2026-02-18 - Built desktop app foundation with safe mode

Timeline

• (Context) Continued from earlier session planning work to move AI Detective from CLI-only output toward a desktop workflow.
• (Action) Added desktop data contracts and record-to-view mapping for session display.
• (Action) Added desktop query layer with filtering, deterministic ordering, limit clamping, and JSON-safe serialization.
• (Action) Implemented launcher helpers, safe-mode policy evaluation, and a Tkinter desktop UI shell with refresh, session details, and launch action.
• (Action) Added CLI desktop command support and connected it to desktop app startup.
• (Observation) Verified new desktop-focused unit and smoke tests, then ran the full package test suite successfully.
• (Open Thread) Identified follow-up hardening opportunities in existing scan/report paths outside the new desktop slice.

Context

• Selected a desktop-app direction and required a performance-safe variant as a first-class mode.
• Worked inside the ai_detective package and aligned new desktop behavior to existing scan/parser outputs.
• Inferred topic taxonomy from current repo context because no dedicated dev-diary schema files were found in this workspace.

Actions

• Added design and implementation planning docs under docs/plans for desktop architecture and phased execution.
• Implemented desktop/models.py and tests to normalize ArtifactRecord into UI-ready session objects.
• Implemented desktop/api.py and tests for query output shape, tool filters, deterministic ordering, truncation behavior, and nested metadata serialization.
• Implemented desktop/launcher.py for terminal launch command construction and spawn wrappers.
• Implemented desktop/safe_mode.py with threshold-based policy plus forced safe mode.
• Implemented desktop/main.py Tkinter shell with refresh controls, safe mode toggle, session list, details pane, and launch action.
• Added desktop package exports in desktop/__init__.py and wired desktop subcommand in __main__.py.
• Added desktop-specific tests: tests/test_desktop_models.py, tests/test_desktop_api.py, tests/test_launcher.py, tests/test_safe_mode.py, and tests/test_desktop_smoke.py.
• Ran full verification for the package test suite and confirmed all tests passed.

Observations

• Desktop capability now exists as a runnable command path while preserving existing CLI scan behavior.
• Safe mode is integrated as a practical operational control (forced/manual path plus threshold evaluation), not only a visual preference.
• Query-layer hardening (ordering, serialization, caps) reduced risk of unstable or heavy desktop rendering.
• Review identified additional non-desktop follow-up opportunities in prior scan/report logic, which are not yet implemented.

Open Threads

• Address known scan/report follow-ups in existing modules (chronological fallback ordering and target-directory matching accuracy).
• Add broader integration coverage around launch execution behavior and desktop UI interactions under larger datasets.
• Decide whether to keep Tkinter as the long-term shell or migrate to a richer desktop frontend while retaining current API contracts.

Boundary Reminder:
Seeds. No maintenance. No roadmap.