Overhaul the Dench web app with a comprehensive visual redesign and several
major feature additions across the chat interface, workspace, and agent
runtime layer.
Theme & Design System
- Replace the dark-only palette with a full light/dark theme system that
respects system preference via localStorage + inline script (no FOUC).
- Introduce new design tokens: glassmorphism surfaces, semantic colors
(success/warning/error/info), object-type chip palettes, and a tiered
shadow scale (sm/md/lg/xl).
- Add Instrument Serif + Inter via Google Fonts for a refined typographic
hierarchy; headings use the serif face, body uses Inter.
- Rebrand UI from "Ironclaw" to "Dench" across the landing page and
metadata.
Chat & Chain-of-Thought
- Rewrite the chain-of-thought component with inline media detection and
rendering — images, video, audio, and PDFs referenced in agent output
are now displayed directly in the conversation thread.
- Add status indicator parts (e.g. "Preparing response...",
"Optimizing session context...") that render as subtle activity badges
instead of verbose reasoning blocks.
- Integrate react-markdown with remark-gfm for proper markdown rendering
in assistant messages (tables, strikethrough, autolinks, etc.).
- Improve report-block splitting and lazy-loaded ReportCard rendering.
Workspace
- Introduce @tanstack/react-table for the object table, replacing the
hand-rolled table with full column sorting, fuzzy filtering via
match-sorter-utils, row selection, and bulk actions.
- Add a new media viewer component for in-workspace image/video/PDF
preview.
- New API routes: bulk-delete entries, field management (CRUD + reorder),
raw-file serving endpoint for media assets.
- Redesign workspace sidebar, empty state, and entry detail modal with
the new theme tokens and improved layout.
Agent Runtime
- Switch web agent execution from --local to gateway-routed mode so
concurrent chat threads share the gateway's lane-based concurrency
system, eliminating cross-process file-lock contention.
- Advertise "tool-events" capability during WebSocket handshake so the
gateway streams tool start/update/result events to the UI.
- Add new agent callback hooks: onLifecycleStart, onCompactionStart/End,
and onToolUpdate for richer real-time feedback.
- Forward media URLs emitted by agent events into the chat stream.
Dependencies
- Add @tanstack/match-sorter-utils and @tanstack/react-table to the web
app.
Published as ironclaw@2026.2.10-1.
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
── Tiptap Markdown Editor ──
- Add full Tiptap-based WYSIWYG markdown editor (markdown-editor.tsx, 709 LOC)
with bubble menu, auto-save (debounced), image drag-and-drop/paste upload,
table editing, task list checkboxes, and frontmatter preservation on save.
- Add slash command system (slash-command.tsx, 607 LOC) with "/" trigger for
block insertion (headings, lists, tables, code blocks, images, reports) and
"@" trigger for file/document mention with fuzzy search across the workspace
tree.
- Add ReportBlockNode (report-block-node.tsx) — custom Tiptap node that renders
embedded report-json blocks as interactive ReportCard widgets inline in the
editor, with expand/collapse and edit-JSON support.
- Add workspace asset serving API (api/workspace/assets/[...path]/route.ts) to
serve images from the workspace with proper MIME types.
- Add workspace file upload orkspace/upload/route.ts) for multipart
image uploads (10 MB limit, image types only), saving to assets/ directory.
- Add ~500 lines of Tiptap editor CSS to globals.css (editor layout, task lists,
images, tables, slash command dropdown, bubble menu toolbar, code blocks, etc.).
- Add 14 @tiptap/* dependencies to apps/web/package.json (react, starter-kit,
markdown, image, link, table, task-list, suggestion, placeholder, etc.).
── Document View: Edit/Read Mode Toggle ──
- document-view.tsx: Add edit/read mode toggle; defaults to edit mode when a
filePath is available. Lazy-loads MarkdownEditor to keep initial bundle light.
- workspace/page.tsx: Pass activePath, tree, onSave, onNavigate, and
onRefreshTree through to DocumentView for full editor integration with
workspace navigation and tree refresh after saves.
── Subagent Session Isolation ──
- agent-runner.ts: Add RunAgentOptions with optional sessionId; when set, spawns
the agent with --session-key agent:main:subagent:<id> ant so
file-scoped sidebar chats run in isolated sessions independent of the main
agent.
- route.ts (chat API): Accept sessionId from request body and forward it to
runAgent. Resolve workspace file path prefixes (resolveAgentWorkspacePrefix)
so tree-relative paths become agent-cwd-relative.
- chat-panel.tsx: Create per-instance DefaultChatTransport that injects sessionId
via body function and a ref (avoids stale closures). On file change, auto-load
the most recent session and its messages. Refresh session tab list after
streaming ends. Stop ongoing stream when switching sessions.
- register.agent.ts: Add --session-key <key> and --lane <lane> CLI flags.
- agent-via-gateway.ts: Wire sessionKey into session resolution and validation
for both interactive and --stream-json code paths.
- workspace.ts: Add resolveAgentWorkspacePrefix() to map workspace-root-relative
paths to repo-root-relative paths for the agent process.
── Error Surfacing ──
- agent-runner.ts: Add onAgentError callback extraction helpers
(parseAgentErrorMessage, parseErrorBody, parseErrorFromStderr) to surface
API-level errors (402 payment, rate limits, etc.) to the UI. Captures stderr
for fallback error detection on non-zero exit.
- route.ts: Wire onAgentError into the SSE stream as [error]-prefixed text
parts. Improve onError and onClose handlers with clearer error messages and
exit code reporting.
- chat-message.tsx: Detect [error]-prefixed text segments and render them as
styled error banners with alert icon instead of plain text.
- chat-panel.tsx: Restyle the transport-level error bar with themed colors and
an alert icon consistent with in-message error styling.
