Composer placement and message order change-request

Version. 0.2 Date. 2026-06-02 Author. Claude (amendment), under Operator (Marvin Percival) direction. Repository. DUNIN7/loomworks (Operator Layer frontend). Amends. composer-placement-and-message-order-change-request-v0_1.md (2026-05-19), which remains in force in full except for the single decision amended below. v0.1 is preserved unchanged.

Scope of this amendment

v0.2 amends exactly one decision from v0.1 — the activity-ribbon placement in §C.2 — to make the specification agree with the shipped code. Everything else in v0.1 (composer-at-top reshape §C.2 body, message-order setting §A/§B, auto-expand §C.3, tests §C.5, methodology §G, etc.) stands unchanged.

The change has shipped; v0.1's text no longer described the code. This amendment closes that gap and records the trajectory (header placement chosen first, then moved) per the corrections-not-smoothed discipline.

Seed check (gating). The current Loomworks seed — highest is candidate-seeds/loomworks/loomworks-candidate-seed-v0_9.md — is silent on activity-ribbon / activity-observability placement. Per the seed's own governance rule ("the seed names the commitments; the specification names the detail; when the seed is silent on a topic the specification covers, the specification governs"), ribbon placement is a specification/CR-level concern. This is therefore a CR amendment, not a seed-level change.

§C.2 — Activity-ribbon placement (AMENDED)

Superseded prior decision (v0.1) — retained, not deleted

> ~~The composer renders at the top of the center area, just below the conversation header (title + metadata line + activity ribbon).~~ (v0.1 §C.2, line 163 — the parenthetical placing the ribbon in the header) > > ~~The activity ribbon stays in the conversation header in both modes — its position is independent of the composer/conversation order.~~ (v0.1 §C.2, line 177)

This header placement was the position v0.1 specified, and it was the placement a prior build deliberately realigned to (engine §F was mis-cited earlier; the authoritative stub spec is the in-engagement-surface-fill-in CR). It is superseded by the decision below.

New decision (v0.2)

The activity ribbon is anchored to the TOP OF THE TRANSCRIPT region, not the conversation header. Specifically:

• The ribbon renders only when there is active drafting/production work (Phase 33 activity-summary: shaping.running > 0 || rendering.running > 0); idle leaves nothing in the DOM (zero footprint).
• It is an out-of-flow overlay anchored to the top of the transcript region (a position:relative wrapper around the scrolling conversation), floating over the low-information date-divider area. Its placement is independent of the composer/conversation order (composer is always at the top of the flow per the rest of §C.2).
• The composer is kept fully clear in both idle and active states — the ribbon never overlaps the message input or Send.
• Out-of-flow positioning (position/top/left/right/min-height) is set via inline style, not the Tailwind absolute utility, so the no-shift property does not depend on Tailwind emitting that class.

Why the change was made (trajectory)

1. Header placement (v0.1, realigned to first). The ribbon was placed in the conversation header, pinned to the header's bottom edge (top:100%). In the active state this dropped the ribbon onto the composer, visually covering the message input and Send button — the input the Operator is about to use. (pointer-events:none kept the controls clickable, but they were visually obscured.) Confirmed in the rendered browser.
2. Move to transcript-top. Anchoring the ribbon to the top of the transcript region, over the low-information date-divider area, clears the composer entirely while still surfacing the "drafting in progress" indicator prominently.

Rejected alternatives (and why)

• Centered over the composer. Still covers the message input — same defect as header placement. Set aside.
• Bottom-pinned (bottom of the transcript/pane). Covers active transcript content the Operator is reading at the bottom; the date-divider top is lower-information and a better thing to overlay. Set aside.
• Reserved (non-overlay) band, content scrolling below the ribbon. Would give zero content-overlap at every scroll position, but trades off the out-of-flow overlay character (introduces a permanent reserved zone / footprint) and complicates the no-shift guarantee. Set aside in favour of the out-of-flow overlay; revisit only if unbounded multi-line without truncation is required (see consequences).

Consequences locked in

• Out of flow / no layout shift. Showing or hiding the ribbon does not move the composer, the transcript, or the date dividers. Verified by rendered-geometry measurement (transcript top identical idle vs active) and a Playwright guard.
• 2-line clamp with ellipsis. The ribbon message is clamped to 2 lines; longer messages truncate with an ellipsis. This bounds the bar's height so its bottom edge always lands in the divider→turn gap and never bisects a transcript turn (the "bleed" failure mode at 3+ wrapped lines). Accepted trade-off: messages beyond ~2 lines (~150 chars; the mockup example is one line) are truncated. Unbounded multi-line without truncation would require the rejected reserved-band approach.
• Composer always clear regardless of ribbon height (the bar grows downward into the transcript, never up toward the composer).
• Deferred (unchanged from prior intent): the ribbon's text + elapsed-timer are still STUBBED ("Drafting your scoping note… · 0:42") pending the activity-ribbon real-data ship (which will read the same Phase 33 source).

Guard tests (shipped with the change)

• tests/components/operator/InEngagementSkeleton.test.tsx — structural: ribbon lives in the transcript region (center-pane-transcript-region), not the header; absent when idle; out-of-flow via inline style.
• tests/e2e/activity-ribbon-no-shift.spec.ts — Playwright (real CSS/geometry): asserts position:absolute, zero transcript shift on toggle, composer-clear, and that the 2-line clamp bounds the bar height under a very long message.

Implementing commits (DUNIN7/loomworks)

• 66e2573 — header-anchored overlay (the realignment to v0.1's header placement; the placement this amendment supersedes).
• d5a6f37 — re-anchor to the transcript-top region + 2-line clamp (the v0.2 decision).
• f1d8fd1 — merge of the re-anchor into main.

(Prior related: d815555 engine-§F comment citation fix; 01c3b77 idle gate.)

Document trailer

This amendment records spec/code agreement for the activity-ribbon placement only. v0.1 governs all other decisions. Filed in loomworks-record/change-requests/. NB: v0.1 currently resides only in ~/Downloads and should be landed alongside this file so the superseded and current decisions live together in the record.