Nimbus frontend

Nimbus Frontend Development

Test mocks must model the real store's REPLACEMENT semantics

A mock that mutates state in place where the real store replaces it makes tests silently vacuous. AnalysisPanel.test.ts's setPlots did plots.length = 0; plots.push(...) while the real applyAnalysisPlots builds a new array. Vue short-circuits a computed whose value is unchanged by identity, so analysisPlots never invalidated and every watcher downstream of it silently never re-ran — a new test for plot-removal behavior passed against code that did nothing.

It hid because an existing test appeared to cover removal: its watcher happened to read analysisPopulation, which returns a fresh array each evaluation, so that one re-fired for an unrelated reason.

Rules:

• Mock setters replace (mocks.plots = [...next]), matching the store.
• Booleans and other scalars are the same trap in reverse: an intermediate computed returning an unchanged true stops propagation, so a test that changes only downstream data may never re-run the watcher.
• Before trusting a new watcher test, make it FAIL once (revert the fix, or assert the opposite) — this one passed for the wrong reason first.

Component Patterns

Script Setup (Composition API)

All 121 components use <script setup lang="ts">:

<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref, computed, watch, onMounted } from "vue";
import store from "@/store";

const props = defineProps<{
  value: string;
}>();

const emit = defineEmits<{
  (e: "update:modelValue", value: string): void;
}>();

const localState = ref("");

const computedValue = computed(() => props.value.toUpperCase());

watch(() => props.value, (newVal) => {
  localState.value = newVal;
});

onMounted(() => {
  // lifecycle hook
});
</script>

Store Access

import store from "@/store";
import annotationStore from "@/store/annotation";

// Direct usage in <script setup> — no `this` needed
store.someAction();
annotationStore.filteredAnnotations;

Store modules still use vuex-module-decorators with @Module, @Mutation, and @Action decorators.

For advanced store patterns (routeMapper, form change detection, caching with batch loading): read references/store-module-patterns.md

Driving the AI panel (agent) from the console

To test the Nimbus AI panel (src/store/aiPanel.ts, AiPanel.vue) end-to-end without clicking, dispatch its actions on the live store. Two traps:

• The actions register UNNAMESPACED. vuex-module-decorators puts them in the global action map as sendUserMessage, handleAuthenticatedUserChange, etc. — NOT aiPanel/sendUserMessage. A namespaced dispatch is silently dropped (Vuex warns, resolves a no-op promise, nothing runs). Confirm with store._actions['sendUserMessage'].
• sendUserMessage runs the whole agent loop and only resolves when the turn ends — don't await it if you want to poll progress; fire it and read store.state.aiPanel.items / .running on a timer.

const store = document.querySelector('#app').__vue_app__.config.globalProperties.$store;
store.commit('setAutoApprove', true);              // skip gated-action approval clicks
await store.dispatch('clearConversationAndStorage'); // full reset (memory + IndexedDB)
store.dispatch('sendUserMessage', 'Find the nuclei in this image.'); // fire, don't await

Send exactly once, from a clean/hydrated state. Two sendUserMessages in quick succession start two overlapping runs that both push to the module-level wireMessages, nesting the tool-result blocks (content: [[tool_result,…]]). The next request then fails with Anthropic 400 … messages.N.content.0: Input should be an object. This is not a create/run bug — it's conversation corruption from concurrent turns. (The UI's send() and the sendUserMessage guard both check running, but a stale in-flight run or leftover persisted conversation can still bite; a hard reload + clearConversationAndStorage gives a truly clean slate.) Related: hydrating (module var) blocks sends until a reloaded conversation finishes restoring — a dispatch right after reload can no-op; wait a beat. clearConversation() (no force) no-ops while running; use clearConversationAndStorage.

Agent tool executors live in src/agent/executors.ts (executeAgentTool(name, input, ctx)), importable in the Vite dev page for isolated testing: await import('/src/agent/executors.ts?t=' + Date.now()) (the query-bust avoids a stale module cache). Worker tools save parameters under tool.values.workerInterfaceValues; channelCheckboxes values are {channelIndex: true} maps (a true value selects — key-presence alone does not).

Store Edits Break HMR — Hard-Reload

Editing any src/store/*.ts while pnpm run dev runs corrupts the store: vuex-module-decorators registers getters at import time with no HMR accept handler, so a hot re-import double-registers → [vuex] duplicate getter key cascade and broken state (e.g. annotations stuck at 0). Hard-reload the page after every store-module edit before trusting any in-browser behavior. Component .vue edits HMR fine — prefer putting temporary instrumentation in .vue files.

