# frontend/CLAUDE.md

React 18 + TypeScript + webpack 5 + Redux. Entry: `src/app/Main.tsx`. Dev server on `:3000` proxies REST and WebSocket to backend on `:8324`. See root `CLAUDE.md` for repo-wide constraints.

## Coding precedences

Full precedences live in root [CLAUDE.md](../.claude/CLAUDE.md). Always: **understand the end goal before coding** (what does the user actually need?); **reuse before you write** (grep existing components / hooks / Redux slices, most needs already have one); ~300 LOC/file ceiling; downward-tree imports (`shared/` → `app/components/` → `pages/`); comments only when necessary (the non-obvious WHY), one line each; **no em-dashes or en-dashes anywhere** (`—`, `–`); say IDK to the user when you don't know, then go find out; manually exercise the UI after meaningful changes; weigh speed (no double renders), efficiency, robustness, UX (loading/error/animation states), and security on every change.

## Run

- Dev (full stack): `bash run.sh`.
- Dev (frontend only): `bash frontend/run.sh` (runs `npm install` then `npm run dev`).
- No JS/TS test runner is wired up. Changes must be manually exercised in the running app before merging.

## Key concepts

- **Spatial dashboard.** Agents are draggable nodes on a canvas; layout + selection state lives in Redux.
- **Settings draft persistence.** `AppSettings.dismissed_mcp_suggestions` is a map of MCP id → ISO timestamp; preserve this shape when modifying settings serialization.
- **Onboarding wizard** (`src/app/components/Onboarding/`). 8-step agentic cursor walkthrough. Cursor offsets, fit-to-view, AC popup timing, and group-meta dedup were each delicate to land; verify visually after touching this code. Note: steps 3/5/6 launch real agent sessions that hit the cloud's analytics ingest, so don't treat them as visual-only.
- **SignInDialog** (`src/app/components/overlays/SignInDialog.tsx`, opened from the Settings account card). Optional sign-in that captures `user_id` + email via Google OAuth or email magic link, hitting the cloud's `/api/auth/{google,email}/*`. Sign-in is never required to use the app.
- **Custom providers.** `AppSettings.custom_providers: CustomProvider[]` supports any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (e.g. LM Studio).

## Conventions

- TS only; no PropTypes.
- No eslint/prettier config; match nearby files.
- Onboarding-copy placeholders shaped like real API keys (`sk-ant-api03-…`) are already allowlisted in `.gitleaks.toml`. Reuse the existing placeholder rather than introducing new "example" tokens.
- MCP suggestion UI must surface only the vetted/default set; never expose the full upstream registry to users.

## Dev vs production

The dev server (`webpack-dev-server` on `:3000`) and the packaged DMG/EXE serve the app differently. Test in the packaged build for any change touching the items below.

- **Server:** dev uses webpack-dev-server with HMR and a `/api/*` + `/ws/*` proxy to `:8324`. Prod loads built static `dist/` from inside an Electron `asar` archive via `file://`.
- **API + WS:** in both modes, the backend lives at `localhost:8324` with bearer-token auth. Dev relies on the dev-server proxy; prod fetches direct. Don't bake in dev-only proxy assumptions.
- **Asset paths:** `public/` files are served at `/` in dev. In prod, asset URLs resolve relative to a `file://` document; prefer relative imports/URLs over absolute `/foo.png`.
- **Source maps + HMR:** dev only. Prod runs minified bundles; console errors land in the Terminal pane's `[FRONTEND]` lines.

When you touch routing, fetch wiring, asset loading, or WS plumbing, build with `npm run build` and run the packaged DMG/EXE to verify.

## UI/UX precedences (user-visible text and surfaces)

This app ships to non-developers. Anything a user sees has to read like a person wrote it, not like an error reached the screen.

