review or discard returns 422 invalid_request because the scoped workspace has staged changes, never retain a previous revision or render a false clean state. Tell the operator to unstage the changes, refresh, review the newly visible index-to-worktree patch, and confirm again. Do not imply that this surface reviews staged or untracked layers.
External Agent sessions store their workspace and native ACP session id. New UI affordances should preserve that continuity instead of treating every prompt as a one-off subprocess.
Model capability badges are guidance and guardrails for tools, not a reason to hide plain chat. Hecate Chat should remain available when a model is routable; task-backed tools-on turns require tool_calling="basic" or parallel. Unknown local/custom models should show a clear capability indicator, fall back to direct model chat rather than failing the whole transcript, and suggest choosing a known tool-capable model for task-backed turns. Put the fallback state in the chat header/status line, not as a noisy composer warning. Connections shows observed provider/catalog capability metadata, not a global "tools on/off" override editor. For a ready model whose tool support is unknown, Connections may offer an explicit Verify tool support action. Keep it opt-in and visibly capable of incurring one provider request; never trigger it from page load, model refresh, or Chat send. Render only the safe tool_verification outcome/times/reason, refresh the shared model list after it settles, and do not offer it for Auto, unready, or already-known models.
Hecate image attachments are independent of the Tools toggle. Keep the PNG/JPEG/WebP and confirmed image_input gates in both direct-model and task-backed modes; never reintroduce UI copy that asks operators to disable tools merely to attach an image.
Stale selected-model readiness is a composition blocker, not a post-send error toast. If the selected model is not in the current model picker for the selected route, hide/disable send and show the selected model, provider route, discovered-model count, health, blocked-by, last-error, and repair steps. The empty-state "compact" version may be shorter, but it must still include discovered-model count and at least a short remediation list; don't reduce it to a dead-end warning. If the backend provides a suggested replacement model, expose it as an action that switches to the suggested provider/model pair explicitly; don't silently widen a stale route back to a hidden fallback.
Chat send blockers should flow through resolveChatSetupRepairState in ui/src/lib/chat-setup-readiness.ts. Keep the empty state, composer notice, and disabled-send copy aligned there instead of adding one-off branches to ChatView.
Projects UI keeps top-level data loading, selected-project orchestration, and mutation dispatch in ProjectsView; do not add large rendering branches back to that parent. Project selection and persisted right-panel width live in useProjectViewController, and Project Assistant orchestration lives in useProjectAssistantController.
Project workspace UI is split by surface. The selected-project shell, onboarding, workspace tabs, work inbox, and empty blocks live behind ProjectWorkspaceView. Work item detail, assignment rows, handoff-linked start controls, launch preflight state, and chat-draft shaping live in ProjectWorkItemDetail. Timeline/decision-log rows live in ProjectTimelinePanel; attention/health popovers live in ProjectHealthPanel; project memory/context review lives in ProjectMemoryPanel; project skill registry UI lives in ProjectSkillsPanel. Keep rendering and form tests colocated with the component that owns the surface, and add parent-page tests only when loading, controller wiring, or mutation orchestration changes.
Project defaults/root editing lives in ProjectSettingsPanel plus CreateProjectWorktreeModal. Agent Preset and project role editing lives in ProfilesModal and RolesModal, with shared profile/role form mapping in projectProfilesRoles.ts. Work item, assignment, and handoff editing lives in ProjectWorkItemModals, ProjectAssignmentModals, and ProjectHandoffModal, with payload/ref shaping in projectWorkForms.ts; keep project state loading and mutations in the parent page. Shared project UI string/id helpers live in projectUtils.ts; display-label helpers live in projectDisplay.ts; status option lists and form-safe status normalization live in projectWorkForms.ts.
Project sources are context_sources: operator-managed provenance metadata for URLs, local paths, notes, external references, and discovered workspace guidance. Source add/edit/delete form mapping lives in projectSources.ts. Render only http/https locators as links; show every other locator as plain escaped text. Source notes are metadata, not project memory, until the operator promotes or rewrites them as memory.
External Agent availability belongs in the picker; optional launch diagnostics belong in Connections and can also inform picker detail. Distinguish missing binaries, required remote credentials, auth/billing problems, unsupported versions, and managed-launcher issues without sending users to raw logs first. Catalog discovery means only that an eligible app path was found: render it as Available, never Ready. Missing/rejected executables and absent required remote credentials are launch blockers. Cached auth, billing, version, or probe failures are advisory and must not disable agent selection, New chat, attachments, or Send; the operator may have repaired the app since that diagnostic ran.