Actions That Throw Need @Action({ rawError: true })

vuex-module-decorators wraps any error thrown from a bare @Action in a generic Error("ERR_ACTION_ACCESS_UNDEFINED: Are you trying to access this.someMutation()..."), discarding the original message — unless the action is declared @Action({ rawError: true }). This is a library-wide behavior, not specific to one module.

Most actions in this codebase never throw (they log and return null/false on failure), so this rarely bites. It matters the moment an action is designed to throw so a caller can show the real failure reason (e.g. addMultiSourceMetadata throwing a storage-quota message for MultiSourceConfiguration.vue to display). Forgetting rawError: true silently replaces that message with the cryptic wrapper text — tsc/lint/tests all stay green because the action still rejects, just with the wrong message.

// BAD: caller's catch block sees "ERR_ACTION_ACCESS_UNDEFINED: ..." instead
// of the real message
@Action
async doThing() {
  throw new Error("Helpful, specific reason");
}

// GOOD
@Action({ rawError: true })
async doThing() {
  throw new Error("Helpful, specific reason");
}

When writing a test for an action's thrown-error message, expect(...).rejects.toThrow("substring") is not a reliable regression check here: the wrapped error's message embeds the original error's .stack (which starts with "Error: <original message>"), so a substring match can pass even when rawError is missing. Assert the exact .message instead. See src/store/index.test.ts for the pattern (dispatches the real action instead of mocking @/store).

Two traps that let this ship a real bug even after the rule above was documented:

• An action needs the flag if it merely propagates, not only if it contains throw. Awaiting an API call or another action re-throws through your own decorator. createProperty has no throw and still emitted the blob — so a "grep action bodies for throw" audit misses exactly these.
• Errors get re-wrapped at every @Action boundary they cross, across modules. createProperty → setProperties → updateConfigurationProperties → syncConfiguration is four boundaries; one bare @Action anywhere on the path mangles the message. Audit every src/store/*.ts, not just index.ts.

See references/store-module-patterns.md for the audit commands, how to tell which callers actually display the message, and the vitest setup details (accessor getters are non-configurable — set store.state.main.* directly).

One Logical Change → One Config Write

syncConfiguration(key) PUTs the whole key. So a caller that changes three fields by calling a single-field action three times issues three writes of the same key, and a rejection part-way through leaves the shared collection partially updated while reporting failure — the same false-reporting rawError exists to prevent, one level up. Two instances shipped before this was caught (set_scale writing scales up to 3×, update_layer writing layers 2× via changeLayer + saveContrastInConfiguration).

Validate everything first, then write once:

// BAD: validates and persists per field. An invalid tStep leaves pixelSize
// already written — a partial update with no backend failure involved.
if (input.pixelSize) await apply("pixelSize", input.pixelSize);
if (input.tStep) await apply("tStep", input.tStep); // throws on a bad unit

// GOOD: validate all → assign all → one sync
const scales = {};
if (input.pixelSize) scales.pixelSize = validate("pixelSize", input.pixelSize);
if (input.tStep) scales.tStep = validate("tStep", input.tStep);
await main.saveScalesInConfiguration({ scales, throwOnError: true });

Interleaved validation is the easier half to miss: it fails with no backend involvement at all, so it can't be caught by testing backend rejections. When adding a batch action, keep the singular one — the interactive UI edits one field at a time and legitimately wants it (ScaleSettings.vue).

Existing in-codebase idioms for writing once:

• changeLayer({ ..., sync: false }) per item, then a single syncConfiguration({ key: "layers", throwOnError: true }) — see set_layer_visibility.
• A plural action that assigns all entries then syncs once — saveScalesInConfiguration, setViewContrastOverrides.
• An optional delta merged into an existing action's single write — saveContrastInConfiguration({ layerId, contrast, delta }).

Writes to genuinely different resources can't be merged (the configuration vs the dataset view are separate endpoints); say so at the call site rather than leaving it looking like an oversight.

Watching Getters That Rebuild Their Return Object

watch(() => someGetter, cb, { deep: true }) on a getter that returns a new object on every read fires on every dependency touch — including dependencies the getter reads but that don't change the output (deep: true skips the value comparison entirely). This shipped a real bug: a deep watch on currentFilters cleared the selection on every Z-scrub because the getter read z unconditionally. tsc/lint/reasoning all passed; only the live app caught it.

// BAD: fires on every dependency touch
watch(() => annotationListServer.currentFilters, cb, { deep: true });

// GOOD: fires only when content genuinely changes; stringify's traversal
// still registers the nested reactive deps
watch(() => JSON.stringify(annotationListServer.currentFilters), cb);

Watch out for stringify cost on large objects.

