stackchain-dashboard/README.md

# stackchain-dashboard

Live AI-driven adaptive UI for the Stackchain AI Lab Gitea experience.

## Local quickstart

Python 3.11 or newer is recommended. Create an isolated environment and install
the pinned dependencies:

```bash
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
```

Point the dashboard at the Gitea server root (without `/api/v1`) and provide a
token that can read dashboard data, update the authenticated user's notification
threads, create and self-assign issues, discover, claim, and release issue assignments,
list repository labels and open milestones, set or clear due dates on assigned issues, create issue comments, close assigned issues,
inspect/comment on assigned pull
requests, merge assigned pull requests, and submit pull-request reviews.
Assigned-issue and assigned-pull-request comments can include one PNG, JPEG, or WebP screenshot; each mobile composer automatically optimizes oversized screenshots on-device to fit the 2 MB upload boundary while leaving already-valid files unchanged.
For online delivery, the screenshot uploads before the comment is posted—to the exact assigned issue or pull request—and produces one Markdown comment; validation or upload
failures keep both the typed comment and removable preview available for retry. Offline screenshot comments
admit their text and image bytes to IndexedDB before confirmation, keep only bounded metadata in
localStorage, and use checkpointed upload/comment identities so reconnect retries cannot duplicate
either stage. The mobile **New issue**
sheet accepts the same image formats and stores the screenshot with its account-bound
outbox capture. Durable admission writes the complete screenshot capture as a binary Blob to IndexedDB
before confirmation; localStorage keeps only bounded attachment metadata, avoiding base64
quota pressure and synchronous multi-megabyte writes. Online and background delivery send the
original bytes as multipart form data, avoiding the roughly 33% base64 wire expansion. Existing
queued base64 screenshot payloads remain readable and are converted only at delivery time.
Delivery creates the issue exactly once, then uploads and comments with
the image; after a partial failure, retry resumes with the confirmed issue instead of
creating a duplicate.
Pull-request replies and mobile My Work issue and PR comments use Gitea's
issue-comment API. In issue, pull-request, and unread-update conversations, typing
at least two characters after `@` offers repository-scoped teammate suggestions;
touch or keyboard selection inserts the login without leaving the draft. Mention
lookup failure never blocks literal text or comment delivery. Mobile issue capture requires issue
creation and assignment permission. A fresh capture never silently targets the first repository:
the operator must explicitly choose one, either from the paginated browser or through the bounded
authenticated repository search. Search results include only visible repository identities, stale
responses cannot replace a newer query, and search failure leaves the draft and browse fallback
intact. Saved drafts restore their exact repository even when it is outside the first page. Once a
repository and meaningful title are selected,
the New issue sheet checks for similar open issues in that repository. Candidate links keep
the draft intact; the first create attempt pauses until the operator reviews them or explicitly
chooses **Create anyway**. This check is advisory and never blocks offline capture or capture
when search is unavailable. The sheet can also optionally select an open
repository milestone and due date; the dashboard validates both and sends them with
self-assignment in the single create request, so planned work appears in its release
lane immediately. On a cold offline launch, **Save for filing** stores up to 20
account-bound title/description captures without selecting a repository or entering the
mutation outbox. Drafts marks them **Needs filing**; after a fresh reconnect confirms
the same Gitea login, **Choose repository** restores the capture to the normal planning
and durable delivery flow. A different or unconfirmed account can only copy or discard
the private content. Issue capture and authored mobile actions (issue
comments, pull-request comments, notification replies, and reviews) persist per-draft
idempotency keys, so retrying after a timeout, reload, process restart, or handoff to
another worker replays a confirmed result instead of posting duplicate content. The ordered,
five-item Today plan syncs across the operator's devices. **Plan Today** also stores available minutes
and a per-item estimate with the account-scoped plan, continuously showing planned/free or over-capacity
time. An over-capacity plan requires a second explicit save, legacy plans migrate with unestimated work,
and an active Today session shows the current estimate plus estimated remaining runway. Adding an issue through **Plan Today**
first previews its Gitea dependencies: unresolved blockers are listed with links and require the
explicit **Add blocked item anyway** override, while an unavailable dependency lookup is reported
as unknown rather than unblocked. Starting a Today work session also
stores an account-bound checkpoint on the current device. After a reload or installed-app
restart, **Resume Today** reopens the saved item (or the next surviving item if work changed);
