ui-live-update-stability

name	ui-live-update-stability
description	Keep SubZeroFramework telemetry and inventory UI stable under live updates. Use when editing dashboard, Device Capabilities, or telemetry pages with LiveCharts, stable card collections, Hardware.Info inventory mapping, retained history ordering, or fan capability-driven UI state.
argument-hint	Describe the dashboard, inventory, chart, or live-update stability issue to review.

UI Live Update Stability

Use this skill when a UI surface is correct at first render but becomes jittery, blink-prone, misordered, or heuristic-heavy once live updates start flowing.

Read first

• FunctionalitySpecification.md
• Architecture.md
• Telemetry UI Guide
• README.md

Use this for

• Device Capabilities card refresh behavior
• dashboard fan, thermal, or sparkline chart updates
• LiveCharts binding structure on Uno or Skia
• Hardware.Info-backed inventory mapping for drives and network adapters
• fan capability metadata and UI status derivation
• tracing a missing inventory or capability value back to the source boundary

What this workflow protects

• card and chart identity should remain stable under polling and streaming updates
• Hardware.Info fallback data should still flow through the service and gRPC boundary
• UI labels, limits, and status text should come from authoritative capability or snapshot data, not ad hoc client heuristics
• Device Capabilities should stay honest about CPU data quality

Procedure

1. Preserve stable item identity

• Keep persistent mutable card or row models exposed through ReadOnlyObservableCollection<T>.
• Do not bind GridView.ItemsSource or similar item controls directly to fresh hardware snapshot arrays.
• Update existing card models in place and only add or remove items when the collection shape truly changes.

2. Follow the current Hardware.Info inventory path

• Device Capabilities drives and network adapters flow through HardwareInfoSnapshot.Inventory.
• FrameworkDataProvider.ReadHardwareInfoSnapshot() uses RefreshDriveList() and RefreshNetworkAdapterList(includeBytesPerSec: false, includeNetworkAdapterConfiguration: true, millisecondsDelayBetweenTwoMeasurements: 0) to avoid expensive bytes-per-second queries.
• HardwareInfoReply includes drives and network_adapters fields.
• Device Capabilities CPU usage visuals may use the service-backed HardwareInfoSnapshot / WatchHardwareInfoHistory(...) path when the snapshot reports trustworthy PercentProcessorTime / CpuCoreList data, but keep that scoped to stable CPU package cards and per-core cards rather than a separate top-level CPU dashboard.

3. Keep charts long-lived under telemetry updates

• Reuse long-lived ObservableValue, ObservableCollection<DateTimePoint>, ISeries[], and Axis[] instances where the page already follows that pattern.
• Do not replace temperature history collections, gauge values, or rebuild chart series on every telemetry tick.
• The dashboard sparkline pattern should stay model-owned, with ISeries[] and Axis[] owned by the card model and bound from XAML.

4. Sort retained history explicitly before binding

DynamicData ToCollection() over retained telemetry history is not safe to treat as chronological order.

Before binding chart points, sort by ObservedAt and then SampleId so lines do not fold back on themselves.

5. Keep fan metadata service-owned

• Fan max RPM belongs in FanCapabilityState, computed in FrameworkDataProvider and delivered through the read-only capability stream.
• Use WatchFanCapabilities and IFanCapabilityClient data for fan status text, color, and limits.
• Do not derive chart limits or status strings from UI-only platform heuristics.

6. Treat LiveCharts quirks as library behavior first

• The dashboard fan gauge uses XamlGaugeSeries.
• If you see an odd inward cap, inspect gauge corner-radius geometry before blaming theme fills.
• If you touch hover behavior on dashboard-style gauges, preserve the repo intent that they remain visually stable on hover.

7. Escalate upstream only after tracing the boundary

If a value is missing from the UI, trace it through the service snapshot or gRPC contract first.

If the source itself is missing the data, the local FrameworkDotnet companion repo is at C:/Users/richa/source/repos/framework-dotnet.

Output format

Return a concise summary with:

1. the UI identity or chart-lifecycle rule involved,
2. the authoritative data path used,
3. any ordering or flicker fix applied,
4. whether the issue belongs in SubZeroFramework or upstream in FrameworkDotnet.