This bug recurs even after being fixed once nearby — grep for it. A second, separate watch([...9 getters...], cb, { deep: true }) in the same file (AnnotationList.vue's "server-mode reactive refetch" block, a few lines below the currentFilters watch above) had the identical bug, confirmed via live instrumentation firing every 30-80ms with zero of the 9 tracked values actually changing. Each spurious firing called setOptions({ page: 1 }), silently resetting the server-paginated annotation list's page after every click-to-row navigation — while the rows stayed correct (the accompanying debounced refetch never settled long enough to fire), so only the page number/footer/Index column were wrong. This looked exactly like "clicking an annotation goes to the wrong spot in the list," and a plausible-looking VDataTableServer update:options stale-echo race was chased first as the cause (it even reproduced once) before instrumenting the watcher itself proved it was actually firing with no real change. When you find and fix one instance of this pattern, grep -n "deep:\s*true" src for siblings in the same or related files before considering it fixed — a documented fix comment next to one watcher does not protect a copy-pasted watcher elsewhere.

Not every { deep: true } is this bug — it only applies when the watched source is a getter function that rebuilds a fresh object/array on each call (a Vuex/Pinia getter, a computed, or a plain function reading store state). A ref()/reactive() passed directly as the watch source (not wrapped in a function) is the correct, safe use of deep: true — Vue tracks its stable identity and only fires on genuine in-place mutations. Don't blanket-remove deep: true without checking which case you're in.

Every throttle/debounce needs a cancel() in onBeforeUnmount

A trailing call that fires after teardown runs against a dead view — in AnnotationViewer.vue that means layer.annotations() / layer.draw() on a torn-down GeoJS map, or a store write from a component that no longer exists. The teardown block already cancels them; the failure mode is forgetting to add the new one, which nothing catches because the component unmounts fine and the trailing call usually lands harmlessly.

Guard it with a test that records the throttles at construction — the version that listed them by name stayed green while two uncancelled ones shipped, and a version that scanned wrapper.vm only moved the hand-maintained list to defineExpose (an unexposed throttle stays invisible there):

// top of the test file — delegates to real lodash, so timing is unchanged
const createdThrottles = vi.hoisted(() => [] as any[]);
vi.mock("lodash", async (importOriginal) => {
  const actual = await importOriginal<typeof import("lodash")>();
  const record = (w: any) => { createdThrottles.push(w); return w; };
  return { ...actual,
    throttle: (...a: any[]) => record((actual.throttle as any)(...a)),
    debounce: (...a: any[]) => record((actual.debounce as any)(...a)) };
});

// in the test
createdThrottles.length = 0;
wrapper = mountComponent();
expect(createdThrottles.length).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(7);  // recording can break too
const named = createdThrottles.map((fn, i) => [
  Object.keys(vm).find((k) => vm[k] === fn) ?? `unexposed#${i}`,
  vi.spyOn(fn, "cancel"),
] as const);
wrapper.unmount();
expect(named.filter(([, s]) => !s.mock.calls.length).map(([n]) => n)).toEqual([]);

<script setup> bodies run per instance, so setup-scope throttles are created during mount and land in the recording. One residual gap: a wrapper built lazily inside a handler isn't recorded until that handler runs.

Vuetify 4 Patterns

CSS Cascade Layers

Vuetify 4 wraps all styles in CSS @layer declarations. Custom styles (outside layers) automatically win over Vuetify's defaults — no specificity wars.

Key implications:

• Most !important overrides for Vuetify are unnecessary — remove them
• :deep() selectors targeting Vuetify internals "just work" without specificity tricks
• Exception: @girder/components bundles Vuetify 3 CSS (un-layered), so !important IS still needed when overriding Girder component styles

Light/Dark Mode Theming

// In <script setup>
import { useTheme } from "vuetify";
const theme = useTheme();
const isDark = computed(() => theme.current.value.dark);

<!-- In templates -->
<div :class="{
  'v-theme--light': !$vuetify.theme.current.dark,
  'v-theme--dark': $vuetify.theme.current.dark
}">

Theme config in src/plugins/vuetify.ts:

defaultTheme: Persister.get("theme", "dark") === "dark" ? "dark" : "light",

Vuetify 4 changed the default theme from "light" to "system". Our config sets it explicitly.

Theme-Aware Styling

Option 1: Vuetify Components (preferred) — auto-inherit theme.

Option 2: Theme classes in SCSS

.v-theme--dark & {
  background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05);
}
.v-theme--light & {
  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05);
}

Option 3: CSS Variables

.my-element {
  color: rgb(var(--v-theme-primary));
  background: rgb(var(--v-theme-surface));
}

Select/Combobox Slot Items (No .raw Wrapper)

Vuetify 4 removed the .raw wrapper from select slot items. Items are passed directly. This applies to ALL slot types: #item, #chip, and #selection.