**Comment & next** on that current issue or pull request posts the handoff online or admits it
to durable account-bound delivery, then removes the item only from Today and opens the next
one without closing or merging it. **Reply & next** provides the same one-action continuation
for the current unread-update conversation. It deliberately leaves the notification unread;
an open, unassigned issue update also offers **Take ownership & start**, which checks Today capacity
before assignment, preserves the unread update, adds and syncs the owned issue to Today, checkpoints
the session, and opens the issue. The adjacent **Take ownership** action remains available for
claim-only triage, and a local start failure opens the now-owned issue with truthful recovery guidance.
**Mark read & next** remains the explicit acknowledgement path. Delivery or local-admission
failure preserves both the reply draft and checkpoint. Finishing or choosing **End session** clears only the checkpoint and leaves the Today plan
unchanged. Another or unconfirmed account cannot see or resume it. Server revisions prevent delayed
responses from replacing a newer plan; same-account browser tabs exchange fresh snapshots,
and reconnecting or returning to the dashboard refreshes server truth after replaying queued
offline operations. Planning edits can remain offline for up to 30 days. After that, the
expired edit is discarded visibly and the account plan is kept rather than replaying stale
intent. The server retains no more than 4,096 operation receipts per account and removes
receipts older than the same 30-day window; client base revisions keep a pruned replay from
changing a newer Today or Later plan. After a healthy, fully paginated
My Work refresh proves that an item is complete or otherwise no longer eligible, Stackchain
queues an idempotent retirement before removing it locally; partial and degraded refreshes
leave the plan unchanged, and offline retirements replay after reconnect. When
**Keep My Work available offline** is enabled, every issue or pull request in the bounded
Today queue is warmed automatically after a healthy authenticated refresh and as soon as
it is added. The readiness indicator reports saved, pending, and retryable items; unchanged
`updated_at` revisions make no detail request, transient failures retain the prior copy,
and pull-request diffs remain online-only. Saved unread-update conversations remain
triageable offline: **Queue read & next** writes an account-bound, notification-ID-
deduplicated acknowledgement to the durable background delivery system, removes the
update from the local queue immediately, and opens the next saved conversation. A cold
offline reload suppresses acknowledgements still waiting to sync; reconnect uses the
authenticated notification-read endpoint and keeps transient failures queued. Every foreground
same-origin dashboard API request also has a 15-second browser deadline, including fresh-
authorization and step-up retries. Read timeouts settle with retry guidance even if the browser's
fetch ignores abort; mutation timeouts instead tell the operator to refresh and verify the server
outcome before retrying. Caller cancellation still takes precedence, and cross-origin fetches are
not changed by this session boundary. Installed-app
navigations are also deadline-bounded: after four seconds without a network response,
Stackchain aborts the request and opens the cached dashboard shell. If the shell has not
been installed yet, it returns explicit HTTP 504 reconnect guidance instead of hanging.
Live dashboard refreshes use the server's per-section freshness windows: healthy sections
refresh at their earliest deadline while a fully degraded snapshot waits for its reported
cooldown. HTTP `Retry-After` delays are honored up to five minutes, and transport failures
back off from eight seconds to a one-minute cap. Reconnect, foreground return, and explicit
refresh still run immediately; a successful response resets transport backoff.
Closed-app
delivery requests are deadline-bounded: a stalled identity, CSRF, or mutation request is
aborted after 15 seconds, its durable claim returns to the queue, and the next sync retries
with the unchanged idempotency key. Each finite, lane-fair drain admits at most 70 records
and runs up to three deliveries concurrently, but claims a record only when a delivery slot
is ready. Claims have unique fencing tokens and are renewed before every network stage;
completion, release, failure, and delivery checkpoints are token-fenced so an expired worker
cannot alter a newer crash-recovery claim. Device purge cancels an active drain before closing
private outbox storage. Results are coordinated through a bounded SQLite ledger. Set `STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR` to a
persistent, writable service directory (or set `STACKCHAIN_IDEMPOTENCY_DB` to an explicit
SQLite path); the local default is `.stackchain-state/idempotency.sqlite3`. Ledger reads and
writes run outside the request event loop, and lock admission is bounded to 100 ms by
default. Tune it with `STACKCHAIN_IDEMPOTENCY_LOCK_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`; keep the value below
route deadlines. During a controlled shutdown, the server gives in-flight authored mutations
five seconds to finish and persist their ledger result before it closes the Gitea transport.
Set `STACKCHAIN_AUTHORED_ACTION_SHUTDOWN_GRACE_SECONDS` to match the service manager's
shutdown budget; when that deadline expires, remaining operations are cancelled and their
