M8: the browser becomes the storyteller

The interface was AI-DnD's with this product's features bolted into it. The
navigation read Home · Adventures · Scenarios · Settings · AI Chat; starting a
story meant first picking a *world*, and making a world meant a JSON stat-schema
form, a story-card table and an art picker. The play screen had a Branches tab.
The input had three modes. Sixteen of the sixteen controls on a two-turn story
had no accessible name — they were single glyphs with a tooltip.

All of that was measured in a real browser before anything was changed, and the
measurements are in planning/reports/M8-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md §C. Almost
nothing underneath was wrong: the play loop, the history controls, the takes,
the Save Points, the state correction and the knowledge library all worked. What
was wrong was what a reader was asked to understand in order to use them.

So the shape now is one entry point and one screen:

  Campaigns -> Campaign -> Story
                           State · Knowledge · Context · Save Points · Settings

Everything that is not the story lives in a panel that starts closed. The
top navigation bar is hidden on the story screen entirely, because on that one
screen the story is the interface.

Play is one natural-language field. An action and a piece of quoted dialogue are
both just what the reader wrote, and B01/B02 confirmed against a real narrator
that the model reads the quotes without being told which kind of turn it is.
What survives from the old Story mode is a Story direction toggle, which is not
a fourth mode: it changes who is being spoken to, not what kind of action is
taken, and the box is visibly marked while it is on.

Branch, fork, node, merge and head appear nowhere a reader can see them. The
branch panel and the tree overlay are gone from the browser. The mechanism is
untouched — takes, divergence, retained futures and Save Points all still work,
and their endpoints are still tested. This is a decision about what a reader is
asked to understand, not a reduction of what the product can do.

The two defects worth the space:

A player action is stored with AI Dungeon's "> You " prefix. That was right when
the Do mode asked for a bare verb phrase. With one field the spec tells the
reader to write "I enter the tavern", and the result was "> You I enter the
tavern." — in the transcript, in the replayed history, and therefore in the
narration, where a small model imitates it and writes "You I thank her". M8's
own design surfaced it, so M8 fixed it: the prefix is added only when the reader
has not already written a subject. The ">" marker, which is what actually
identifies a player turn in the prompt, is unchanged in every case.

And a stale `.input-bar { display: flex }` in play.css overrode the new
composer, because that sheet is imported after the new one. The direction row
and the input row laid out side by side and the box was unusably narrow. Found
by opening the product in a browser, not by reading the CSS — which is the
argument for having done that first.

Failures now have the taxonomy the spec asked for rather than one toast: model,
generation, state, knowledge, server, each with the thing to do about it. A
failed turn leaves the reader's words in the box and says so. The classification
reads backend strings, so it is a fallback ladder rather than a lookup — an
unrecognised message still classifies, still shows the server's own words and
still offers Retry.

`Settings.model` could be empty with nothing saying so until the first turn
failed with a provider error. The header now reports Ollama in five states, and
an unconfigured or missing model offers the models actually installed on the
endpoint, from the connection test that already knew them. Nothing is chosen
automatically: an endpoint's first model may be an embedding model, which cannot
narrate at all.

Narrator prose is rendered as safe Markdown — headings, emphasis, lists,
blockquotes, code. The safety is structural rather than filtered: every node is
a React element built from parsed text, and there is no dangerouslySetInnerHTML
in the file. A sanitizer is not needed to make markup safe if markup is never
produced from input. Link schemes are checked with the URL parser rather than a
pattern, because the bypasses are all in the parsing. A remote image is a
placeholder naming the blocked address; the knowledge and context panels
deliberately do not use this renderer at all, because they exist to show a
reader exactly what is in their file.

Backend, and only what the browser could not otherwise reach:

  AdventureCreate.opening   a start action could only come from a Scenario, so
                            every campaign made in the new setup flow opened on
                            a blank page. Same node, same code path.
  canon_rules               campaign_canon has been the highest authority in a
                            campaign since M5, read by the prompt builder and
                            the state validator, and had no API at all — a
                            fixture had to write it with SQL.
  a 401 and a 429 message   the last user-facing text describing a hosted
                            deployment. One told the reader to check an API key
                            that has not existed since M2.

No schema change and no migration: proved by building a database with a server
running the M7 commit's own code and opening it with this one.

The project had no frontend tests. It has 132 now, across ten files, running
in about six seconds — the enabled state of every history control, the take
selector, the confirmations, the panels, the five model states, the failure
taxonomy, the focus trap, accessibility, and that the reserved dictation control
never touches the microphone. Writing them found a real defect: the focus trap
filtered candidates with offsetParent, which is null inside the fixed-position
ancestor the dialog has and which jsdom never computes — it would have behaved
differently in the tests from the browser.

They do not replace the real-browser runs, and both kinds of evidence are in the
report. The browser suites drive the production build served by the real backend
with a real local narrator, including a genuine process restart.