Object items — access properties directly:

<!-- Vuetify 4: access properties directly on object items -->
<v-select :items="items" item-title="displayName">
  <template v-slot:item="{ item, props: itemProps }">
    <v-list-item v-bind="itemProps">
      <template #title>{{ item.displayName }}</template>
      <template #subtitle>{{ item.description }}</template>
    </v-list-item>
  </template>
</v-select>

String items — item IS the string, not a wrapped object. Do NOT use item.title:

<!-- BAD: item.title is undefined on a string — renders empty chips -->
<v-combobox :items="tagList" chips multiple>
  <template v-slot:chip="{ item, props: chipProps }">
    <v-chip v-bind="chipProps">{{ item.title }}</v-chip>  <!-- WRONG -->
  </template>
</v-combobox>

<!-- GOOD: use item directly for string items -->
<v-combobox :items="tagList" chips multiple>
  <template v-slot:chip="{ item, props: chipProps }">
    <v-chip v-bind="chipProps">{{ item }}</v-chip>  <!-- CORRECT -->
  </template>
</v-combobox>

The #item slot name did NOT change (contrary to some sources claiming rename to #internalItem).

v-select shows [object Object] — set item-title to match the item key

Vuetify's VSelect defaults to item-title="title" and item-value="value". If your items are objects keyed differently, the selected display renders the raw object as [object Object] (selection still works because item-value happens to match).

This bit the tool-creation form: every select interface element in public/config/templates.json uses { text, value } items, but the generic VSelect in ToolConfigurationItem.vue set no item-title, so every non-submenu select in the Add-tool dialog rendered [object Object]. Fix: pass item-title="text" (the app's convention) for select elements.

<!-- BAD: items are { text, value } but VSelect looks for `.title` -->
<v-select :items="[{ text: 'Point prompts', value: 'point' }]" />  <!-- [object Object] -->

<!-- GOOD -->
<v-select :items="items" item-title="text" item-value="value" />

When you add a non-submenu select to a tool template, or render options in a v-select, always confirm item-title matches the item objects' label key.

Don't v-model a computed that reads a non-reactive pipeline node

ComputeNode.output / ManualInputNode.output (in src/pipelines/computePipeline.ts) is a plain field, not a Vue ref (pipeline nodes are markRaw'd for perf). A computed whose getter reads node.output registers no reactive dependency, so it never re-evaluates when the node's value changes. Bind a control's v-model to such a computed and the control snaps back to its stale value on the next render — e.g. a dropdown that "looks selected" but always displays the old option, or a slider that jumps back.

// BAD: getter reads node.output (non-reactive) → v-model display reverts
const promptMode = computed({
  get: () => promptModeNode.value?.output ?? "point",
  set: (v) => promptModeNode.value?.setValue(v),
});

// GOOD: a reactive ref is the UI source of truth; push into the node on change,
// and seed the ref from config/state on mount + when the tool state changes.
const promptMode = ref<TPromptMode>("point");
watch(promptMode, (v) => segState.value?.nodes.input.promptMode.setValue(v));

Reactive state fields (from reactive(...) in the tool-state factory) are fine to read in computeds — only raw markRaw'd node .output reads are the trap.

VRow Density — and dense everywhere else

On <v-row>, the boolean dense prop is deprecated. Use density="comfortable":

<v-row density="comfortable" align="center">

The substitution is visually identical — VRow maps density === 'comfortable' || dense to the same v-row--density-comfortable class, so dense still works and the only symptom is [Vuetify UPGRADE] 'dense' is deprecated in the console. Don't trust Vuetify's own JSDoc here: makeVRowProps says @deprecated use density="compact" while the runtime warning and the class mapping both say comfortable. comfortable is the behaviour-preserving one.

The warning is one-shot per mounted row, not per render. deprecate() is called from VRow.setup(), so re-rendering or updating an existing row never repeats it — which is exactly why you cannot "re-trigger" it by toggling the UI that contains it, and why it is usually already gone by the time you attach a console listener. See the in-browser-testing skill for the capture order this forces.

VRow is the only component that warns. deprecate('dense', …) is called in exactly one place in Vuetify 4 (VRow.setup()). So a dense on anything else is silent — and dead: VCard, VListSubheader, and our own tag-picker / docker-image-select / property-worker-menu declare no dense prop, so Vue passes it through to the root element as a stray DOM attribute that styles nothing.