pending reservations continue to fail closed rather than being retried automatically.
Reservation contention returns retryable HTTP 503 with `Retry-After: 1`.
If contention occurs after the upstream mutation, the dashboard fails closed with
`Retry-After: 5` and asks the caller to verify the result before retrying. Direct API callers
should preserve the `Idempotency-Key` header with the unchanged route and payload until a
`201` response is confirmed. Closing an assigned issue, native Comment,
Approve, and Request changes reviews, and assigned-PR merge require repository
write permission. Native Comment, Approve, and Request changes reviews support
head-scoped draft comments anchored to changed lines; the dashboard validates each
comment path and submits the summary, decision, and inline comments in one review
request. On phone-width review sheets, changed lines wrap inside a stable old/new
line-number gutter by default so long source lines remain readable and commentable
without horizontal panning. **Lines wrapped** toggles back to whitespace-preserving
horizontal inspection, and an explicit choice persists on the device across files,
review-sheet reopen, and reload. Desktop review diffs remain horizontally scrollable
until wrapping is explicitly enabled. The dashboard rechecks the current pull-request head, CI success, draft
state, and mergeability immediately before every merge.
Serve the dashboard only to trusted users on its own origin; cross-origin API
access is intentionally disabled. Authentication defaults to fail-closed
`operator` mode. It requires two independent secrets of at least 24 characters;
missing, short, reused, or invalid configuration leaves `/healthz` available but
returns HTTP 503 before any Gitea access. The access token is entered at `/login`;
the browser receives only a short-lived signed session and CSRF proof. Generate
both values in your secret manager (for example, `openssl rand -hex 32`) and inject
them at runtime—never commit them:

```bash
export GITEA_URL='https://forge.example.com'
export GITEA_TOKEN='<read-notification-and-issue-write-token>'
export STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_AUTH_MODE='operator'
export STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_ACCESS_TOKEN='<operator-sign-in-secret>'
export STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_SESSION_SECRET='<independent-cookie-signing-secret>'
# Optional; defaults to STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/sessions.sqlite3.
export STACKCHAIN_SESSION_DB='/var/lib/stackchain-dashboard/sessions.sqlite3'
# Optional; defaults to STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/security-events.sqlite3.
export STACKCHAIN_SECURITY_EVENT_DB='/var/lib/stackchain-dashboard/security-events.sqlite3'
# Recommended behind a proxy; WebAuthn assertions must match these public values.
export STACKCHAIN_PASSKEY_RP_ID='forge.example.com'
export STACKCHAIN_PASSKEY_ORIGIN='https://forge.example.com'
# Optional; defaults to eight hours.
export STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_SESSION_TTL_SECONDS=28800
# Optional; explicit pointer, keyboard, or touch activity renews this idle window.
# Background polling and queued delivery do not. Defaults to 15 minutes.
export STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=900
# Optional sign-in throttle: five failures per five minutes, up to 10,000 sources.
export STACKCHAIN_LOGIN_MAX_FAILURES=5
export STACKCHAIN_LOGIN_WINDOW_SECONDS=300
export STACKCHAIN_LOGIN_MAX_ENTRIES=10000
# Public passkey ceremonies share the same window and durable source ledger.
export STACKCHAIN_PASSKEY_OPTIONS_MAX_ATTEMPTS=10
# Bound live one-time challenges even if anonymous clients rotate addresses.
export STACKCHAIN_PASSKEY_MAX_CHALLENGES_PER_SOURCE=10
export STACKCHAIN_PASSKEY_MAX_CHALLENGES=10000
# Optional; defaults to STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/login-attempts.sqlite3.
export STACKCHAIN_LOGIN_ATTEMPT_DB='/var/lib/stackchain-dashboard/login-attempts.sqlite3'
# Trust forwarding headers only from these immediate reverse-proxy networks.
export STACKCHAIN_TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS='127.0.0.0/8'
# Optional Web Push. Generate a VAPID key pair outside the repo and inject it.
# The feature stays disabled unless all three values are present. Privacy-safe update
# alerts offer Mark read and Tomorrow; Tomorrow syncs the unread item to Later at
# 09:00 in the device's local timezone without opening the dashboard.
export STACKCHAIN_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY='<url-safe-public-key>'
export STACKCHAIN_VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY='<private-key-from-secret-manager>'
export STACKCHAIN_VAPID_SUBJECT='mailto:ops@example.com'
# Optional; defaults to a 30-second poll, 10-second endpoint deadline,
# 8 concurrently dispatched devices, 60-second renewable cross-worker lease,
# and STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/push-subscriptions.sqlite3. Threads stay ordered
# within each device; one slow device does not delay healthy devices behind it.
export STACKCHAIN_PUSH_POLL_SECONDS=30
export STACKCHAIN_PUSH_SEND_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=10
export STACKCHAIN_PUSH_MAX_CONCURRENCY=8
export STACKCHAIN_PUSH_LEASE_SECONDS=60
export STACKCHAIN_PUSH_DB='/var/lib/stackchain-dashboard/push-subscriptions.sqlite3'
uvicorn src.main:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000
```