Opening Chats or Connections must not probe, start, authenticate, or otherwise execute a discovered app. New chat re-resolves the current executable and prepares a fresh ACP session for the real chat. Direct ACP peers start during that setup. Embedded bridges may run bounded provider discovery during setup while deferring their prompt-serving vendor invocation and prompt-time auth result until the first message, which is authoritative for that deferred work. POST /agent-adapters/{id}/probe is an optional disposable diagnostic, not a prerequisite or launch authority. Its accessible name/help text must say that it starts a temporary ACP session and may execute the app for diagnostics.
Route every passive External Agent catalog read—dashboard hydration, manual Refresh, and the post-diagnostic re-read—through loadAgentAdapterCatalog. That provider/model slice owns request ordering and the merge between catalog-owned available/status/error/path/ remote-credential fields and cached diagnostic evidence. Never commit an API catalog response through the raw setAgentAdapters fixture/projection setter.
To smoke-test adapter states without uninstalling local tools, use just dev-no-agent-adapters or just dev-agent-adapters 'claude_code=no_auth,codex=ready,cursor_agent=app_missing'. These fixture env vars are test/development-only and intentionally absent from .env.example; do not write tests that expect a forced-ready adapter to run a real session.
External Agent usage is adapter-reported. Show it as helpful telemetry with the "reported by adapter · not enforced by Hecate" caveat, never as Hecate-enforced billing.
External Agent file changes are already applied to the selected workspace when Hecate captures them. UI copy should say "inspect" / "revert" / "keep", not "apply", unless the backend grows a true staged-artifact flow.
Project assignment UI reads canonical backend contracts. turn_kind is the chat turn discriminator, and project assignment runtime links come from execution_ref / activity linked ids. Do not infer task-backed, direct-model, or external-agent state from legacy execution_mode, tools_enabled, raw task_id, raw run_id, or chat_session_id fields. Project rows, activity, health, and timeline surfaces should use ui/src/features/projects/projectAssignmentViewModels.ts instead of reconstructing status/link logic in components. Keep compact assignment row evidence separate from the full Context Inspector: the row summarizes canonical refs and warnings, while the inspector renders the persisted packet sections the agent actually saw.
Do not add UI "compatibility" fallback chains for contracts that the backend has already made canonical. If a current feature appears to need old raw fields or inferred state, update the view model / API contract deliberately instead of rebuilding the removed fallback in a component.
Project assignment launch controls must review /assignments/{assignment_id}/preflight before dispatch. Use the shared Context Inspector panel for the launch packet, then call start only from the operator's confirm action. This applies to normal assignment rows and handoff-linked starts.
Reviewer follow-through stays handoff-based. A request-review action may prefill a handoff to a work item's reviewer_role_ids and carry source assignment/run/chat/context refs, but creating the follow-up assignment and starting it remain separate operator actions.
Review outcomes are kind="review" collaboration artifacts. The V1 cockpit entry point is an assignment whose role appears in the work item's reviewer_role_ids; work without configured reviewer roles should surface setup guidance instead of a generic record-review button. Keep the record action separate from follow-up handoff creation; review artifacts may offer an explicit follow-up assignment action, but it must create/link the handoff first and leave execution start as a separate operator action. Review artifacts can carry structured review_verdict, review_risk, review_follow_up_required, and reviewed_assignment_id fields for triage, but the UI must not mark work done, blocked, or dispatched from those fields without an explicit operator action.
Work closeout is explicit operator state. The Projects UI may compute and display closeout readiness from completed assignments, pending handoffs, and review follow-up artifacts, but marking a work item done must stay a deliberate operator action through the work-item update path. The guided closeout button should stay disabled while blockers remain; the existing edit-work-item status field is the manual override path.
Project evidence is generic provenance, not a GitHub/project-management assumption. Evidence-link artifacts may represent source docs, tickets, design files, deployments, PRs, meeting notes, local references, or other operator-provided proof. UI copy should say "evidence" or "source", not "GitHub" or "code", unless the specific artifact metadata says so.
Projects are durable work areas, not necessarily repos. Creation and onboarding should allow a name/purpose without a workspace root; root, Git, worktree, AGENTS.md, and skills affordances are code/file-backed options, not prerequisites for every project.
Stable provider ordering. Do not sort provider lists by health, blocked state, or availability unless explicitly asked. Fixed alphabetical/preset order within each section.
Runtime metadata first-class, not tucked in debug crumbs.
Trace and failure details readable without scanning raw JSON first.
Cost, cache, routing, and retry behavior visible in plain language.
Dangerous or privileged actions visually separated from routine actions.
Short tab labels OK for navigation; the active view uses a more descriptive section header inside the page.
No duplicate summary surfaces. If data is already visible on the page, prefer hierarchy fixes, clearer labels, or progressive disclosure over adding a second persistent surface that restates the same state.
Docs-only updates to ui/AGENTS.md and ui/SKILL.md use chore:, not docs: (project-wide rule in ../../core/workflow.md; restated here because it's UI-doc-adjacent).

