Open session tabs can outlive the title value they were created with, while the sidebar and session detail view read from the refreshed session list. Refresh existing tab titles when a session tab is reopened and after session list refreshes so the top tab bar cannot keep a stale generated title.
Constraint: Sidebar filtering and session refresh should not leave already-open tabs with stale labels.
Rejected: Only rely on WebSocket title update events | restored tabs and already-open tabs can miss later session-list corrections.
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Directive: Keep session tab titles derived from current session list data when available.
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test -- --run src/stores/tabStore.test.ts src/stores/sessionStore.test.ts
Tested: cd desktop && bun run lint
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test -- --run
Tested: agent-browser smoke on http://127.0.0.1:1420/ confirmed top tabs match sidebar and session detail titles.
Session titles need to appear immediately, but the async AI title pass can return fenced or escaped JSON fragments. Keep the first-message title path fast, preserve optimistic client titles during background refresh, and only accept structured title responses that parse cleanly.
Constraint: Desktop sessions should stop showing Untitled/New Session after the first user turn.
Rejected: Accept short raw model output as a fallback | malformed JSON fragments are short enough to leak into the UI.
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: moderate
Directive: Do not loosen generated title parsing without regression coverage for fenced, escaped, and truncated JSON responses.
Tested: bun test src/server/__tests__/title-service.test.ts
Tested: bun run check:server
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test -- --run src/stores/chatStore.test.ts src/stores/sessionStore.test.ts src/pages/EmptySession.test.tsx
Tested: agent-browser smoke on http://127.0.0.1:1420/ confirmed sidebar and tab titles update without JSON fragments.
Desktop sessions now resolve repository launch intent before creation, so users can pick a branch, choose whether to isolate it in a worktree, and get stable error messages instead of silent branch-switch failures. The server owns the Git safety checks and session metadata so the UI and real agent runtime agree on the actual working directory.
Constraint: Direct branch switching must not overwrite or hide uncommitted user changes
Constraint: Desktop worktree branches must stay out of normal branch selection and recent-project labels
Rejected: Let the UI call git directly | server-side checks keep session metadata and runtime launch paths consistent
Rejected: Auto-switch dirty checkouts | users need an explicit isolated-worktree choice to protect local edits
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: moderate
Directive: Do not relax dirty-worktree or checked-out-branch guards without adding equivalent business-flow tests
Tested: ALLOW_CLI_CORE_CHANGE=1 bun run quality:pr
Tested: /tmp business-flow script with dirty checkout, checked-out branch, isolated worktree, missing branch, non-git, missing directory, and real LLM session
Tested: agent-browser desktop UI flow across dirty, checked-out, non-git, branch search, recent-project, and Run scenarios
The desktop model picker now stores a session-scoped provider/model selection instead of relying on the global active provider. That selection is replayed on connect, passed into the CLI startup path, and preserved across turns until the user changes it again.
To make that true end-to-end, the server now restarts the session process when runtime selection changes, injects provider-scoped env for third-party providers, and routes proxy traffic by provider id. The selector UI was also tightened so provider grouping stays visible while the actual model choice remains readable.
Constraint: Different providers can expose the same model id, so chat runtime selection cannot be derived from model id alone
Constraint: A desktop session reuses one CLI subprocess across turns, so runtime changes must restart that process to take effect
Rejected: Keep using Settings active provider as the chat selector | conflates defaults with live session state and breaks overlapping models
Rejected: UI-only runtime switching without server restart | later turns would continue using the old CLI subprocess configuration
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: moderate
Reversibility: clean
Directive: Keep provider defaults and session runtime overrides separate, and preserve provider-scoped proxy routing when extending model selection surfaces
Tested: cd desktop && bun run lint
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test src/stores/chatStore.test.ts
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test src/__tests__/generalSettings.test.tsx
Tested: bun test src/server/__tests__/conversation-service.test.ts
Tested: bun test src/server/__tests__/conversations.test.ts
Tested: bun -e "await import('./src/server/services/titleService.ts'); await import('./src/server/ws/handler.ts')"
Not-tested: Real third-party provider round-trip from the desktop UI against a live upstream account
Previously, creating a new session without selecting a project directory
defaulted to process.cwd(), which in the desktop app resolves to the app
installation path. Now it defaults to os.homedir().
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
After the first assistant response, derive a quick placeholder title from
the user message, then asynchronously call the provider's Haiku model to
generate a polished 3-7 word title. Titles update again at message 3 with
fuller conversation context. Updates push to frontend in real-time via
WebSocket `session_title_updated` event.
- extractTitle now reads `ai-title` JSONL entries (priority: custom > ai > first message)
- New titleService with deriveTitle + generateTitle using active provider config
- Handler tracks per-session message count and triggers generation on result
- Frontend sessionStore receives live title updates for sidebar + header
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Replace project-grouped session list with a flat time-grouped layout
(Today / Yesterday / Last 7 days / Last 30 days / Older) matching
the original Claude Code desktop design. Add ProjectFilter component
with multi-select dropdown for filtering by project. Deduplicate
sessions by ID in the store to fix duplicate-key React errors caused
by the same session appearing across multiple project directories.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The desktop app now keeps the composer stable while turns are active,
reduces low-signal tool noise in the transcript, restores project context
under the composer after session creation, and relies on the CLI's own
permission requests instead of injecting broader desktop-side Bash asks.
This also brings in the supporting desktop app source tree and the server
routes/session metadata needed for git info, filesystem browsing, session
resume, slash commands, and SDK-backed permission bridging so the UI can
operate as a coherent feature instead of a partial patch.
Constraint: Desktop transcript needs to stay usable during long multi-tool sessions without hiding file-change diffs
Constraint: Permission prompts must mirror CLI behavior closely enough that read-only commands do not get desktop-only prompts
Rejected: Keep rendering Read/Bash bodies inline | too noisy and unlike the intended transcript model
Rejected: Commit only the touched desktop files | would leave the newly introduced desktop app incomplete in git history
Confidence: medium
Scope-risk: broad
Reversibility: messy
Directive: Treat non-writing tools as summary-first transcript events; do not re-expand them by default without validating the UX against long sessions
Tested: cd desktop && bun run lint
Tested: cd desktop && bun run test -- --run
Tested: bun test src/server/__tests__/conversations.test.ts
Not-tested: Manual visual regression against the exact screenshots in a live desktop session
Not-tested: Full root TypeScript check (repository still has unrelated extracted-native parse failures)