Token and passkey sign-in failures are scoped to a hashed canonical client address and
persisted across workers and restarts. Public passkey option issuance has a separate
fixed-window admission budget in the same ledger, and live challenges are bounded per
source and globally in the session registry. Once either sign-in budget is exhausted,
the server returns `429` with `Retry-After`; a successful sign-in clears that source's
failure state. Expired source records and challenges are pruned, and both ledgers are
size-bounded. Keep their SQLite files on shared writable storage. `X-Forwarded-For` is
ignored unless the immediate peer is inside `STACKCHAIN_TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDRS`; list only
networks you operate. Without that setting, a reverse proxy is safely treated as one
shared source.

Inbound API mutations are admitted through a body-size boundary before FastAPI
parses JSON: sign-in is capped at 16 KiB and other `POST`, `PUT`, and `PATCH`
requests under `/api/v1/` are capped at 64 KiB. Both declared and streamed bodies
are counted. Oversized requests receive a compact, non-cacheable HTTP 413 response;
validation errors expose field locations and messages but never echo submitted
values or validation context. Preserve these limits at the reverse proxy or enforce
equal or tighter upstream limits.

Each signed cookie includes an opaque session identifier whose hash and expiry are
kept in the SQLite session registry. Keep that registry on persistent, writable
storage shared by all dashboard workers. Operators name a device at sign-in and can
open **Active devices** to review creation/expiry times, identify the current device,
and revoke one remote session without interrupting other trusted devices. The API
exposes only independent management IDs and bounded labels—never cookie values,
session hashes, CSRF proofs, or source addresses. The registry also stores each
session's last explicit activity. Existing two-column registries are migrated in
place, their live sessions remain valid, and their idle clock starts at migration.

The same sheet includes **Security activity**, a reverse-chronological journal of
successful token/passkey sign-ins, passkey enrollments, sign-outs, remote device
revocations, issue closures, and pull-request merges. The separate SQLite journal
retains at most 10,000 events for 90 days and stores only bounded device labels and
action targets. It never stores access tokens, cookies, session/CSRF values,
credential IDs, public keys, challenges, attestation data, raw network addresses,
request bodies, or comment content. Keep its database on the same class of persistent,
writable storage as the session registry. Before passkey credential creation, session
revocation, or issue closure, the journal durably reserves a pending event; if that
reservation fails, the consequential action does not begin. A successful action
remains truthfully reported even if its event cannot immediately be finalized, and
the activity sheet marks that durable record as **Outcome confirmation pending**.

After token bootstrap, **Active devices → Add a passkey for this device** enrolls a
WebAuthn credential with required user verification. That device can then sign in
and authorize high-impact actions with its biometric/PIN gesture. The access token
remains the recovery fallback for browsers without WebAuthn or devices without an
enrolled credential. Registration and authentication challenges are exact-purpose,
single-use, and short-lived. **Enrolled passkeys** lists every durable credential,
including those whose original session has expired or signed out, using only its
bounded label, enrollment time, and active/current status. Removing one requires a
single-use fresh authorization bound to that exact management ID. A remote active
session linked to the credential is revoked atomically; unrelated credentials and
sessions remain valid. Removing the current device's passkey keeps its current
session active, so the sheet warns that the recovery token will be required after
sign-out. Remotely revoking an enrolled device also deletes its passkey; signing out
normally keeps the passkey available for the next sign-in.

