rank the panel defects against the objective, not against severity

The re-rank the north star deferred, done now that the MVP is built and
running — so it is ranked against what the mechanism turned out to need.

The finding is that most of the list is not on this path. The mechanism is
server-side and a panel is a pointer to it, so a remount, a re-render or a
drag costs a replay, not a session. Section 5.2 and 5.3 are large downgrades;
5.3 was on the critical path when the north star was written and is disarmed
by resolving identity by name.

What is left is small and mostly one defect wearing four hats: a write that
silently does not land. Panel identity lives in the layout jsonb now, so the
swallowed persist catch, the dispatcher's missing else and the two debounce
lost-updates each become a panel that forgets which agent it is — invisibly,
for exactly as long as nobody is looking.

Also corrects two items the MVP made stale, and promotes layout-utils tests:
e588524 put agent identity inside those mutators and shipped them untested.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/workspace-panel-todo.md

@@ -7,9 +7,27 @@ Move anything fully settled to §7.
 **How the framework actually works is documented separately, in `workspace-panels.md`** — read that
 first if you are new to it. This file is only the defect list and the work queue.
 
-**Why any of it matters is in `agent-coordination.md`** — the north star. This list is currently ordered
-by defect severity; it is to be **re-ranked against that objective**, and until that happens an item's
-position here says nothing about its importance to the goal.
+**Why any of it matters is in `agent-coordination.md`** — the north star.
+
+**This list stays ordered by defect severity. The re-rank against the objective lives in
+`agent-coordination.md` §6** *(done 2026-08-07)*, and the two orderings deliberately disagree — read §6
+before deciding what to pick up next. Its conclusions in one paragraph:
+
+- **Tier A, on the critical path:** the swallowed persist failure (§1), the PATCH dispatcher's missing
+  `else` (§2), validate-on-read + the `'[]'` layout default + an error boundary (§4), the two
+  resize-debounce lost-update items (§5.5), the never-invalidated cache (§5.5), and tests for
+  `layout-utils.ts` (§9). Five of the seven are one defect — *a write that silently did not land* — and
+  they matter because panel identity now lives in the layout jsonb.
+- **Tier B:** `dashboardId`-as-a-bag (§5.9) — the agent address book is keyed on it; panel lifecycle
+  (§5.1), but inverted: the requirement is that closing a chat panel must *not* destroy the agent;
+  `normalizeLayout` as framework (§5.4); and the mobile-collapse decision (§6), which swings on one
+  unanswered question.
+- **Tier C, orthogonal:** everything else — including **§5.2 (remounts) and §5.3 (drag-to-move), both
+  large downgrades.** A panel is now a pointer to a server-side session, so a remount costs a replay, and
+  the drag hazard is disarmed by resolving identity by name (`e588524` + `bc82086`).
+- **And the result that matters: no item in this file blocked building the MVP.** It was built and ran
+  unattended on the framework as it stands. Stop treating this list as the prerequisite queue for the
+  objective.
 
 Findings and full reasoning: `COMMS/workspace-panel-framework-analysis-2026-08-07.md`. Every `file:line`
 below was opened; DB claims were run against live `officer_dev`. Paths are relative to
@@ -42,6 +60,10 @@ Both are two-line fixes, and without them you cannot tell whether any later fix
 - [ ] **Stop swallowing persist failures.** `state/src/useDashboardState.ts:46` is
       `.catch(() => { })`. Every 500 in this document is invisible because of it — the optimistic cache
       keeps the UI correct until reload. At minimum log; better, surface a toast and roll the cache back.
+      **Tier A1 — the single highest-value item in this file against the objective**
+      (`agent-coordination.md` §6.2). A panel's `config.agentName` is written through this path, so a
+      swallowed 500 leaves a panel that shows its name, answers to its name, and forgets it on reload:
+      invisible for exactly as long as nobody is looking, which is the window the whole project serves.
 
 ---
 
@@ -58,6 +80,9 @@ Both are two-line fixes, and without them you cannot tell whether any later fix
       never killed. (Tmux's own state survives via `new-session -A -s off-<panelId>`; the shell running
       `tmux attach` does not.)
       Two parts: add the three families, **and** add a fallback `else` that 400s on an unknown key.
+      **Tier A2** — the server half of A1. `ws-layout-*` *is* matched, so panel `config` persists today
+      (verified: the `agent-mvp` layout round-trips with `config: {agentName: …}` intact). The missing
+      `else` means the next key family added for coordination is a silent no-op returning 200.
 