Layout guidance

Default app layout: top-level shell + primary navigation/mode switch + main workspace + optional secondary inspector. Layout primitives over card wrappers.

Cards only when the card itself is the interaction boundary:

A selectable provider target.
A provider credential or readiness record with contained actions.
A focused result panel that benefits from separation.

Do not add a new persistent inspector, side rail, dashboard block, or summary panel without explicit user approval first. Improve the existing workspace before expanding the surface area.

Copy guidance

Product UI copy, not marketing copy.

Good labels: Session, Chats, Provider Routing, Runtime Output, Trace, Usage, Policy.

Good supporting copy explains scope, freshness, operator impact, and the next action. Bad supporting copy is hype, mood statements, abstract claims, or a repeated explanation of what Hecate is.

Motion guidance

Code organization

src/
  app/                  app shell, top-level orchestration, route/mode switching
    AppShell.tsx        the chrome (nav, theme, header) — consumes slice hooks directly
    App.tsx             mounts slice providers + <RootEffects />
    state/              the canonical state surface — every UI piece reads from here
      runtime.tsx         health, session, RTK availability, copy-command transient
      chat.tsx            chat sessions, composer state, in-flight machinery
      projects.tsx        project list, active project scope, create/rename/delete
      providersAndModels.tsx  provider status, presets, model catalog, agent adapters
      approvals.tsx       pending approvals + agent-chat grants
      retention.tsx       retention runs + subsystems
      usage.tsx           cost summary + recent events
      settings.tsx        server config snapshot + settings error + notice banner
      derived.ts          cross-slice derived selectors (useChatTarget, useRuntimeDerivedState, ...)
      rootEffects.ts      <RootEffects /> — dashboard-load, RTK-sync, queued-message-drain
      coordinators/
        chat.ts           submission + lifecycle + targeting + files + approvals (the big one)
        providers.ts      provider CRUD + readiness actions
        dashboard.ts      loadDashboard + refreshes
        settings.ts       runSettingsMutation + setNoticeMessage
        agentAdapters.ts  adapter credential + probe ops
        policy.ts         policy rule CRUD
        retention.ts      runRetention (wires the slice's Result to the notice banner)
        wired.ts          useWiredXActions — composes the cross-slice param graph once per view
        overrides.tsx     test-only CoordinatorOverridesContext for action stubs
  features/
    runs/               TasksView, TaskDetail, NewTaskSlideOver — agent task list + run replay (the headline UI)
    chats/              ChatView, ChatSidebar, ChatComposer, ChatHeader, ChatTranscript, ChatSettingsPanel, HecateTaskApprovalsBanner, ...
    projects/           ProjectsView, ProjectScopePanel, projectInsights — project identity, cockpit, memory/context, work coordination
    transcript/         reusable transcript pieces for Chats and Task Detail
    overview/           ConnectYourClient, ObservabilityView — request history + trace drilldown
    connections/        ConnectionsPanel — provider readiness, external-agent setup/grants
    settings/           SettingsView — local data cleanup / retention controls