High-impact actions—merging a pull request, closing an assigned issue, revoking a
remote device, or signing out every device—require a passkey assertion or the
operator access token again.
The server issues a random 90-second grant bound to the active session, exact action,
and exact target. Only its digest is stored, and the grant is consumed atomically on
first use. Expired, replayed, cross-session, and target-substituted grants fail before
Gitea or session state is changed. The browser preserves the pending request and
retries it once after the built-in mobile/keyboard-accessible authorization prompt.

After 15 minutes without pointer, keyboard, or touch activity (configurable through
`STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`), the server rejects the session even if
polling or background delivery continued. The dashboard locks and background outbox
delivery pauses, but drafts, Today/Later state, queued mutations, and caches remain on
the device; signing in resumes the existing account-bound work. If an active session
expires, the first authenticated API rejection replaces the
dashboard with sign-in and explains that private drafts remain on the device; signing
in again resumes account-bound queued delivery. Expiry recovery does not clear offline
state. A selectively or globally revoked device instead receives a bounded revocation
reason: on its next server contact, Stackchain clears its owned local/session storage,
private outbox database, and dashboard caches before enabling sign-in. Revocation
blocks server access immediately, but no web application can erase a device that
remains offline forever. **Sign out & clear this device** revokes only the current
session before clearing browser state, so a copied cookie cannot be replayed
afterward; other signed-in devices remain active. **Sign out all devices** is a
separately confirmed lost-device safety action that atomically revokes every existing
operator session before clearing the current browser and returning to sign-in.
Registry read or write failures return a sanitized HTTP 503 before Gitea is contacted.

Terminate TLS at the trusted reverse proxy: session cookies are deliberately
`Secure`, `HttpOnly`, `SameSite=Strict`, and scoped to the deployment subpath.
Every response also defines the browser execution boundary with a Content Security
Policy that allows scripts only from the dashboard origin, denies framing and
plugins, and blocks unused browser capabilities. Keep these response headers when
proxying; do not add inline scripts or broaden `script-src`. The dashboard bootstrap
is assembled in source order into one content-addressed JavaScript response. Dashboard
HTML and the offline worker reference that exact fingerprint, while the runtime receives
immutable caching and HTML/worker responses remain revalidated. The stylesheet and
fingerprinted runtime are same-origin assets included atomically in the offline PWA shell.
Use **Sign out & clear this device** on shared devices; it clears Stackchain's
offline snapshots, drafts, outboxes, background IndexedDB, and PWA caches without
removing unrelated forge preferences. Rotate either dashboard secret by replacing
the injected value and restarting the service; changing the signing secret expires
all sessions immediately. The signing key is never derived from the access token.

For direct, unproxied local development only, set
`STACKCHAIN_DASHBOARD_AUTH_MODE=insecure-local` and open
`http://127.0.0.1:8000/`. This mode checks the network peer and rejects non-loopback
clients; do not use it behind a reverse proxy, whose loopback connection would hide
the browser's peer address. To verify the backend and its Gitea connection in
operator mode, sign in and request `http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/v1/context`; a
successful response is JSON containing
`user`, `repos`, `issues`, and `pull_requests`. Press `Ctrl/Cmd+K` in the dashboard
to search commands plus issues and pull requests across every repository visible to
the configured Gitea token. Remote search starts after two characters, is debounced,
and keeps local commands usable if Gitea search is unavailable. Selecting a remote
result opens a mobile-safe preview without discarding the search query. Open
unassigned issues can be claimed in place and handed into My Work after Gitea
confirms the assignment. A closed issue can be reopened, self-assigned, added to
Today, and resumed through the same capacity-guarded flow; pull requests remain
read-only with a safe canonical Gitea link. The bounded APIs are available at
`GET /api/v1/search?q=<query>&limit=<1-25>`,
`GET /api/v1/repos/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<number>/preview?kind=issue|pull`, and
`PATCH /api/v1/repos/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<number>/reopen`. Never commit the token
or place it in a tracked configuration file.