 - [ ] **`ws-terminals-{id}: null` on a live dashboard is a 500.** Same file, `:61-66` — the
       `ws-layout-*` branch has a `value === null` → `deleteDashboard` case (`:42`); the terminals
@@ -115,6 +140,12 @@ these.
 
 ## 4. Resilience — one bad row is currently a white screen
 
+*The first three items are Tier A (`agent-coordination.md` §6.2, A3–A4). This is the last mile of the
+objective: work proceeds overnight, and the human's only act is to open the dashboard and look. A
+malformed row turning that into a white screen loses the result at the one moment it is consumed — and
+`config` added a new unvalidated field to an already-unvalidated tree. The work itself is safe in
+`chat_session_events`, which is why recovery must offer "restore default layout" rather than SQL.*
+
 - [ ] **Add an error boundary.** `grep -rln "componentDidCatch\|getDerivedStateFromError\|ErrorBoundary\|errorElement" src` returns **nothing**
       across the whole repo. Wrap `WorkspaceRenderer` at minimum, with a reset that offers "restore
       default layout". Today the only recovery from a malformed stored layout is SQL.
@@ -168,6 +199,13 @@ these.
       remount."* It closes the terminal orphan leak as a consequence rather than as a special case, and
       the same gap affects every panel holding a server-side resource.
 
+      **The requirement inverts for a chat panel** *(2026-08-07)* — do not wire one into this hook
+      without deciding first. `agent-coordination.md` §5 Q2: idle reaping deliberately leaves the
+      `sessionKey → claudeSessionId` pointer intact, but the explicit `disconnect` path calls
+      `clearClaudeSession`, which destroys it and orphans the transcript. A panel is a pointer to a
+      server-side session; **closing the window must not delete what it points at.** What coordination
+      wants from `onClose` is a guarantee that nothing rides the disconnect path, not an eager cleanup.
+
 - [ ] **Then: kill the pty on real close.** Once the hook exists, `TerminalWrapper` /
       `CommandTerminalWrapper` / `HostTerminalWrapper` can `DELETE /terminal/_officer/sessions/:id` and
       drop the map entry — the thing they each explain they cannot currently do.
@@ -181,6 +219,12 @@ these.
 
 ### 5.2 Stop the avoidable remounts
 
+*Tier C — **the largest downgrade in the re-rank** (`agent-coordination.md` §6.4). A remount used to
+threaten whatever the panel was holding; a panel now holds nothing. A chat panel that remounts re-runs
+`resume-cursor` against the durable log and replays, costing latency, which §2 of the north star
+declares free. Fix these for the interaction quality they are genuinely about — scroll position, media
+playback, transcodes — not as a prerequisite for agent coordination.*
+
 A panel's React identity is its position plus `key={child.node.id}` on its **nearest ancestor group
 slot** (`WorkspaceRenderer.tsx:178,204`) — the panel's own id is a key nowhere. That's the root cause of
 the whole table:
@@ -213,9 +257,14 @@ the whole table:
       `DragOverlay.tsx` (99 lines, imported by nothing), `LayoutEditor.tsx` (51, imported by nothing),
       `movePanel` + `insertPanel` + `DropPosition` (`layout-utils.ts:142-169`), and three context fields.
       ~180 lines.
-      **If finishing it:** `movePanel` currently mints a *brand-new* panel id (`:151-154`) and carries
-      only `appType`, so it destroys all panel-keyed state and **silently drops `fitContent`**. Fix both
-      before re-enabling.
+      **If finishing it:** `movePanel` mints a *brand-new* panel id, so it destroys all panel-keyed
+      state, and `PanelContents` (`layout-utils.ts:229`) carries only `{appType, config}` — so a move
+      **silently drops `fitContent` and `zoom`**. Fix before re-enabling.
+      **Downgraded 2026-08-07** — this was on the critical path in `agent-coordination.md` §1.5 (P3:
+      "dragging a panel would silently sever its session binding") and no longer is. Q3 made the agent's
+      *name* the address and the panel id merely where it lives, and `e588524` made move and swap carry
+      `config` with the panel. `useAgentPanel` resolves by name and re-anchors the row afterwards. Still
+      worth deciding — it is dead code — but it gates nothing. See `agent-coordination.md` §6.4.
 