    providers/          provider catalog/editor components used by Connections
    shared/             primitives, pickers, overlays; ui.ts is a compatibility barrel
    usage/              UsageView
  lib/
    api.ts              fetch wrappers + streamTaskRun (SSE consumer)
    persistedState.ts   useState wrapper that mirrors to localStorage with a schema guard
    format.ts, markdown.ts, provider-utils.ts, runtime-utils.ts
  types/                TypeScript mirrors of Go API types — keep in lockstep with pkg/types/ and internal/api/
    chat.ts, task.ts, provider.ts, model.ts, agent-adapter.ts, trace.ts, usage.ts, retention.ts, runtime.ts
  test/                 shared test setup
    runtime-console-test-composer.ts   test-only composer that aggregates slices + coordinators into the legacy {state, actions} shape
    runtime-console-fixture.ts         default fixture state + action stubs
    runtime-console-render.tsx         withRuntimeConsole(ui, fixture) wraps in slice providers seeded with fixture state
  styles.css            design tokens, .dropdown-menu rule, animations

There is no src/components/. Reusable primitives live in src/features/shared/; feature-specific components live with their feature.

When a file gets crowded, split by responsibility, not arbitrary line count: view shell vs data hooks; presentation vs transport; domain formatting vs generic utilities.

State + action architecture

Views read slice state and call coordinator actions directly — there is no facade hook. The shape is:

Slice hooks (useRuntime, useChat, useSettings, useProvidersAndModels, useApprovals, useRetention, useUsage) — each owns a useReducer-backed state slice and exposes {state, actions}. Views call them and destructure only the fields they use.
Coordinator hooks (useChatActions, useProviderActions, useDashboardActions, useSettingsActions, useAgentAdapterActions, usePolicyActions, useRetentionActions) — each owns the cross-slice action implementations for a domain. Most coordinators take a small parameter bag for cross-coordinator wiring; the wired.ts hooks (useWiredSettingsActions, useWiredDashboardActions, useWiredProviderActions, useWiredPolicyActions) resolve that wiring once and are what views typically call.
Derived selectors (derived.ts) — useChatTarget, useRuntimeDerivedState, useNewChatAgentID — for cross-slice values that don't belong in any single slice's state.
Root effects (rootEffects.ts) — <RootEffects /> is mounted once in App.tsx and owns all cross-slice effects (dashboard-load on mount, approvals catch-up on session switch, RTK-sync, notice auto-dismiss, provider/model default cascade, queued-message-drain). Don't add cross-slice effects inside views.

A typical view looks like:

function MyView() {
  const chat = useChat(); // slice state + actions
  const { providers } = useProvidersAndModels().state;
  const chatTarget = useChatTarget(); // derived selector
  const { submitChat } = useChatActions({ chatTarget, setNoticeMessage });
  // ... or, more often, the wired variant that resolves the param bag for you:
  const { runSettingsMutation } = useWiredSettingsActions();
  return <div>...</div>;
}

State and data rules

Keep remote data shapes close to the API contracts.
Normalize only where the UI benefits from it.
Make loading, empty, and error states explicit.
Prefer derived display helpers over inline formatting logic scattered across JSX.
Avoid giant top-level components that fetch, normalize, render, and mutate everything at once.