For service monitoring, GET `/healthz` is a liveness check that confirms the
API process is running and does not contact Gitea. GET `/readyz` is the
readiness check: it validates the configured Gitea credentials and returns
HTTP 503 with an error when Gitea is unavailable or authentication fails.

The application-lifetime Gitea transport bounds aggregate upstream traffic and
coalesces identical concurrent GETs without caching completed responses. By
default, at most eight requests run at once, with one slot reserved for authored
mutations so polling and detail-read bursts cannot starve comments, reviews, or
other writes. Requests that cannot enter within 250 ms fail as retryable HTTP
503 responses. Tune these limits with `GITEA_MAX_CONCURRENCY` (minimum `2`) and
`GITEA_ADMISSION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS` (minimum `0.001`); keep the admission timeout
below the route deadlines. Streaming diff reads share the same read capacity,
while POST, PATCH, PUT, and DELETE requests are never coalesced.

Live snapshots expose independent `context`, `events`, and `notifications`
revision tokens. Snapshot content, freshness/backoff metadata, and revisions are published
atomically through a private SQLite store shared by all application workers. An expiring
refresh lease ensures only one worker loads currently due sections; other workers serve the
same stale snapshot while that refresh runs, and can recover an abandoned lease after expiry.
Set `STACKCHAIN_LIVE_SNAPSHOT_DB` to override the default
`STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/live-snapshot.sqlite3`; keep the containing directory on private,
worker-shared writable storage. The database and directory are restricted to the service
account and never contain the Gitea token. Find Work uses the same worker-shared pattern:
`STACKCHAIN_AVAILABLE_ISSUE_SNAPSHOT_DB` overrides
`STACKCHAIN_STATE_DIR/available-issue-snapshot.sqlite3`. One expiring lease bounds each
catalog scan across the deployment, shared retry metadata prevents worker-by-worker retry
bursts, and confirmed claims are removed from every worker's retained catalog. Releasing
an assignment invalidates the shared catalog so the newly available issue can be discovered
by the next authoritative scan. Each bounded opaque revision token includes the
store generation, so a token from a different deployment or before replacement of the store
cannot suppress different content. The browser sends its known tokens on later polls, so
`/api/v1/live` can omit unchanged section bodies while still returning current freshness and
retry metadata. The client retains omitted data and only rebuilds or persists the sections
that changed. Malformed or oversized tokens are rejected before any upstream work.
Confirmed notification acknowledgements update this worker's live view immediately, then
maintain the shared snapshot outside the async request loop. Bulk acknowledgements remove
all successful notification IDs in one SQLite transaction and advance the notification
revision once. If shared-store lock admission fails after Gitea confirms the mutation, the
API keeps the confirmed result and process-local filtering rather than falsely reporting the
upstream write as failed; a later shared refresh reconciles the cache.

## Offline mobile shell

At phone widths, a persistent bottom task dock keeps **Work**, **Find**, **New**,
**Search**, and **Drafts** thumb-reachable. It reuses the existing sheets and My Work
filter, preserves the selected release lane, shows the current draft count, respects
the device safe area, and moves out of the way while a full-screen task is open.
Desktop layout is unchanged.

My Work also has an account-synced **Later** queue. **Later today** defers an item for four
hours, while **Tomorrow** returns it at 09:00 in the device's local timezone. **Choose date & time**
accepts a valid future local date and time and returns the item at that exact instant; the picker
shows the device timezone and rejects empty, normalized, invalid, or past values before saving.
Deferred items leave normal and Attention queues without marking notifications read
or changing any Gitea issue or pull request. They automatically return to their
existing priority position at the wake time. **Start now** atomically admits a deferred
item to Today, removes its Later record, and opens that exact item in a resumable Today
session; full or unavailable Today storage leaves the deferral intact for retry. Items
already in Today are opened without duplication. **Bring back now** still restores an
item early without starting it. Later wake times are scoped to the confirmed Gitea login and synchronize
across signed-in tabs and devices. Offline changes apply immediately, survive reload,
and replay after reconnect. Each queued edit carries the account revision it was based
on; if another device has since changed the same item, Stackchain keeps the newer
account plan and reports the conflict instead of silently overwriting it. Unrelated
items continue syncing in the same batch. `STACKCHAIN_LATER_DB` can override the
default durable store at `.stackchain-state/later.sqlite3`.