Delete those; don't convert them. VListSubheader has no density prop either, so a swap is just a different dead attribute. VCard does have one, so a swap there newly tightens title/subtitle/text padding — an unrequested visual change. This is the trap in a scripted sweep: a regex that rewrites dense → density="comfortable" on every tag it matches is wrong on most of them, and a regex restricted to <v-[a-z-]+ misses the custom-component instances entirely (they need the opposite treatment, so they can't just be ignored).

src/vuetifyDeprecations.test.ts scans every .vue template for a boolean dense on any tag and fails the build, so this can't silently come back. Extend that test rather than hand-grepping when auditing a new Vuetify deprecation.

v-menu / v-dialog Initial State

Vuetify 4's v-menu respects the initial v-model value immediately on mount. Vuetify 3 deferred it. If you set v-model to true before mount, the menu WILL open. Guard with conditions:

// Only auto-open when appropriate
menuOpen.value = route.name === "root" && !store.isLoggedIn;

Global Defaults

Configured in src/plugins/vuetify.ts. Vuetify 4's default density is tighter than V3. We set density: "comfortable" for list/checkbox components to maintain V3 spacing (needed for @girder/components compatibility):

defaults: {
  VList: { density: "comfortable" },
  VListItem: { density: "comfortable" },
  VCheckbox: { color: "primary", density: "comfortable" },
  VCheckboxBtn: { density: "comfortable" },
}

@girder/components Compatibility

@girder/[email protected] depends on vuetify: ^3.10.1 — no Vuetify 4-compatible version exists yet. Key issues:

• Girder bundles ~6.9MB of Vuetify 3 CSS (un-layered), which competes with Vuetify 4 layered CSS
• !important is still needed when overriding Girder component styles
• CustomFileManager.vue has targeted CSS overrides for the file manager table layout
• See codebaseDocumentation/VUETIFY4_MIGRATION.md for full details

GirderFileManager Prop Names

GirderFileManager (from @girder/components) uses Vuetify 3 prop naming, not Vuetify 4. Key props:

• itemsPerPage (kebab: items-per-page) — sets default page size. NOT initialItemsPerPage.
• itemsPerPageOptions (kebab: items-per-page-options) — array of page size choices.

These props are defined in node_modules/@girder/components/src/components/FileManager.vue. If you use a wrong prop name, it silently falls through as an unrecognized attribute and the component uses its internal default (10).

Overriding Girder DataTable Row Styles

Girder's DataTable.vue renders a v-data-table-server with <tr> > <td> rows. The DOM structure is:

<tr class="v-data-table__tr">
  <td class="...">checkbox</td>
  <td>icon + #row slot content</td>
  <td class="text-right">file size</td>
</tr>

To override row styles from a parent component:

• Use unscoped <style> blocks (scoped styles can't reach into Girder internals)
• Target table tr and table tr td — these cover both raw elements and Vuetify class selectors (.v-data-table__tr, .v-data-table__td) since they're the same DOM nodes. No need to duplicate selectors for both.
• !important is required because Girder's bundled Vuetify 3 CSS is un-layered
• Scope overrides with a parent wrapper class (e.g., .browse-expanded .custom-file-manager-wrapper) to avoid leaking globally

Persisting User Preferences with Persister

For UI preferences that should survive page reloads (expand/collapse states, view modes, etc.), use Persister from @/store/Persister:

import Persister from "@/store/Persister";

// Read with default
const expanded = ref(Persister.get("myPreferenceKey", false));

// Write on change
function toggle() {
  expanded.value = !expanded.value;
  Persister.set("myPreferenceKey", expanded.value);
}

Persister wraps localStorage with JSON serialization. It's already used for theme, tour status, and browse mode preferences.

Dialogs

<v-dialog v-model="dialogOpen" max-width="600px">
  <v-card>
    <v-card-title>Title</v-card-title>
    <v-card-text>Content</v-card-text>
    <v-card-actions>
      <v-spacer />
      <v-btn @click="dialogOpen = false">Close</v-btn>
    </v-card-actions>
  </v-card>
</v-dialog>

Wide dialogs: class="wide-dialog" when using percentage or vw widths

Vuetify ships .v-dialog { width: 50% } on the outer overlay wrapper. The width / max-width props on <v-dialog> only size the inner .v-overlay__content — so width="60%" actually renders at 60% of that 50% box (= 30% of viewport), and width="70vw" is silently clamped to 50vw.

Whenever a dialog needs a percentage or vw width, opt in with class="wide-dialog". The shared rule lives in src/style.scss (look for .wide-dialog.v-dialog { width: auto }) and lets the prop size against the viewport directly.

<!-- Bad: width prop silently shrinks to 30% of viewport -->
<v-dialog v-model="open" width="60%">…</v-dialog>

<!-- Good: class lets the 60% prop apply to the viewport -->
<v-dialog v-model="open" width="60%" class="wide-dialog">…</v-dialog>

When not to add the class:

• max-width in pixels (e.g. max-width="500px") — works correctly without the class on any reasonable screen.
• max-width="33vw" and similar — vw max-widths smaller than 50vw fit inside the default wrapper, so the class is unnecessary.
• Dialogs with no width prop — they rely on the implicit 50% wrapper as a sane default; adding the class would let them shrink to content width, which is usually not what's wanted for confirmation-style dialogs.