- **Plain English, no jargon.** No "aux provider", "context window", "AsyncClient", "code 400". If a non-engineer wouldn't know the word, don't say it.
- **Never dump backend errors / stack traces / model JSON into a toast.** Log the raw error to console for devs; show the user a short, friendly ask + the next action they can take ("Try removing it, or pick a model with a bigger window in Settings."). The popup is for guidance, not debugging.
- **Compact, breathing room, single message.** No 8-line walls of text in a 300px-wide column. Layout: one short sentence + 1-2 inline action buttons. Buttons read as actions ("Shrink it", "Remove"), not labels ("Summarize instead").
- **Match the app's design tokens.** Use `c.bg.surface`, `c.border.medium`, `c.accent.primary` from `claudeTokens`. Avoid raw MUI `Alert variant="filled"` blocks of saturated yellow/red — they read as dev-mode warnings, not user dialogs.
- **No alarming colors for normal flow.** "This file is too big" is a routine choice, not a warning. Warning/error coloring is reserved for actual failures the user can't recover from.
- **Friendly without being cute.** Conversational, not chirpy. "Want me to shrink it down to a summary?" not "Whoops! That file is huge!".
- **Minimalist by default. Less is more.** One short message, one subtle animation, one verb. Do NOT add rotating progress messages, multi-line status text, percentage counters, or step-by-step explainers unless the user explicitly needs them. A pulsing dot + "Shrinking" beats a 4-message carousel + spinner + progress bar every time. The user knows what they clicked; we just need to confirm we're alive.
- **Animations are subtle.** Pulse, fade, soft scale (≤1.0× to 0.6×). No bounce, no flashing, no harsh blinking, no rotating spinners with multiple emoji. Easing: `ease-in-out`. Duration: 1-1.5s for ambient states (loading), 150-250ms for state changes (hover, mode flip).
- **Transient popups MUST fade in/out, not snap-cut.** Any element that appears or disappears in response to user action (oversize popup, error toast, recovery chip, send-block banner) must use MUI `Fade` with `timeout={{ enter: 200, exit: 220 }}` and `unmountOnExit`. Pattern: hold a `lastSnapshot` ref so the exit animation renders the same content it had a moment ago instead of going blank mid-fade. Snap-cuts feel anxious; 200ms fades feel calm.
- **Long waits get an honest hint AFTER 10s, not upfront.** If an operation usually finishes in 2s but occasionally takes 60s, don't lie by always showing "this may take a minute". Mount a delayed hint that fades in only after 10s of waiting — silent for fast cases, reassuring for slow ones. See `SlowHint` in `ChatInput/view/ChatInputOverlays.tsx`.
- **Don't expose absolute filesystem paths to users.** Tooltips, file chips, and labels should show only the file's basename (e.g. `llama2.pdf`), never the temp-dir path (`/var/folders/s7/.../self-swarm-uploads/llama2.pdf`). Users don't care where their file landed in temp, and a 200-char tooltip dangling over the chat input is ugly. If the user genuinely needs the path, expose it via a "copy path" action, not a hover tooltip.
- **State changes from one button must invalidate downstream estimates.** If a button claims to shrink/clear/reset something the next user action depends on, you have to invalidate the cached estimate too. Example: clicking "Compact memory" calls `/compact` server-side, but the renderer's `tokens.input` was a snapshot from the previous round-trip — leaving it stale makes the next send re-fire the same "over context window" banner, looking like the button did nothing. Always pair an action with the redux update that its UX promise implies.

## Pitfalls

- Direct LLM calls from the frontend bypass the backend's provider routing and MCP gate. Don't add them; route through `/api/*` instead.
- Webpack-dev-server hot reload occasionally loses WS state; full page reload after backend restarts.
- MUI `Menu`/`Popover`/`Modal` portals dropped over an Electron `<webview>` inside the zoom/pan canvas eat clicks intermittently. Webviews are a separate compositor layer that CSS `pointer-events` and z-index can't reliably beat. Don't float a menu over a webview: open it into empty canvas, use plain `position:fixed` JSX you control, or make it a direct action (right-click does the thing, no menu).
- Reset/clear handlers must clear local component state, not just the Redux slice. `clearSessionMessages` only wipes `session.messages`; AgentChat's `showResumeBubble`, `awaitingResponse`, and message queue are React state and survive, leaving a stale "thinking" bubble or Resume button. Clear both.
- Don't GC a session/draft on unmount without checking it isn't mid-launch. `launchAndSendFirstMessage` races against route-change unmount; deleting a draft that already has user messages orphans the backend session and reads as "everything got wiped" on reopen. Guard on message count.
- Don't write placeholder strings into fields the UI renders as real data. The Google Workspace pill showed "Google Workspace account" because the connected email fell back to `f"{tool.name} account"`; leave the field empty and let the UI's empty-state handle it.