fix(promptinput): focus seeded prompts

[Farhan (fkb032)]

Summary

• Route suggestion chips, Spotlight, trending prompts, Mac recommendations, and prompt history through one prompt-seeding path.
• Reveal and focus the composer after seeding, place the caret at the end, and never auto-submit.
• Preserve history-trigger focus restoration when the popover is dismissed without a selection.

Why

ENG-612 / #638: under the active evolve-prompt-suggestions multivariate feature flag, the trending variant can leave the composer off-screen while suggestion rows remain clickable. Previously those clicks only updated Zustand state, so they could look inert. Mac recommendations and prompt history also bypassed the shared helper.

This supersedes closed draft #641. The filesystem “edit with prompt” action navigates from another screen and is intentionally outside this in-place suggestion flow.

Fixes #638

Test Plan

• bun -F native test:unit — 347 tests passed across 51 files
• bunx tsc --noEmit -p apps/native/tsconfig.json
• bunx oxlint on all four changed files — 0 warnings/errors
• bunx oxfmt --check on all four changed files
• bun -F native build
• Real WKWebView smoke: an off-screen Mac recommendation revealed and focused the composer with the caret at the end and no submit; history selection retained composer focus; Escape restored trigger focus
• git diff --check

Known repository baselines

• The aggregate Git Hooks job fails on three pre-existing .agent/skills/nixmac-ds Markdown files, as it does on fix(promptinput): remove dead trending browse CTA #660. This PR's dedicated Treefmt check passes.
• Storybook reports the same five existing Evolve snapshot deltas as fix(promptinput): remove dead trending browse CTA #660; its check passes. No baselines were accepted because this change does not alter those stories.

Docs

• No docs update needed

[linear-code]

ENG-612

[github-actions]

📋 PR Overview

Lines changed	217 (+179 / -38)
Files	0 added, 4 modified, 0 deleted
Draft / WIP	no
Has Test Plan	yes
Linear issue	yes
No Test Plan Needed	no
New UI components	no
New Storybook stories	no
New Rust modules	no
New TS source files	no
New tests	no
package.json touched	no
Cargo.toml touched	no
Infra / CI touched	no

🔬 Coverage

Report	Lines	Statements	Functions	Branches
apps/native/coverage/coverage-summary.json	35.0%	34.4%	29.8%	29.5%

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[darkmatter]

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[prelint]

Prompt seeding unified across in-place suggestion surfaces

Product decisions in this change

1. All in-place suggestion surfaces share one seeding path. Starter chips, Spotlight, trending rows, Mac recommendations, and prompt history all call the same `seedPrompt` function instead of writing directly to global state.

Before this PR, some surfaces updated state but never told the composer to reveal or focus. That meant a click on an off-screen chip looked inert. Centralizing reveals, focus, and caret placement in one place guarantees consistent behavior as new surfaces are added. The author confirmed in the PR conversation that the filesystem transition is the only non-empty prompt writer outside this path, so coverage is complete for the in-place context.

2. Seeding a prompt reveals and focuses the composer but never auto-submits. After any suggestion is selected, the composer scrolls into view, receives focus, and the caret moves to the end. The user must press submit explicitly.

Suggestions are starting points, not commands. A user who picks a chip often wants to add context, change a word, or reconsider. Auto-submit would remove that agency. Placing the caret at the end is the correct default: the user can append text immediately without repositioning. Respecting prefers-reduced-motion for the scroll animation is a correct accessibility decision and the test coverage confirms it is enforced.

3. History popover focus splits by outcome. A selection moves focus to the composer. Dismissal without a selection returns focus to the trigger button.

These are two distinct user intents. A user who selects a history item wants to act on it immediately, so the composer is the right target. A user who opens the popover and presses Escape changed their mind, so the trigger is the right target. This matches ARIA disclosure-widget conventions and avoids a focus trap or an unexpected jump. The focusPromptAfterCloseRef approach correctly separates the two paths without relying on an async race.

4. A seeded prompt captured during cancellation wind-down is retained and not auto-submitted when processing clears. If a user clicks a suggestion while the composer is briefly disabled during a cancel, their choice survives the wind-down.

Silently discarding the user's intent would be the worse outcome. Retaining the text and surfacing it once the composer re-enables respects the user's action without creating a surprise submission. The window is narrow (brief wind-down only; overlays block all suggestion surfaces during active evolve and rebuild), so this edge case surfaces only for the cancellation path. The author's explanation confirms no auto-submit occurs on clear.

5. The "edit with prompt" filesystem action remains outside the unified seeding path. It stores the seed and navigates to the prompt screen but does not reveal, focus, or position the composer.

The scoping rationale is defensible: this is a cross-screen navigation, not an in-place selection, and ENG-612 covers the in-place context only. However, the author confirmed that after navigation the composer is populated but not revealed or focused. From the user's perspective, the intent is identical to picking a chip: "I told the app what I want to do, now I expect to see the composer ready." The experience is noticeably different, and the gap is not speculative.