Chat dictation ownership

build one typed route list from the /hecate/v1/dictation/options provider snapshot plus the presence of a client Web Speech constructor. When no route has been saved, prefer the first available provider (the backend orders providers local first). Preserve an unavailable saved route until the operator explicitly chooses another one. Never implicitly select the browser-managed route;
do not call experimental static Web Speech language-pack or on-device availability APIs while the composer mounts. Some engines advertise those methods without a usable speech service and may terminate the renderer when queried. Do not infer local processing from a browser name or a generic Web Speech constructor;
label generic Web Speech as a browser-managed service that may use the browser vendor's cloud. It is an explicit route, not a fallback, and its audio must not be represented as entering Hecate;
detect secure-context and SpeechRecognition support for client routes, and getUserMedia plus MediaRecorder support for provider recording. Keep client recognition failures, capture failures, and provider readiness failures distinct so “unsupported browser,” “permission denied,” and “connect a transcription provider” remain actionable states;
explain that speech-to-text routing is independent of the selected chat model or External Agent. A Claude-only setup may use a client speech route; it needs a separate provider credential only for provider transcription. Permission-denied copy must point browser users to site controls and desktop users to the operating-system microphone privacy settings;
keep Connections → Speech-to-text route readiness aligned with the same typed provider-options snapshot: it must show each explicit provider route, its local/cloud boundary, default model, and bounded repair reason. Client routes are capability-detected in the composer. Do not treat a Claude Code, Codex, or other External Agent sign-in as a transcription credential;
show the exact route and disclosure boundary before recording/listening, and never silently select a different client service or provider after a failure;
cap recording duration and client-side bytes, stop every MediaStreamTrack on stop/error/unmount/chat switch, abort the HTTP request on unmount, and keep the route selector disabled while audio is live. Client recognizers need the equivalent stop/abort cleanup, a stale-event generation fence, and a bounded finalization watchdog. No dictation audio crosses Tauri IPC;
insert returned text at the textarea selection with readable boundary spacing, restore focus/cursor, and never call submit automatically;
preserve ordinary OS text input: macOS Dictation and Windows voice typing (Win+H) work through the focused textarea without a Hecate route. Their privacy boundary belongs to the OS. Text-to-speech/read-aloud is a separate output capability and must not be folded into dictation routing;
keep Web Speech and MediaRecorder/getUserMedia/API mocks in focused component tests. Test recognition stop/abort, track cleanup, and unmount-before-disclosure, not just happy transcripts. Keep Playwright paths for client recognition and provider capture into an editable draft; mock the recognizer/device stream/recorder rather than depending on CI audio hardware.

Chat read-aloud ownership

treat read aloud as client playback, not a model, provider, preset, ACP, or External Agent capability. Every settled assistant response reaches the same shared transcript path;
require both Web Speech synthesis and an explicit voice whose localService property is true. Never leave utterance.voice unset or silently select a remote voice. Explain how to install or enable a system voice when none is available;
revalidate the selected local voice before every chunk and after voiceschanged. If that exact voice identity disappears, stop and report it; never switch an active response to another voice or browser default;
start only from the operator's Read aloud action. Do not auto-read a new response, mutable streaming text, tool activity, or status changes;
derive speech text from the persisted visible assistant content, not DOM textContent. Flatten Markdown deterministically, speak link labels rather than destinations, retain inline code and literal JSX/HTML-like source and entity spelling, replace URI-shaped visible values—including labels, inline code, and tag-like attribute values—with “link,” mark fenced code as omitted, and exclude attachments, MCP Apps, activities, diffs, raw output, timing, usage, context packets, and debug bundles. Keep link parsing in the shared Markdown parser; do not add a speech-only Markdown grammar or interpret visible tag-like source as HTML;
keep one controller for the transcript because speechSynthesis has a page-global queue. Starting another response cancels the old generation; ignore late completion/error events from cancelled utterances and cancel on chat switch, message invalidation, or unmount;
bound source parsing, total speech text, and each utterance. If a source bound cuts a Markdown destination, omit from that unmatched link start. Preserve the audible truncation notice rather than silently stopping a long answer;
keep the stable Read aloud toggle label, aria-pressed, Stop tooltip/icon, a polite status announcement, keyboard-visible message actions, touch visibility, and reduced-motion behavior aligned. Text-to-speech needs no microphone permission;
route host/voice failures through the existing visible Hecate notice. When that alert handles the error, clear the read-aloud polite live region so assistive technology receives exactly one announcement;
mock both speechSynthesis and SpeechSynthesisUtterance in focused tests. Cover remote-only/unsupported hosts, voice refresh, replacement, Stop, generation races, chat changes, Markdown normalization, and Hecate plus External Agent integration. Native real-machine voice smoke remains a separate platform check.