After one successful online load, the installed dashboard precaches a versioned,
subpath-scoped application shell. During a network outage or a dashboard HTTP
`500`, `502`, `503`, or `504` response, navigation falls back to that shell when
it is available so local issue and review drafts remain reachable. Authentication
and other client-error responses are never hidden. A visible, accessible offline
or server-outage notice distinguishes cached mode from live Gitea data, and the
dashboard keeps polling until it can restore its live snapshot automatically.

Users can explicitly enable **Keep My Work available offline**. Each healthy live
refresh then stores a seven-day, versioned snapshot containing only the signed-in
user identity and queue-card metadata for issues, pull requests, unread updates,
and pagination totals. For each opened Today issue or pull request, Stackchain additionally retains an allowlisted detail record with its body and
newest 20 comments. Requested-review records also retain the head SHA, CI state,
newest 20 prior reviews, and at most 50 sanitized file previews with 400 diff lines
per file. A previously opened unread update is retained by notification
identity with allowlisted subject context and its newest 20 conversation messages.
The snapshot and each account-bound detail are committed as separate IndexedDB records,
so large review previews do not consume the small synchronous localStorage quota or require
rewriting the whole cache. Only the opt-in preference remains in localStorage. Existing v1
localStorage payloads migrate after a successful IndexedDB commit. The detail cache remains
limited to ten records across all detail kinds; credentials, repository catalogs, events, raw
patches, and complete API responses are excluded.
A cold offline launch labels the saved time. Cached Today details open in the existing
phone sheet, where comments can enter the account-bound durable outbox. For issue and
non-review pull details, planning, assignment, review, merge, and close controls remain disabled
until reconnection. Cached requested reviews open in the existing review sheet so file progress, notes,
summary, decision, and inline-comment drafts remain usable under the saved head SHA.
**Queue review for reconnect** durably stores that complete SHA-bound review with one
idempotency key. Reconnect or Background Sync submits it exactly once; transient failures
retain the queue entry, while stale-head and invalid-inline-comment responses move it to
Drafts as **Needs attention** without deleting feedback. Confirmed delivery removes the
queued operation and its matching SHA-scoped draft and progress.
Cached unread updates use the same phone conversation sheet and replies enter the
account-bound durable outbox, while mark read, ownership, deferral, and older-message loading remain disabled until reconnection.
Cards without a saved detail explain that reconnection is required. **Clear offline
work data**, opt-out, sign-out, remote revocation, and absolute session expiry delete the
IndexedDB records; seven-day expiry removes stale records automatically.

API responses and mutations are never cached by the service worker. New issue captures,
issue comments, pull-request comments, and unread-update replies use bounded local
outboxes when connectivity or a retryable server failure prevents delivery. Issue
captures and authored messages are also mirrored into account-bound IndexedDB lanes
and registered with Background Sync, so a supporting installed browser can deliver
new issues, issue comments, pull-request comments, unread-update replies, and completed
pull-request reviews after
every dashboard client has closed. The worker verifies the current Gitea login, shares
an atomic delivery claim with the foreground path, and preserves the original
idempotency key. Installed browsers can explicitly enable **Notify me when queued
work finishes**; permission is requested only from that user gesture and the choice
is stored for the confirmed account in the private background outbox database.
Successful deliveries produce privacy-safe receipts that open the created issue or
source conversation, while permanent validation failures open Drafts for recovery.
Authentication expiry during a worker mutation is recoverable: the worker releases the
claim without creating an Attention receipt, stops that drain, and keeps the original
idempotency key. Loading the authenticated dashboard after signing in asks the worker
to resume queued delivery automatically.
Notification text never includes issue titles, comment bodies, or validation details.
The preference is off by default, unsupported or denied browsers retain foreground
reconciliation, and **Sign out & clear this device** removes the account-bound choice.
Browsers without
IndexedDB or Background Sync keep the foreground reconnect behavior. Drafts shows
queued and needs-attention messages with explicit send/discard controls; reopening the
dashboard reconciles worker completions and permanent failures into the visible outbox.
Foreground delivery flushes messages sequentially with their original idempotency keys.
Tabs coordinate each queue through the browser lock manager (with an expiring local
lease fallback), so an installed PWA and a browser tab cannot submit the same operation
concurrently. Queue changes are broadcast to other tabs and refresh Drafts without
polling; an abandoned lease can be reclaimed after expiry. State-sensitive actions such
as reviews, merges, closures, labels, milestones, and assignments are never queued.
Service-worker upgrades are atomic and remove only older
`stackchain-dashboard-*` caches, preserving unrelated caches on the same origin.