If you see a dialog with a width="N%" or width="Nvw" prop and no wide-dialog class, it's almost certainly rendering narrower than intended — add the class.

API Calls

Use the API classes from store — never put girderRest.get(...) in components:

import store from "@/store";
const result = await store.api.someMethod();

Logging

Never use console.log, console.warn, or console.error — eslint will reject them.

import { logWarning, logError } from "@/utils/log";

logWarning("Something unexpected happened");
logError("An error occurred", error);

Error Reporting (Sentry)

@sentry/vue is wired in src/main.ts, gated on VITE_SENTRY_DSN at build time. When the DSN is unset, no Sentry code is loaded — local installs and OSS users pay zero runtime cost. Uncaught Vue errors and async exceptions (window.onerror/unhandledrejection) are reported automatically via the Vue integration installed at init; you don't need to wrap component code in try/catch just to report errors.

To capture an error or message manually from a component, dynamic-import the package so the no-DSN path stays free of any Sentry reference:

if (import.meta.env.VITE_SENTRY_DSN) {
  const Sentry = await import("@sentry/vue");
  Sentry.captureException(err, { tags: { feature: "my-feature" } });
}

In practice almost no component should need this — let the global handler do its job. Local testing: see CLAUDE.md § "Error Reporting (Sentry)" for .env.local setup and the setTimeout test recipe.

Buttons — five-role taxonomy

Every <v-btn> should declare an explicit variant and size. Omitting them falls back to Vuetify's elevated default at default size, which looks generic and out of place against the Linear-inspired theme.

Role	Props	Use
Primary	variant="flat" color="primary" size="small"	The one main action of a view or dialog
Primary positive	variant="flat" color="success" size="small"	View / Go / Start CTAs
Secondary	variant="outlined" color="primary" size="small"	Supporting actions
Tertiary / text	variant="text" size="small"	Cancel, low-emphasis, inline
Destructive (confirmed)	variant="flat" color="error" size="small"	The irreversible button in a confirm dialog
Destructive (inline)	variant="text" color="error" size="small"	The trigger that opens a confirm dialog (use mdi-delete, not mdi-close)
Informational	variant="text" color="info" size="small"	View log / inspect detail / open help — actions that read rather than mutate
Icon-only	variant="text" icon size="small"	Toolbar / row actions; wrap in v-tooltip if ambiguous

Color tokens — never use literals. Use error/success/warning/secondary, not red/green/orange/grey. Semantic tokens are theme-aware.

Dialog action bar pattern:

<v-card-actions class="button-bar">
  <v-btn variant="text" size="small" @click="close">Cancel</v-btn>
  <v-btn variant="flat" color="primary" size="small" @click="save">Save</v-btn>
</v-card-actions>

Never two filled buttons. For destructive confirms, swap color="primary" → color="error" on the right button.

:to vs @click: a v-btn with :to renders as <a>, one with @click renders as <button>. src/style.scss makes form elements inherit font-family so they match; for groups of buttons that must look identical, use the same action type across all of them so they share the underlying tag.

Full guide: codebaseDocumentation/BUTTON_CONVENTIONS.md

Loading state

<v-btn
  variant="flat"
  color="primary"
  size="small"
  :loading="isLoading"
  :disabled="isLoading"
  @click="doAction"
>
  <template v-slot:loader>
    <v-progress-circular indeterminate size="18" width="2" class="mr-2" />
    Loading...
  </template>
  <v-icon start>mdi-check</v-icon>
  Submit
</v-btn>

Memory Diagnostics

window.__nimbusMem is registered globally for browser-console memory monitoring (zero overhead unless enabled via __nimbusMem.enable()). Useful when investigating memory leaks, comparing memory pressure across changes, or sanity-checking a new cache.

Quick API: __nimbusMem.enable(), snapshot('label'), print(), compare('a','b'), export().

For the full API, recorded fields, the load-order constraint (don't import stores at top level — register from main.ts), instructions for adding new counters or auto-snapshot points, and the cherry-pick procedure for cross-branch comparison: read codebaseDocumentation/MEMORY_DEBUGGING.md.

ONNX / SAM Pipeline (src/pipelines/onnxModels.ts, samPipeline.ts)

The SAM tools run ONNX models (onnxruntime-web, WebGPU) whose WASM loaders and model files are fetched from /onnx-wasm/ and /onnx-models/. Three failure modes here have bitten us in production only — they pass locally because the Vite dev server serves assets instantly and with correct MIME types.

