[futurepaul]

Paul (2026-10-31): a History view, like the Apps page, to browse and search old chats instead of scrubbing the sidebar; every chat goes there (imports, archived, new), so archiving is cheap, and an archived chat can be resumed with the agent of your choosing. Paul on FIN-321: "history view is perfect no notes". Screenshots and videos: FIN-321 (History, and the agent picker).

History (cell/shell/history-page.js, /history, the sidebar's History above Apps; the Session Archive's sidebar section goes):

• every chat the person has had, newest first: theirs live and archived, those shared with them, and their Session Archive's conversations; a delegation thread's chat stays its thread's line. All · Archived · Imported.
• a row: face, title, whom with ("Shared", "Imported"), first words, a date, "Archived" on archived ones. 100 rows, then Show more; honest empty states.
• a chat nothing was said in is no history: one with no previewAt has its first record read once (?after=0&limit=1) while its row is the same; a continued chat's history card gives its date and newest words; none leaves it out. No row shows without its time, nor sorts as newest for want of one.
• search: titles (and an import's first words) at once; then GET /api/search finds chats by their messages, each with its snippet; a failed search says so. The archive's own search (sessions: an import writes its archive's search #774) plugs in at h.archive.search.
• a chat opens in the middle column, an import read-only; one Back is History again (an open archive frame is now navigated in place, location.replace, not pushed).
• a message the person sends in an archived chat brings it back ({fragment: "said"} from the chat page; the shell unarchives).

Continue (cell/shell/continue.js, from the Session Archive agent): "Continue with [agent ▾]" on archived and imported rows, and the archive reader's Continue through the same picker; one chat per (source, agent), its name made from both, so Continue again opens it; the history card says with whom; the old continued/<key>.json markers are gone (never in production).

Docs: api.md's wire facts only (/history, said, the session-archive message), chat-records.md's History, the inventory's shell row.

Tests:

• cell/shell-tests/history-page.test.mjs (rows, filters, words, the search hint, dates, first records); xtask/src/continue_js.rs (Continue in a scripted platform).
• e2e shell-ui: History as the person uses it (valid / invalid / replay: a message brings an archived chat back / restart: a reload at /history); sessions-ui goes in through History and Continues through the picker.
• On this head (merged with master): cargo xtask check green; cargo xtask e2e --only shell-ui,sessions,sessions-ui 360 passed, 0 failed.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[alexlwn123]

Fail for now at 9fcd7fdb765667d493b16d68fb3e1924231f4fca.

Blocking:

1. Continue's UI treats a partially created chat as complete. In cell/shell/continue.js:137–142, continued() checks only that the named chat exists and is owned; continueControl() then bypasses continueInto() and opens it directly (lines 255–264). If creation succeeds but posting history or adding the agent fails, once the list reflects creation (including after a reload), the control says “Open”. Clicking it never finishes the missing steps, leaving a chat without its agent and possibly without its history. This affects both History rows and the archive dialog, for imported and archived sources, and violates the documented promise that Continue again finishes an interrupted attempt.

I reproduced both failures on the pinned Node using this PR's scripted platform and the actual continueControl() click handler: after a one-shot 503 on history posting, both clicks leave 0 records / 0 agents; after a one-shot 503 on membership, both leave 1 history record / 0 agents. The second click simply opens the incomplete chat. Existing retry tests call continueInto() directly, so they miss this bypass.

Only offer the direct Open path once completion is established; otherwise resume the idempotent completion steps. Cover the control itself after failures/lost responses at each step, with the list refreshed, and after reload/in another tab.

The History/Continue module split is appropriate for the feature; I found no separate complexity blocker. Validation: all 28 shell tests and the extracted Continue scripted cases pass. CI source and image checks pass; e2e jobs remain pending. Full local Rust/e2e suites were not run. The prescribed engineering-style file is absent on this machine.

[futurepaul]

Thanks, Alex. You were right: the control's Open bypassed continueInto() for a chat that existed but wasn't finished. Fixed in 486c39b.

1. Continue's UI treated a partly made chat as complete.

• continued() (cell/shell/continue.js) now names a chat only once it's finished: the person's own chat with the agent in it, as their list has it. Adding the agent is the last step, after the history post, so its presence means every step ran.
• A chat this page finished itself also counts, because the list names a new agent a moment after it joins.
• Any other chat is one cut short. The control says "Continue with", and pressing it runs continueInto(), which finishes the steps in that same chat (create 409 → ours → history replayed or posted → member PUT). That holds for History rows and the archive's dialog, for imports and archived chats alike.
• A chat found finished also lets go of the random-name fallback kept for it in the browser.

Tests (xtask/src/continue_js.rs, the scripted platform), now driving the control's own press:

• For a failure or a lost answer at each step (history 503, member 503, create's answer lost, history's answer lost, member's answer lost):
  • what it says after the cut;
  • that the agent is in the chat only once every step is done (the order, pinned);
  • what a reloaded tab (a new module and store) says;
  • pressing it there finishes and opens the same chat, creating once and posting once;
  • pressing again in the first tab makes nothing new.
• With the list lagging: the page that finished it says Open; another tab says Continue, and pressing it opens the same chat, making nothing again.
• Against the old continue.js, 8 of the 39 cases fail; all pass now.

On this head merged with master, cargo xtask check is green, and cargo xtask e2e --only sessions,sessions-ui passed 20 of 20.

[alexlwn123]

Pass at 486c39b36902eee6e25088ee69d05032068a7a99.

The earlier blocker is fixed: Continue no longer treats an owned but incomplete chat as ready to Open. It requires the chosen agent in the list row (membership is added after history), or completion observed by this page. Interrupted attempts therefore resume the existing completion steps. The new tests exercise the actual control after failed requests and lost responses, across reloads and delayed list updates.

I reviewed the two-file revision against my previous verdict and traced the membership projection. The correction is appropriately scoped, and I found no new blocking regression or complexity concern.

Validation: cargo test -p xtask continue_makes_one_chat_a_source_and_agent -- --nocapture and all 28 shell tests pass on pinned Node. CI images check passes; source check, Docker and e2e jobs are still running. Full local check/e2e suites were not run. The prescribed engineering-style file is absent on this machine.

[alexlwn123]

Pass at c3f33affb2dfeb54ed58c40dd3a78c3398f9fe84.

The earlier Continue completion blocker remains fixed. This revision merges master into the previously approved head; I checked the merge resolutions and interactions with History, Continue, chat rendering and the bridge history note. The shell retains the new agent-specific app prompts without restoring the removed archive sidebar renderer, and the JavaScript test inventory includes both new suites. No new blocking regression or complexity concern found.

Validation: all 31 shell tests pass on pinned Node; cargo test -p xtask continue_makes_one_chat_a_source_and_agent -- --nocapture and cargo test -p xtask js_syntax -- --nocapture pass. CI source, image, Docker and e2e checks were still running when inspected. Full local check/e2e suites were not run. The prescribed engineering-style file is absent on this machine.