the platform stops knowing what VNC is

Desktop is a plugin as of today, and this is the half that leaves. sidecar/vnc/, api/desktop/ and
apps/Desktop/ are gone from src/, along with the vocabulary that was the real problem.

sidecar/protocol.ts had a VNC section: vnc:start, vnc:ensure-password, vnc:stop, four reply variants
and two types. sidecar-registry.ts had startVnc, ensureVncPassword, stopVnc, isVncConnected. Four
functions and a dozen message types in the platform, describing a feature that is not the platform's —
the rule CLAUDE.md states most plainly, and its clearest breach.

What replaced them is generic. sendSidecarCommand(kind, cmd) and isSidecarConnected(kind) know that a
command has a type and an id and that a reply carries the same id. A plugin's sidecar speaks whatever
it likes through them and nothing here has to be edited when it adds a message.

The desktop PERMISSION leaves too, and that is the interesting part: it was kind: 'execution', a kind
a plugin permission cannot have and never will, because a permission nobody can delegate is a
contradiction. The plugin expresses the same refusal as ownerOnly: ['/'] — every path under it denied
to anyone but the owner. Verified: /api/desktop, /api/desktop/vnc-password and a path that does not
exist all resolve owner-only. registry.test.ts records the round trip rather than just dropping the
key from its list.

Also gone: the app store's `vnc` entry, which would have offered an older second way to install the
same thing against a process PM2 no longer has, and four commented-out mounts left from 2026-08-13.

The disconnect-scope test used startVnc as its stand-in for "another sidecar's long-running request".
It now uses the generic door, which is the better instrument — that file is about the blast radius of
a disconnect and never had anything to do with VNC.

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

src/server.tsx

@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@ import { registerChatPushNotifications } from './servers/api/chat/notify-push';
 import { startNudger } from './servers/api/chat/nudger';
 import { taskRunnerWebsocket } from './servers/api/tasks/task-executor';
 import { pipelineWebsocket } from './servers/api/tasks/pipeline-executor';
-// import { desktopWebsocket } from './servers/api/desktop/websocket';
 import officerWeb from './apps/officer-web/index.gen.html';
 // import { startBrowserRelay } from './servers/api/browser/relay';  // switched off — see below
 import { registerSidecar, unregisterSidecar, handleSidecarMessage } from './servers/sidecar-registry';
@@ -57,7 +56,7 @@ type WSData = {
   userId: number;
   email: string;
   username: string;
-  provider: 'terminal' | 'chat' | 'chat-notify' | 'task-runner' | 'pipeline' | 'desktop' | 'sidecar';
+  provider: 'terminal' | 'chat' | 'chat-notify' | 'task-runner' | 'pipeline' | 'sidecar';
   sessionId?: string;
   cwd?: string;
   command?: string;
@@ -161,7 +160,6 @@ const handlers: Record<string, any> = {
   'chat-notify': chatNotifyWebsocket,
   'task-runner': taskRunnerWebsocket,
   pipeline: pipelineWebsocket,
-  // desktop: desktopWebsocket,
   sidecar: sidecarWebsocket,
 };
 
@@ -318,7 +316,7 @@ console.log(
 async function upgradeWs(
   req: Request,
   server: any,
-  provider: 'terminal' | 'chat' | 'chat-notify' | 'task-runner' | 'pipeline' | 'desktop',
+  provider: 'terminal' | 'chat' | 'chat-notify' | 'task-runner' | 'pipeline',
 ) {
   const token = new URL(req.url).searchParams.get('token');
   if (!token) return new Response('Unauthorized', { status: 401 });
@@ -449,7 +447,6 @@ const server = serve({
     '/api/terminal/ws': (req, server) => upgradeWs(req, server, 'terminal'),
     '/api/chat/ws': (req, server) => upgradeWs(req, server, 'chat'),
     '/api/chat/notify/ws': (req, server) => upgradeWs(req, server, 'chat-notify'),
-    // '/api/desktop/ws': (req, server) => upgradeWs(req, server, 'desktop'),
     // CalDAV/CardDAV. These live OUTSIDE /api because DAV clients are given a bare domain and probe
     // fixed, spec-defined paths — `/.well-known/caldav` unauthenticated, before they hold any
     // credential at all. They need naming explicitly here or the `/*` SPA fallback below swallows them