 ### 5.4 Make `normalizeLayout` framework, not convention
 
@@ -237,6 +286,12 @@ the whole table:
 
 ### 5.5 Persistence hygiene
 
+*Three Tier A items live here (`agent-coordination.md` §6.2, A5 and A7). The two lost-update bugs are
+worse than described now that identity is in the layout: a debounce timer closing over a pre-drag tree
+does not just resurrect a deleted panel, it **re-writes an older `config`**, so a panel that was just
+named reverts to anonymous. And the never-invalidated cache means two windows onto the same server-side
+work disagree permanently about the roster, with neither told — a direct contradiction of §5 Q1.*
+
 - [ ] **The resize debounce can resurrect a deleted panel.** `WorkspaceRenderer.tsx:108-124` holds a
       500 ms timer in a ref with **no `useEffect`, therefore no cleanup**, and its callback closes over
       the layout as it was when the drag began. Drag a splitter, remove a panel within 500 ms → the timer
@@ -351,7 +406,11 @@ touch the framework half, so the abstraction holds in one direction; the leak is
       (`WorkspaceView.tsx:163`). Consumers reverse-engineer meaning from its shape:
       `Chat/ChatPanelWrapper.tsx:51-56` does `dashboardId === 'email' || dashboardId === 'screens/email'`
       → email context, and `!startsWith('screens/')` → dashboard context — **so renaming a screen key
-      silently changes the agent's system context**. `TerminalWrapper.tsx:13-16` regexes it;
+      silently changes the agent's system context**. **Worse since 2026-08-07:** the agent address book
+      (`agent_panels.dashboard_id`, via `useAgentPanel`) is keyed on this same string, so changing the
+      derivation orphans every named agent on that dashboard — the rows and sessions survive and the
+      panels can no longer find them. Promoted to Tier B in `agent-coordination.md` §6.3.
+      `TerminalWrapper.tsx:13-16` regexes it;
       `HostTerminalWrapper.tsx:12` doesn't (§2). Give the context the parsed facts
       (`{ kind: 'screen'|'dashboard', id }`) instead of the raw key, and the three parsers collapse.
 - [ ] **`WorkspaceLayout.tsx:36` silently omits `root`, `initialFilePath`, `defaultFileSort`** — apps
@@ -413,6 +472,15 @@ Cheap to fix, and prerequisites for the 5.8 migration rather than alternatives t
 
 *(move items here with the commit and a one-line resolution)*
 
+- [x] **Panels can carry per-panel settings, and keep them through a move.** *(`e588524`, branch
+      `agent-coordination-mvp`)* — `LayoutPanel.config`, opaque to the framework, exposed as
+      `usePanelConfig(panelId)`. The substantive half is in `layout-utils.ts`: `swapPanels` and
+      `movePanel` now carry `{appType, config}` as one unit via a `PanelContents` type, where before
+      they carried only `appType` and therefore reset *any* per-panel state on a drag. This is the one
+      framework change the agent-coordination MVP needed; it is what lets a panel remember which named
+      agent it is. Follow-ons: `PanelContents` still drops `fitContent` and `zoom` (§5.3), and the
+      mutators are still untested (§9).
+
 ---
 
 ## 8. Dead code sweep
@@ -445,3 +513,8 @@ Low priority, but each line here is a line someone will read and believe.
       is 214 lines of pure functions over a serialisable tree — the cheapest high-value test target in
       the codebase, and every item in 5.2 and 5.5 is a regression test waiting to be written. Start here
       before the mutator work, not after.
+      **Promoted to the critical path 2026-08-07** (`agent-coordination.md` §6.2, A6). `e588524` put
+      *agent identity* inside those functions — `setContents`, `swapPanels`, `movePanel`,
+      `setPanelConfig`, `collectPanelConfigs`, `newPanelFrom` — and shipped them with no tests. A
+      regression in `swapPanels` now silently swaps two agents' identities between panels, which is a
+      worse failure than any layout glitch the same bug could previously cause.