A verification pass over all of it then found three more, each by driving the
product rather than reading it:

Stepping between alternate takes did nothing. The pager asked whether a take
lived on another line by comparing `target.branch_id !== action.branch_id`, and
`ActionOut` has never carried `branch_id` — so the comparison was permanently
`number !== undefined`, always true, and every step took the branch-switch path.
For two takes of an ordinary retry, which share a line until one is written
below, that meant switching to the line already being read: the same window came
back and nothing moved. D07 is a required v1 acceptance test. The fix needed no
new field — the variants list already carries every attempt's branch and marks
the live one.

The first regression test for that passed against the broken code, because its
fixture gave the action a `branch_id` the real payload never sends. That is the
exact failure M7's review was about, so the fixture was corrected, the tests were
re-run against the reverted code and failed for the right reason, and the
fixture now carries a docstring saying why the field must never come back.

And the knowledge panel pointed readers at an "embedding model" while the
setting is called "Model for meaning-based search" — a reader sent looking for a
field that does not exist by that name.

Campaign canon was measured rather than assumed. Editing it after play is a
configuration change: every turn already played keeps the canon it was actually
given, in its own context snapshot, and the accepted story, the state document
and the state audit log are byte-identical across an edit. It is not routed
through M5's state audit, because canon is not narrative state and doing so
would create the second representation the spec forbids. What the editor does
now is say so, once a campaign has moments.

`BROWSER-UX-SPEC.md` §38 asked for a "Show Hidden Story State" toggle. There is
no hidden story state — a secret lives in a narrator-only knowledge source and
never enters the state document. The section is rewritten to require what it
actually meant: ordinary surfaces must not carry narrator-only information,
advanced inspection must withhold it by default behind an explicit warned
choice, and no second store may be invented to give a toggle something to
reveal. The protection is stricter than before, not weaker.

Closeout. An independent review returned M8 IMPLEMENTATION: PASS subject to
evidence and documentation cleanup, and this commit carries that cleanup:

The report named two frontend bundles as the artifact behind its acceptance
evidence. The saved run logs settle it. index-Ii-lARp9.js, built at 18:53:02
from this tree, is the one final frozen artifact behind all 157 browser checks;
index-C6E5Uvtu.js is superseded — it predates the D09 fix and its acceptance
suite ended 54/55 on exactly that defect. No tracked file under backend/app or
frontend/src has a modification time after the freeze, so the whole final
campaign describes one build. §P sets the two side by side.

Finding 14 — the app budgets 16,384 prompt tokens while an Ollama that sees no
VRAM enforces 4,096 — is resolved operationally, with no application change.
The OpenAI-compatible endpoint this app speaks accepts num_ctx and ignores it,
and reloads the model at its own default, so a native call cannot prime it
either. A model derived with POST /api/create carries the parameter, is honoured
through the app's own OpenAI-compatible path, and appears in /v1/models — which
is the listing the Settings model picker already reads. Measured end to end.
The procedure is in DEVELOPMENT.md; nothing in the repository depends on any
particular derived model existing. Adding provider code to work around this was
declined deliberately: it would mean either a second native request path,
against ADR 011, or a parameter the endpoint provably ignores.

The §38 rewrite is ratified as a requirement clarification aligned with the
implemented architecture, and the spec gains the clause finding 3 was really
about: withheld material must be absent from the rendered DOM, not merely
collapsed in it.

The report's §U carries the M9 handoff — what a portable campaign has to include,
whether historical context snapshots belong in the bundle, what happens to
inherited story cards, and that a restored campaign may meet a different context
window than the one that wrote it. None of it is implemented here.

Final: backend 950 passed / 14 skipped; frontend 132 passed; lint, production
build and Docker build clean; 157 browser checks across six suites, zero
failures. M8 is implemented, verified, reviewed and accepted (2026-09-06).
M9 has not been started.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017HdaXiFbscatQaLS7dJk6b

planning/README.md

@@ -9,9 +9,18 @@ independent review found a real defect and a corrective pass fixed it.
 
 **M7 — First-Class Imported Knowledge Library — is complete** (2026-09-06),
 after an independent review, a corrective pass and a closeout verification. Its
-report keeps all three in sequence: `reports/M7-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md`.
-**Next: M8 — Browser UX Completion for v1 Story Operations.** Its brief has not
-been written yet, and writing it is the current action.
+report keeps all three in sequence, and is now in
+`archive/milestone-reports/M7-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md`.
+
+**M8 — Browser UX Completion for v1 Story Operations — is complete and
+accepted** (2026-09-06), after an independent review and a closeout pass.
+`reports/M8-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md` is the implementer's account and now
+carries the closeout: the build-evidence classification in its §P, finding 14's
+operational resolution, and the acceptance record in its §V. The M8 tree is
+staged and awaits the repository owner's signed commit.
+
+**Next: M9 — Export, Backup, Recovery, and Migration Hardening.** It has not
+been started.
 