• .mjs served as text/plain (prod nginx). Modern onnxruntime-web dynamically import()s .mjs WASM loaders (e.g. ort-wasm-simd-threaded.asyncify.mjs) from env.wasm.wasmPaths. Production static files are served by nginx in the AWSDeploy repo (templates/startup_haproxy.tftpl), which uses stock include mime.types;. Stock mime.types maps .js but not .mjs, so .mjs falls through to text/plain and the browser refuses the ES-module import ("Expected a JavaScript-or-Wasm module script but the server responded with a MIME type of text/plain"). .wasm is unaffected (it is in stock mime.types as application/wasm), which is why pre-.mjs versions never hit this. Fix lives in AWSDeploy (types { text/javascript mjs; }), not in this repo — don't add a frontend workaround. Also: env.wasm.wasmPaths must be root-absolute (/onnx-wasm/), or the loader specifier resolves against the current SPA route path.

• Concurrent session creation → multiple calls to 'initWasm()' detected. onnxruntime-web initializes its shared WASM/WebGPU backend lazily on the first InferenceSession.create(), and that init is not reentrant. The SAM pipeline creates the encoder (samPipeline.ts createEncoderSession) and decoder (createDecoderSession) sessions from two independent ComputeNodes that fire on the same tick, so both creates race the backend init. The window is sub-millisecond locally (loaders served instantly) but wide in prod (each is a network fetch), so it fails deterministically only when deployed. createOnnxInferenceSession serializes the create() step through a module-level promise chain so the backend initializes exactly once — keep it that way. Model downloads stay parallel; only create() is gated. (Pipeline-node compute errors log this.fun.name, which is minified in prod — [f2n]/[p2n] are the mangled session-creation functions, not meaningful names.)

• HTML-shell cache poisoning. A missing model path is answered with the index.html app shell at HTTP 200 (SPA fallback); caching that permanently breaks the tool ("Failed to load model because protobuf parsing failed", INVALID_PROTOBUF). fetchModelBuffer/warmModelCache detect it (content-type + first byte 0x3c <) and self-heal by dropping the poisoned cache entry.

General promise pattern (Codex P2, PR #1237): when you start an async op eagerly but defer its consumer behind a chain — chain.then(() => started.then(...)) — the started promise can reject before any handler is attached, which the runtime reports as an unhandled rejection (noise in the console and in Sentry) even though a later handler eventually catches it. Settle it into a non-rejecting result the instant it starts, then re-throw inside the chain:

const settled = started.then(
  (value) => ({ ok: true as const, value }),
  (error) => ({ ok: false as const, error }),
);
const gated = chain.then(() =>
  settled.then((r) => {
    if (!r.ok) throw r.error;
    return use(r.value);
  }),
);

Native File / Folder Pickers (src/utils/fileUpload.ts)

Folder upload (picker button + drag-and-drop) is centralized in src/utils/fileUpload.ts: selectFiles(), selectFilesFromFolder(), getFilesFromDrop(event), and filterFilesByAccept(files, accept). Extraction is delegated to the file-selector library (recurses into dropped folders, normalizes <input> change events). Two traps here each shipped as a silent "pick a folder and nothing happens":

• Never use a window-focus timeout to detect dialog cancellation. The detached-<input> trick (document.createElement('input'); input.click()) needs to know when the dialog closes. A tempting fallback is "when the window regains focus, wait Nms; if no change fired, treat as cancel." This loses a race for webkitdirectory folder picks: Chrome interposes an "Upload N files to this site?" confirmation, and input.files isn't populated (no change) until the user accepts it — often seconds after the window already refocused when the OS dialog closed. The focus-timeout fires in that gap and resolves with an empty selection, discarding the real folder (measured live: focus at +4.5s, timeout resolves [] at +5.0s, real change ignored at +7.0s). Regular single-file picks have no confirmation dialog, so change wins the race there — which is why the bug looks like "only folders are broken." No focus heuristic can ever work for folders because focus returns before the files are known. Rely on the standardized cancel event (dismissal) + change (selection); both are supported in every browser we target (Chrome 113+, Firefox 91+, Safari 16.4+), so no fallback is needed.

• A picker promise that never resolves is indistinguishable from "nothing happened." file-selector's fromEvent can reject (an unreadable directory entry, a getAsFileSystemHandle failure). If the await fromEvent(...) inside the picker's settle handler throws after the settled guard is set, resolve() is never called and every await selectFilesFromFolder() hangs forever; on the drop path it surfaces as an unhandled rejection. Wrap extraction in try/catch → logError(...) + resolve/return [] so an error degrades to "no selection."

