# Blockers — desktop extraction, 2026-08-21

Decisions taken without asking, and things that stop this being finished. Written as they were hit.

## 1. Host setup cannot be expressed by a manifest — left manual

`setup/setup-desktop.sh` installs `ubuntu-desktop` and `gdm3`, rewrites `/etc/gdm3/custom.conf` to force
Xorg (x11vnc cannot mirror Wayland), enables auto-login so a session owns `:0`, installs Brave from its
own apt repository, removes GNOME Keyring, and needs a **reboot**.

`osDependencies` installs packages. It cannot reconfigure a display manager, and nothing in the plugin
contract can. So the manifest declares only `x11vnc` — the one honest package check — and the script is
shipped for the owner to run by hand.

**This is the agreed next piece of plugin architecture**, deferred deliberately: the shape of a declared,
sudo-run, reboot-aware setup step should be designed against a real case rather than guessed at, and this
is that case. Until then the plugin installs and starts, and the desktop it mirrors has to exist already.

## 2. The websocket is not mounted, and a plugin cannot mount one

`api/websocket.ts` moved with everything else and is **dormant**. A plugin contributes `api/router.ts`
(HTTP) and a sidecar; there is no way for it to claim a WebSocket provider — `pluginPermissions` in
mount.ts sets `api` and `routes` and never `ws`, and `server.tsx`'s handler map is a literal.

It was already switched off in the platform (commented out since 2026-08-13), so nothing regressed. But
`/desktop` cannot work again until either the plugin contract grows sockets or this is rewritten onto the
sidecar proxy. Recorded rather than worked around.

## 3. No artwork

`assets/icon.png` and `assets/splash.png` are absent — I cannot draw them, and the marketplace and dock
fall back to the manifest's `icon` glyph (`MonitorSmartphone`) plus `color`. The OfficerIcons repository
has a `OffDesktop`-shaped gap too. Marked here so it is a known absence rather than a broken image.

## 4. The permission changed shape, deliberately

It was `kind: 'execution'` in the platform registry, meaning "runs as the server owner and cannot be
shared". A plugin permission has no `kind` and the manifest contract refuses one, on the grounds that a
permission nobody can delegate is a contradiction.

So it is expressed as `ownerOnly: ['/']` instead — every path under the plugin refused to anyone but the
owner, which is the same answer by a different route. That mechanism landed the same day
(`docs/plugin-route-authorization.md`) and this is its first real use.

The property being protected is real: x11vnc mirrors the single physical display the owner is logged
into. Two accounts granted this would see the *same* screen, which is the owner's.