Build / test commands

Command	What it does	When to use
`bun run typecheck`	`tsc -b` — fast type check, no test execution	First sanity check after edits
`bun run lint`	Type-aware Oxc lint checks	Before committing
`bun run format:check`	Oxfmt formatting check	Before committing
`just format-check`	Go + UI + website + docs formatting check	Mixed-surface PRs or CI format failures
`just docs-format-check`	Oxfmt Markdown / `.mdc` formatting check	When UI changes update docs or screenshots
`bun run test`	`vitest run` — full test suite	Before committing
`bun run test:watch`	watch mode	During iteration
`bun run format`	Oxfmt source formatting	Formatting-only cleanup or after formatter drift
`just format`	Local auto-format for Go, UI, website, and docs	Fix formatter drift before pushing
`bun run dev` (or `just ui-dev` from repo root)	Vite dev server on `:5173`, proxying API to `:8765`	Live UI iteration alongside `just dev`

Never bun test — it skips testing-library DOM setup and panics with document[isPrepared]. Always bun run test.

Markdown and .mdc docs are formatted by Oxfmt through just docs-format / just docs-format-check. Keep lychee for link and anchor validation; Oxfmt does not replace link checking.

Test patterns

function setup(overrides: Partial<React.ComponentProps<typeof TaskDetail>> = {}) {
  const props: React.ComponentProps<typeof TaskDetail> = {
    /* sane defaults including new fields like streamModelCallCosts: new Map() */
    ...overrides,
  };
  const user = userEvent.setup();
  return { props, user, render: () => render(<TaskDetail {...props} />) };
}

