# The /chat sessions list — plan of record Agreed with the owner on 2026-08-17. Written down because the build spans several commits and the shape came out of a conversation rather than out of the code, so a context reset must not cost the reasoning. **Status: built.** `d59bc0d1` (one panel, three views), `640a74bc` (tabs, separator, sticky headings), `773f0e1c` (blank-model fix), `5565867b` (indent). Storage landed in `813bc200`. Not done: the OpenCode half of Latest (`?all=1` is Claude-only — OpenCode publishes no all-directories listing), and nothing here has been exercised against a running server beyond the owner's own screenshots. --- ## What it becomes Today the left column is **two panels** — `chat-live` on top at 25%, `chat-session-list` below at 75% (`Screens/Dashboard/ChatHistory/defaultLayout.ts`). The split was deliberate ("they answer different questions from different sources") but the top quarter is usually empty, because live sessions are rare. The target is **one panel, three tabs**: 1. **Merge the two panels into one**, called Sessions. 2. Where the directory picker sits now, put **three tabs: Tree, Latest, Live**. 3. **Refresh and New Chat move to the right of the panel header.** 4. **Tree** — a collapsed accordion of directories that have sessions. - Header per directory: full path from `~`, total session count, live session count. - Click the header to expand/collapse. - Expanded shows that directory's session rows, with today's indicators **plus a visible live marker**. - Each directory header also offers **New Chat here**. 5. **Latest** — one scroll area, every session, newest first. Rows **also show their directory path**. 6. **Live** — same rendering as Latest, filtered to sessions that are live right now. The global **New Chat** button opens the **browse component** (`DirPickerModal`), because the tree only covers directories that already have sessions and starting somewhere new has to stay possible. --- ## Decisions taken, and why **Tab + expanded-accordion state lives in panel state, not the URL.** Which session is open stays in the URL (`/chat/`), per `docs/navigation-audit.md`. Which _tab_ is showing is a view preference, and putting it in the URL would make every session link carry it. `/chat/g/` keeps working and maps to "Tree tab, that directory expanded", so existing links and the group-scoped composer are unaffected. **A live session with no transcript id stays unlinked, in the Live tab only.** `LiveSession.claudeSessionId` is null between "Officer started a turn" and "the harness announced its transcript uuid" — a startup race of a few seconds, and only for a brand-new chat (a resumed one knows its id up front). With `/chat/live` polling every 10s it is nearly unobservable. It renders as a row titled "Starting…" that is not a link, which is what `LiveSessions.tsx` already does. It cannot appear in Tree or Latest because those are built from transcripts that do not exist yet. Nothing to design around; it resolves on the next poll. **An all-sessions endpoint is worth adding.** Latest needs every session ordered by date, and `GET /chat/sessions` answers for **one** directory. `listClaudePwds` already walks the whole projects tree, so the walk exists — this is a second consumer of it, not a new class of work. **Live counts per directory are a client-side join.** `/chat/live` already carries `cwd`, so the tree header's live count needs no new endpoint. Correlate `live.claudeSessionId === session.id`; a live row whose id is still null contributes to no directory (see above). **`/chat/live` returns only agents unless asked otherwise.** `?kind=` takes `agent` (the default), `commander`, or `all`; anything else is a 400 rather than a silent fallback, and the plural forms are accepted because the web client's own type is already `'agents' | 'commanders'`. The default is the point. Commanders run background work and the phone swipes between live chats one at a time, with no room for tabs and no way to skip a row — so a client that forgets the parameter must not be handed a deploy commander. Defaulting to `agent` means forgetting can only ever under-report. The two callers that genuinely want both say `kind=all`, which is a fair price: they are few, they are on screens built to show both, and they are the ones positioned to notice if the answer is wrong. `counts` describes **every** live session regardless of the filter, so a filtered caller still renders `Agents (n) / Commanders (n)` without a second request. That is what stops a server-side filter from costing more round trips than the client-side one it replaced. Which rows are commanders comes from `command_hq_sessions`, **not** from the working directory — a commander chooses its own cwd, so the directory answers nothing. `GET /chat/sessions` reports no `isCommander` at all, because it removes commanders entirely; a list that excludes them has nothing to say about which of its rows is one. --- ## Landmines **The layout migration must go first, alone, and inverted.** Merging the panels means every persisted `screens/chat` layout still names `chat-live` — an appType the code no longer has. `normalizeLayout` replaces an unknown appType with `appTypes.fallback` and `WorkspaceView` **writes the repair back**, so on one page load every user's chat layout becomes N copies of the fallback panel, permanently. That is exactly the bug that made `/offscale` render three server pickers on 2026-08-17 (`ed3806f9`). There is also an existing effect in `Screens/Dashboard/ChatHistory/index.tsx` that force-overwrites any layout **lacking** `chat-live`. It must be inverted in the same commit — replace layouts that _have_ it — or the two guards fight and the screen rewrites itself on every render. **`liveSessionTitle` reads a whole transcript per live session.** Its own comment says it is fine "against a poll every ten seconds over a handful of live sessions — but it is worth knowing before this is called from anywhere hotter". The tree's per-directory live count must not call it; the count only needs `cwd`, which the payload already carries. **Tree must not fetch every directory eagerly.** One `/chat/sessions?cwd=` per _expanded_ directory, not per listed one. `useClaudeSessions`'s query key is already per-cwd, so N hooks cache correctly — but a collapsed accordion of twenty directories must issue zero session queries. --- ## Already in place - **`chat_session_models`** (`813bc200`) — one row per session holding Officer's model id. `getChatSessionModels(ids)` is batched for exactly this: the model column on list rows is one query for a page, not one per row. The session **summary** does not carry `model` yet; adding it is part of this work. - **`/chat/pwds`** already returns `{cwd, sessionCount, updatedAt}` per directory — the accordion header's path and total count, with no new endpoint. - **`cwd` is on every session row**, so Latest's path-per-row is free. - **Tabs primitive** (`components/Tabs/Tabs.tsx`) degrades to a `