dashboard-canvas

# Upgrade Dashboard Canvas Only load this skill on a host that actually has the canvas — an `open_canvas` tool **and** an Upgrade Dashboard (`canvasId: dashboard`) in its available canvases. On plain CLI, Visual Studio and VS Code the canvas does not exist; skip it silently there and use `open_dashboard` instead. The dashboard is a live side-panel view of the active scenario's progress, assessment, dependency health, tasks and activity. Open it *for* the user — they should never have to add it by hand through the panel's `+` menu. ## When to open it Once per session, the first time a scenario is active — whether `get_state` reports one at startup, `initialize_scenario` creates one, or `resume_scenario` picks one up. Open it *for* the user; they should never have to add it by hand through the panel's `+` menu. ## The call ``` open_canvas(canvasId: "dashboard", instanceId: "plugin-upgrade-agent-upgrade-agent-dashboard-dashboard") ``` Once it opens successfully you are done for the session — do not open it again. ### Do not shorten the `instanceId` That value is not arbitrary. It is the id the host itself derives when the user opens this same dashboard through the `+` menu: the canvas's `extensionId` and `canvasId` joined with `-`, then every run of characters outside `A-Za-z0-9._-` replaced by `-`. Panels are keyed on `instanceId` **alone**, so this exact string is what makes an agent-opened and a user-opened dashboard converge on one panel. Any other value silently stacks a second dashboard next to theirs. Reuse it on every call. ### Do not send `extensionId` on the first attempt The host documents it as optional — it exists only to break a tie when two extensions both publish a canvas called `dashboard`. Sending a hardcoded value turns a lookup that would have succeeded into `Canvas "…/dashboard" is not registered` whenever the host recorded our provider under a different id, because that is a *different* lookup from the plain `canvasId` one. Add an `extensionId` **only** when the host answers `Canvas "dashboard" is provided by multiple extensions` — that reply is how it tells you the `extensionId` is genuinely required, and it lists the ids to choose from. Use the exact Upgrade Dashboard id **from that list**. Ours is normally `plugin:upgrade-agent:upgrade-agent-dashboard`, but if the host lists a different one the host's value wins — an id that is not in the list fails identically on every retry. ## Timing Never make `open_canvas` your first tool call of a session, and never call it in the same burst as `get_state` / `initialize_scenario` / `resume_scenario`. The dashboard extension launches together with the session and finishes registering a few hundred milliseconds later, so an open fired immediately loses a race it did not need to enter — and the failure surfaces to the user as an error card you cannot suppress afterwards. Let the scenario work happen first (finish the initialize/resume step, write `scenario-instructions.md`), then open the canvas. By then registration has long since completed. ## When the open fails Registration errors — `Canvas "…/dashboard" is not registered`, or `No canvas "dashboard" is registered` — mean the extension has not finished registering yet, or the host recorded it under a provider id you did not ask for. Either way this is **expected and not fatal**. 1. If you sent an `extensionId` that the host never asked for, drop it and retry with `canvasId` alone — a different and more forgiving lookup. **If the host had told you the canvas is provided by multiple extensions, keep that `extensionId` on every retry** — dropping it only walks you back into the ambiguity error and the two failures alternate forever. 2. Retry the same call **up to two more times, spaced out** — never back to back. Put real work between attempts (your next `get_state`, file read, or task action); any real tool call takes far longer than the gap, so a spaced retry normally succeeds. 3. After a third failure, stop retrying and fall back to `open_dashboard`. Give the user its URL so they still get a dashboard — at most once per session, offered simply as a link. Never surface the canvas failure itself to the user as an error. ## Related tools are not substitutes - **`open_dashboard`** launches the Blazor web dashboard on a local URL. Do not call it *instead of* opening the canvas when the canvas is available — only as the fallback above, after a canvas open has actually failed.