Run the test suite with:

```bash
python3 -m pytest tests/ -q
```

## Autonomous release worker

The deterministic issue-to-release engine lives at `src/release_engine.py`.
It discovers or targets one Gitea issue, verifies its claim, creates an issue
branch, invokes a configured coding agent, runs tests, pushes, and opens a
linked pull request. Merge remains gated by CI/review; the existing release
workflow drafts the release candidate after merge.

Plan against live Gitea without mutating anything:

```bash
python3 -m src.release_engine \
  --repo stackchain/stackchain-dashboard \
  --agent timmy \
  --issue 14 \
  --dry-run
```

Execute one ticket after implementing and committing its change directly on
the deterministic branch printed by `--dry-run`:

```bash
export GITEA_TOKEN='<scoped-token>'
export RELEASE_AGENT_COMMAND=true
python3 -m src.release_engine \
  --repo stackchain/stackchain-dashboard \
  --agent timmy \
  --issue 19 \
  --agent-timeout 1800 \
  --test-timeout 900 \
  --termination-grace 5 \
  --agent-env AGENT_CONFIG_HOME \
  --test-command 'python3 -m pytest tests/ -q'
```

`GITEA_TOKEN` needs issue and repository write scopes. The engine verifies the
claim, reruns the test command, pushes the branch, and opens a PR containing
`Closes #19` plus test evidence. Replace `19` with the selected issue number;
do not run without `--issue` when processing a preselected ticket.

Agent and test commands use POSIX argument quoting and run as argument vectors,
not through a shell. Issue context is available to the agent only through
`RELEASE_ISSUE_NUMBER`, `RELEASE_ISSUE_TITLE`, `RELEASE_ISSUE_BODY`,
`RELEASE_REPO`, and `RELEASE_BRANCH`; do not put issue placeholders in command
text. Shell substitutions, redirects, and pipelines are intentionally not
interpreted. Put any trusted shell workflow in a reviewed wrapper script and
configure that script as `RELEASE_AGENT_COMMAND` instead.

Every child process receives an explicit least-privilege environment rather
than inheriting the worker's credentials. Coding agents receive a minimal
runtime environment plus the five `RELEASE_*` context values above. Tests and
Git receive only the minimal runtime environment, so `GITEA_TOKEN` and
unrelated parent secrets remain in the release-engine process. If an agent
runtime needs another non-secret setting, allow it explicitly with a repeated
`--agent-env NAME` option or the comma-separated `RELEASE_AGENT_ENV` variable.
`GITEA_TOKEN`, reserved `RELEASE_*` names, and malformed names are rejected
before the issue is claimed. Secret-bearing values must not be allowlisted.

Agent and test deadlines are independent. On expiry, the engine terminates the
command's entire process group, escalates from `SIGTERM` to `SIGKILL` after the
configured grace period, and records `agent_timed_out` or `tests_timed_out`
without advancing the release. The equivalent environment variables are
`RELEASE_AGENT_TIMEOUT`, `RELEASE_TEST_TIMEOUT`, and
`RELEASE_TERMINATION_GRACE`; every value must be positive.

Durable state defaults to `.release-engine/state.json`. Successful checkpoints
record the repository, issue branch, and exact commit SHA. A restart resumes at
tests, push, or PR creation only after validating that identity and a clean
worktree; a pushed checkpoint also verifies the remote branch SHA. Invocations
are serialized by an OS-backed, non-blocking lease at
`.release-engine/run.lock` under the canonical repository path. If an hourly
run overlaps a manual or slow prior run, the contender exits with `release run
already active` and owner diagnostics before Gitea discovery or any Git/agent
work. The kernel releases ownership when the process exits, so never delete a
lock file to recover from a crash; stale file metadata cannot retain the lease.
Checkpoint replacement uses writer-unique, flushed temporary files and an
atomic rename, preventing concurrent writers from colliding or exposing partial
JSON. Full behavior and safety gates are documented in
[`docs/release-engine-spec.md`](docs/release-engine-spec.md).