• accept filtering is caller-applied for folder/DnD only. The native <input :accept> is enforced by the browser for click-to-select, but folder selection and drag-and-drop bypass it entirely — that's why filterFilesByAccept exists and is called on those two paths (not on the native onChange). Caveat: folder/DnD files frequently have an empty file.type (browsers assign no MIME to .tif/.nd2/.czi), so prefer extension tokens (.tif,.nd2) over MIME tokens (image/*) in any accept you pass — a MIME token silently drops empty-type files.

Style Guidelines

• Use scoped SCSS: <style lang="scss" scoped>
• Prefer Vuetify components over custom HTML
• !important is rarely needed thanks to CSS Cascade Layers — only use for overriding @girder/components or non-Vuetify third-party styles
• Keep custom colors as SCSS variables at the top of style blocks

Verification Gates

Before claiming a frontend change done:

1. pnpm tsc — type check
2. pnpm lint:ci — zero warnings
3. pnpm test — vitest. Known artifact: after a backend tox run, ~10 test FILES under .tox/** fail ("Failed to resolve import @playwright/test") — vitest's glob picks up girder's bundled specs. These are spurious; only failures outside .tox/ paths are real. CI is unaffected (clean checkout).
4. In-browser verification for anything user-facing — tsc/lint/vitest green does not mean the UI works (pointer-events, layering, watcher-firing, and store-corruption bugs all passed every static gate). See the in-browser-testing skill; remember to hard-reload after store edits.

Component-level test patterns (AnnotationViewer harness, GeoJS mocks): see the nimbus-geojs skill and codebaseDocumentation/FRONTEND_COMPONENT_TESTING.md.

A mock that cannot represent the bug makes its tests meaningless

Worse than a mock returning the wrong constant is a mock that models none of the real action's effect. addAnalysisPlot was a bare vi.fn(), so mockFilters.analysisPlots stayed empty no matter what the code under test did. Nine tests passed against it — and none of them could observe whether the executor's plot had actually landed, which is precisely the state the bug produced (the store refuses at its cap by no-oping, and the executor went on to configure and report a plot that did not exist).

The rule: a mocked action must reproduce the state change its caller depends on, including its refusal behaviour. If the real action appends, the mock appends; if the real one silently no-ops past a cap, the mock does too. When a test needs extra side effects on top, factor the default into a helper and call it, rather than replacing the implementation and silently dropping the effect the code under test is checking for:

function appendAnalysisPlot(id: string) { /* what the real action does */ }
beforeEach(() => { mock.addAnalysisPlot.mockImplementation(appendAnalysisPlot); });
// A test layering extra behaviour composes rather than replaces:
mock.addAnalysisPlot.mockImplementation((id) => { appendAnalysisPlot(id); ...extra... });

Also reset such state in every describe's beforeEach, not just the first — a test that flips a cap flag or swaps an API stub mid-await leaks it into every later block.

A mock that returns a fixed value can fail your test for the wrong reason

Shared mocks in this repo return constants chosen for the tests that existed when they were written, and a new test inherits them silently. The failure looks like a bug in the code under test, not in the harness.

• geojs.util.distance2dToLineSquared returns 100 and pointInPolygon returns false in AnnotationViewer.test.ts. Any line hit test compares against a squared tolerance (36 for the 6 px connection tolerance), so it can never match until the test sets mockReturnValue(1).
• mockGeoJSAnnotation doesn't derive coordinates() from the vertices option, so a feature built by the real draw path has correct options() and no usable geometry.
• geojsAnnotationFactory drops its options argument unless you re-forward it — assertions on a feature's constructed style see undefined.

Before concluding "the code doesn't work", check what the relevant mock actually returns. Equally: when a component test needs a component to do something, prefer asserting the side effect the component owns over re-deriving geometry through the mock.

Unmount components that register global listeners. A wrapper left mounted by an earlier test keeps its window listener attached, so the next test's dispatch fires it too and a spy is called twice. Track the wrapper and unmount it in afterEach. If you see "expected 1 call, got 2", suspect a leaked mount before suspecting the code — and then ask whether the product can also mount that component more than once, because that is the same bug in production.

Codebase Documentation References

• Vuetify 4 migration details: read codebaseDocumentation/VUETIFY4_MIGRATION.md
• Button taxonomy and patterns: read codebaseDocumentation/BUTTON_CONVENTIONS.md
• When working on batch processing: read references/batch-processing-patterns.md
• When working on projects feature: read codebaseDocumentation/PROJECTS.md
• When working on sharing UI: read codebaseDocumentation/SHARING.md
• When working on annotation combining: read codebaseDocumentation/COMBINE_ANNOTATIONS.md