Option	What it gives users	What it costs	Effort to change later
Current: separate path	Unblocks ENG-612 without touching filesystem flow	Filesystem seeding looks inert compared to in-place seeding	Low: one follow-up PR adds seedPrompt call after navigation
Unified path now	Fully consistent seeding experience across all entry points	Slightly wider scope; needs cross-screen navigation awareness	Lower if done now before more surfaces are added

The concern is worth tracking as a follow-up. The team has acknowledged it and scoped it explicitly, which is the right process decision.

Since the last review

• Addressed by explanation: The filesystem 'edit with prompt' action is excluded from seeding unification, which may feel inconsistent to users whose mental model is the same as picking a chip. (Farhan (@fkb032) confirmed the filesystem action stores the seed and navigates but does not call seedPrompt, focus the textarea, or scroll it into view; the team has explicitly scoped it outside ENG-612 as a cross-screen path.)
• Addressed by explanation: Does the filesystem 'edit with prompt' action currently reveal and focus the composer after navigating? If not, does the team plan to align it? (Farhan (@fkb032) confirmed it does not reveal or focus the composer; alignment is deferred outside ENG-612 with no committed timeline.)
• Addressed by explanation: Are any suggestion surfaces (Spotlight variant, trending variant) still calling the global state action directly and bypassing the shared seeding path? (Farhan (@fkb032) confirmed Spotlight, Trending (row and 'Use'), starter chips, Mac recommendations, and history all call seedPrompt; the filesystem transition is the only remaining out-of-path writer.)
• Addressed by explanation: Can a user reach a suggestion chip while processing is running, and if so, does seeding behave consistently? (Farhan (@fkb032) confirmed overlays block all surfaces during active evolve and rebuild; during brief cancellation wind-down the selected text is retained and not auto-submitted when processing clears.)

Open questions

• When the "edit with prompt" filesystem action lands the user on the prompt screen with a seed already stored, is any affordance shown to indicate the composer has content ready? Or does the user need to notice the populated textarea independently?

• The requestAnimationFrame timing guarantees focus happens after the next paint, which is correct when the composer is already visible. Does the trending variant, which may need to reveal the composer first, always complete its reveal within one frame? Or is there a layout transition that could make focus fire before the composer is fully on screen?

Recommendation

Ship it
Every in-scope product decision is sound: seeding is unified, the composer reveals and focuses without auto-submitting, and focus routing for the history popover matches user intent in both the selection and dismiss cases. All four prior concerns and open questions have been answered by the author. The one remaining gap (filesystem path inconsistency) is acknowledged, explicitly scoped out, and small enough to address in a follow-up without blocking this fix.

[Farhan (fkb032)]

Thanks — I checked each open question against the current branch:

• Filesystem action: “Edit with a prompt” stores the seed and closes the Filesystem view. It does not use the shared seedPrompt path, focus the textarea, or scroll it into view. That remains a separate cross-screen path outside ENG-612; this PR covers the in-place suggestion controls.
• Suggestion coverage: Spotlight, Trending (row selection and “Use”), starter chips, Mac recommendations, and prompt history all call the shared seedPrompt. The filesystem transition is the only production non-empty prompt writer outside PromptInput.
• Processing state: During normal evolve, the overlay covers the controls and the textarea and history control are disabled. Rebuild also uses a full-content overlay. Some apply actions run from Begin, but the composer remains enabled, so suggestion seeding still reveals and focuses it normally. There is a brief cancellation wind-down where suggestions can be selected while the textarea remains disabled; on the cancellation path, the selected text is retained when processing clears and is not auto-submitted.

[darkmatteragent]

Review — APPROVE

ba1dcb6dce86 · 0 findings

The shared seeding path correctly reveals, focuses, and positions the composer without submitting, while history selection preserves focus behavior for both selected and dismissed popovers. No provable, actionable defects remain in the supplied patch.

No findings.

[darkmatteragent]

Reviewer · darkmatter agent	VERDICT APPROVE
The shared seeding path correctly reveals, focuses, and positions the composer without submitting, while history selection preserves focus behavior for both selected and dismissed popovers. No provable, actionable defects remain in the supplied patch.

No findings.

reviewed: ba1dcb6 — 2026-08-29T07:44Z verdict: approve findings: 0

Reviewer darkmatter agent

Run details

Metadata	Value
Agent	darkmatter/agent/reviewer
Session	pr:darkmatter/nixmac#661
Kind	pr
Runtime	platform-runtime
Configured model	litellm/glm-5.2-fp8
Target	darkmatter/nixmac#661
Revision	ba1dcb6dce867458abb3013184846b48b81b7cff
Verdict	approve
Reviewed at	2026-08-29T07:44Z
Logs	Open Braintrust session

[gitar-bot]

Code Review ✅ Approved

Consolidates route suggestion chips, Spotlight, trending prompts, Mac recommendations, and prompt history through a shared prompt-seeding path. The composer is now revealed and focused with the caret positioned at the end, without auto-submit, and history-trigger focus restoration is preserved on popover dismissal. No issues found.

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