Decision 148: the control plane's Work surface is de-cluttered to Option C — Minimal

Status: accepted (the owner named the option on the design PR, 2026-10-20)
Date: 2026-10-20
Deciders: MadaraUchiha-314 (the pick), the-loop (the three options)
Work item: issue-511
Spec: docs/specs/issue-511/design.md § Element inventory, § UI/UX design
Refines: decision-112 (the issue-327 Control Plane UI 3.0 layout and design system — the tokens, type and primitives are kept verbatim)

Context

The issue-327 dashboard drew one fact several times: with a work item selected, the current node up to five times, the repository four, the tmux target three, the age three. The owner asked for less information and a better information architecture without a redesign, and for three candidate levels to choose from. The requirements fixed a floor every level meets (each fact once, the sidebar row as identity and urgency only, no bookkeeping counts, one statement of the loop's position) and a ladder of what each level removes beyond it. The design phase built the three as self-contained prototypes from one template, so they are strictly nested, and showed them beside the current screen in both themes.

Decision

Option C — Minimal is built. Beyond the floor, and beyond Option B's one-line sidebar rows, selected-item-only PR rows, header meta of phase chip and age, and session facts behind closed disclosures, it:

removes the session panel as a standing column — the pause / resume / stop / start verbs become header actions, and the Harness, tmux and Ticket facts sit in one Session details disclosure in the header, closed by default;
folds the graph strip into the header's meta line — the phase chip is the one statement of the position, the parked / blocked note its qualifier, and Full graph reveals the node row beneath the header;
renders the session tab bar only when the item has more than one session;
takes the Standing group out of the sidebar (the Standing surface keeps it);
puts search and the instance filter behind one icon in the sidebar's brand row;
reduces the sidebar to two groups, Needs you and Everything else, the latter sorted by last activity.

Options A and B stay checked in under docs/specs/issue-511/design/ as the record of what was offered; nothing of them is built.

Consequences

The Work surface goes from three columns and five main-column bands to two columns and three bands (a fourth while Full graph is on). The inventory's default-drawn element count goes from 56 to 27.
Every fact the panel showed stays reachable within one interaction, from the header. The transcript path, the working directory and the session id are abbreviated with a copy control inside the disclosure; nobody reads a 150-character path on a dashboard.
A one-line sidebar row truncates long titles beside a flag; the header carries the full title and the row's accessible name carries it for screen readers.
The header carries more: two mono verbs and five icon controls. That is the cost of removing the column, shown in the prototype before the pick.
The Standing, Settings and Instances panes inherit the header's changes and nothing else. api/, state/ and demo/ are untouched; no route, request, setting or dependency is added.

Alternatives considered

Option A — Trim. The floor only: duplicates and bookkeeping gone, every column, band and section kept. Rejected by the owner as not far enough.
Option B — Focus. A plus one-line rows, nested PR rows under the selected item only, a header meta of phase chip and age, and a session panel reduced to its controls with the facts behind disclosures. Rejected by the owner in favour of removing the column.
A runtime density setting. Would keep all three levels switchable. Rejected: the ticket asked for a pick, and a setting is a new control the requirements forbid (R5.5).