 **Package version:** see `VERSION.md`, which records what each revision changed
 and why.
@@ -101,8 +110,9 @@ Two standing qualifications:
 10. `BROWSER-UX-SPEC.md`
 11. `V1-ACCEPTANCE-TESTS.md`
 12. `DECISIONS/` — all of them; they are short.
-13. `reports/M7-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md`, for what the last accepted milestone
-    actually left behind. Nothing in `planning/archive/` unless sent there.
+13. `reports/M8-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md`, for what the most recent milestone
+    actually left behind — reading it as a claim to check, not a record, until
+    it is reviewed. Nothing in `planning/archive/` unless sent there.
 
 ## Architectural decisions
 
@@ -133,15 +143,20 @@ work until Phase 0 closes — which Phase 0 satisfied on 2026-09-01. It is in
 `reports/` holds the report for the milestone most recently completed, because
 that is the one the next milestone's planning has to consult:
 
-- `reports/M7-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md` — M7's independent review, its
-  corrective closeout and its closeout verification, in that order and none
-  overwriting another. It is the longest report in the package because M7 is the
-  milestone whose first implementation was most wrong, and the sequence is the
-  point: what was claimed, what was measured, what that forced.
+- `reports/M8-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md` — the M8 implementation, its baseline
+  UX measurement, and the browser evidence for every acceptance test it claims.
+  Written by the implementer for an independent reviewer, and completed at
+  closeout after that review accepted the milestone: it is a set of claims with
+  the measurements attached **and** the record of the acceptance. Its §U carries
+  the M9 handoff — the four questions the next brief has to decide.
 
-Completed earlier milestones are in `archive/milestone-reports/`, which M6's
-report joined at M7's closeout: a milestone report is useful during the
-immediate next milestone and historical afterwards. M1-M6 are all there,
+  **It stays here until M9's report replaces it.** A milestone report is useful
+  during the immediately following milestone; M8's is not archived merely
+  because M8 is accepted.
+
+Completed earlier milestones are in `archive/milestone-reports/`, which M7's
+report joined when M8's was written: a milestone report is useful during the
+immediate next milestone and historical afterwards. M1-M7 are all there,
 unedited.
 
 ## The decision this package rests on
@@ -258,24 +273,42 @@ Milestone M6                        COMPLETE (2026-09-06)
         |
         v
 Milestone M7                        COMPLETE (2026-09-06)
-  first-class imported knowledge    reports/M7-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md
+  first-class imported knowledge    archive/milestone-reports/M7-*.md
   library                           review + corrective + closeout, in sequence
         |
         v
-M8-M11, one at a time               see BUILD-MILESTONES.md
+Milestone M8                        COMPLETE / ACCEPTED (2026-09-06)
+  browser UX completion for v1      reports/M8-IMPLEMENTATION-REPORT.md
+  story operations                  review + closeout, in sequence
+        |
+        v
+Milestone M9                        NEXT — not started
+  export, backup, recovery,         see BUILD-MILESTONES.md
+  migration hardening
+        |
+        v
+M10-M11, one at a time              see BUILD-MILESTONES.md
 ```
 
 ## Stop Rule
 
 **One milestone at a time. Do not begin a milestone before its brief exists.**
 
-**No M8 brief has been prepared.** Writing one is the current action, informed by
-the M7 report and by the debt `BUILD-MILESTONES.md` records against M7 — in
-particular that the knowledge panel and the Insights knowledge rows are
-functional rather than designed, that a "nothing was relevant enough" result and
-an uncalibrated-embedding-model warning are both surfaced plainly and want a
-considered treatment, and that `BROWSER-UX-SPEC.md` §47's import preview and
-§52's retrieval-usage count are not built.
+**No M9 brief has been prepared.** Writing one is the current action, informed
+by the M8 report and by the debt `BUILD-MILESTONES.md` records against M8 — in
+particular that the campaign bundle still carries no context snapshots, so an
+imported campaign has no historical prompt provenance; that story cards survive
+in the backend and the bundle with no browser surface, and M9 should decide
+deliberately whether the bundle keeps carrying them; and that a deployment whose
+Ollama enforces a small context window truncates an imported long campaign
+immediately unless the `DEVELOPMENT.md` procedure or a matching
+`context_token_budget` is applied.
+
+**M8's own carried debt** is recorded under M8 in `BUILD-MILESTONES.md`: story
+cards have no browser editor, the RPG world state is read-only, copy is
+per-message only, there is no discarded-history recovery screen, and the tablet
+layout is usable but untuned. Each names the milestone that owns it; none is an
+open M8 condition.
 
 The M6 retrieval debt this milestone was warned about is partly addressed and
 partly still open. Imported material does **not** compete with story memory for