UI gotchas

.dropdown-menu has left: 0 baked into the .dropdown-menu rule in styles.css. When using useFloatingDropdownStyle with align="right", the hook explicitly sets left: "auto" to override. Don't remove that — without it the dropdown stretches viewport-wide.
Slideover overflow clipping — dropdowns inside <NewTaskSlideOver> get clipped by the slideover's overflow. Always use useFloatingDropdownStyle (which uses position: fixed to escape) for any dropdown that might appear inside a panel. See ProviderPicker / ModelPicker in shared/ui.tsx for the pattern.
404 on stale task IDs — localStorage may hold a task ID from a prior gateway boot (memory backend resets on restart). TasksView drops the dead row from the list and re-loads. Don't propagate the 404 as an error toast.
Task refresh belongs to the selected task header — the Tasks list is for selection and creation. Keep task/run refresh with the selected task header, next to run controls, so it matches Chat and Project header action placement.
Runtime activity output stays flat when it is standalone — stdout/stderr artifacts with no primary tool row should render inline as output previews. Failed tools keep their richer diagnostics view; don't wrap simple output in nested Artifacts -> Output -> preview disclosures.
Project cockpit action ownership — project-global actions live in the project header. Needs Attention is a dropdown, Project Settings opens the shared right-side inspector pattern, and Work Coordination / Timeline / Memory / Skills are workspace tabs. Needs Attention rows should route to the matching operator surface: settings for setup gaps, Memory for context and candidates, Skills for project skill registry issues, Presets/Roles for broken references, and Work Coordination for assignment/activity issues. Assignment launch preflight must keep Connections as the provider/model readiness repair surface while linking project-local defaults back to Project Settings, Roles, and Agent Presets. Work with Project Assistant Bootstrap through one reviewable proposal path: UI helpers may refresh guidance/skills first, but they should still call the normal draft/apply flow rather than mutating setup directly. New-project onboarding should make setup the primary path, expose row-level actions for missing purpose/defaults/guidance/roles, and move first-work creation after setup instead of leading with an open-ended request box. Work Coordination uses one Work Queue with All / activity filters plus one selected work-item card; don't split the same work state across a separate Activity Inbox, Work Items list, and detail card. Keep the Projects index as a fixed left panel; don't add or restore a collapsed mini-rail until the navigation pattern is redesigned.
render1() + render2() in the same it block — don't. React Testing Library cleanup runs between tests, not within. Split into two its if you need fresh mounts.
Cost-ceiling banner — gates on run.otel_status_message === "cost_ceiling_exceeded" (the specific string). A regression that drops or rewords that string silently breaks the "Raise ceiling & resume" affordance.
Every gateway response is {object, data} — lib/api.ts clients must read payload.data.<field>, not payload.<field>. When mocking, copy the real wire shape, not the fields you happen to need; fixtures that skip the envelope hide production bugs.
Chat snapshots must preserve per-message reference identity. Transcript rows are memoized, so a snapshot that rebuilds every message object re-renders the whole transcript. reconcileChatSession (in app/state) reuses unchanged message objects across snapshots, and projectVisibleMessage (in features/chats/ChatTranscript.tsx) caches its projection in a WeakMap keyed by message identity — keep both in the path. Replacing the messages array wholesale, or remapping it through a fresh .map each render, silently defeats the memoization and the transcript goes back to re-rendering on every token.
No auth surfaces in alpha — do not reintroduce token gates, tenant tabs, or key-management tabs unless the product model changes again.

UI recipes

Add a new SSE-driven UI state field

Add the field to types/runtime.ts TaskRunStreamEventData (matching the Go TaskRunStreamEventData shape exactly).
Accumulate it in TasksView — new useState, populate inside streamTaskRun's onPayload callback, reset in resetRunDetail.
Drill via props to TaskDetail and any consumer.
Add to the setup defaults in affected *.test.tsx files.
Add a focused test asserting the prop reaches the rendered output (see TaskDetail.test.tsx falls back to streamModelCallCosts... for a template).

Add a paired provider+model picker

Refresh a snapshot test

Run bun run test -- -u to update committed snapshots. Review the diff carefully — accidental snapshot churn is the most common silent regression vector.

Done criteria

See ../../core/verification.md.

hecate-ui

More from this repository

More from this repository

Hecate UI skill

Canonical guidance lives here

Product lens

Visual thesis

Consistency guardrails

UX priorities

Accessibility baseline

Information architecture

Section responsibilities

Hecate-specific UI rules

Layout guidance

Copy guidance

Motion guidance

Code organization

State + action architecture

State and data rules

Chat dictation ownership

Chat read-aloud ownership

Build / test commands

Test patterns

UI gotchas

UI recipes

Add a new SSE-driven UI state field

Add a paired provider+model picker

Refresh a snapshot test

Done criteria

Hecate UI skill

Canonical guidance lives here

Product lens

Visual thesis

Consistency guardrails

UX priorities

Accessibility baseline

Information architecture

Section responsibilities

Hecate-specific UI rules

Layout guidance

Copy guidance

Motion guidance

Code organization

State + action architecture

State and data rules

Chat dictation ownership

Chat read-aloud ownership

Build / test commands

Test patterns

UI gotchas

UI recipes

Add a new SSE-driven UI state field

Add a paired provider+model picker

Refresh a snapshot test

Done criteria