fix-tui-message — Workgraph live mirror

Metadata

Status	done
Assigned	`agent-1307`
Agent identity	`3184716484e6f0ea08bb13539daf07686ee79d440505f1fdf2de0357707034c3`
Created	2026-05-01T00:17:00.315168488+00:00
Started	2026-05-01T00:18:04.528162049+00:00
Completed	2026-05-01T00:47:48.581809084+00:00
Tags	`bug,tui,ux`, `eval-scheduled`
Eval score	0.91
└ blocking impact	0.85
└ completeness	0.95
└ constraint fidelity	0.85
└ coordination overhead	0.90
└ correctness	0.95
└ downstream usability	0.85
└ efficiency	0.85
└ intent fidelity	0.70
└ style adherence	0.90

Description

The TUI shows a letter / envelope symbol on tasks that have unread messages (from wg msg send). User reports this symbol disappears unexpectedly — task that should have an unread message indicator stops showing it.

User report 2026-04-30: 'the message symbol seems to disappear, like the little letter symbol seems to disappear from the TUI and I don't know why that's happened.'

Likely cause hypotheses

Indicator is cleared too eagerly — maybe any read of task state (not just wg msg read) marks messages as read and removes the symbol
Indicator-render logic doesn't refresh — message gets sent, indicator should appear, but the row's render cache doesn't invalidate until something else triggers a redraw
Per-task vs per-batch state confusion — the indicator may be tracking a stale field that gets overwritten by other state-update paths

Investigation + fix

Find where the indicator is rendered (likely in src/tui/ near the task-list row rendering)
Find where unread message state is computed — is it 'has unread' or 'has any messages'?
Identify the disappearance trigger — what state change clears it inappropriately?
Fix: indicator should appear when wg msg send adds a message and stay until wg msg read is called against that task

Validation

Failing test or repro: wg msg send <task-id> 'test' → indicator appears in TUI for that task. Pre-fix: disappears unexpectedly during some state update. Post-fix: stays until wg msg read <task-id>.
Live smoke: send a message via wg msg send, watch the indicator across normal TUI activity (state transitions, scrolling, switching tabs). Confirm indicator persists.
No regression: indicator correctly clears when read
cargo build + cargo test pass
cargo install --path . was run before claiming done

## Description
The TUI shows a letter / envelope symbol on tasks that have unread messages (from `wg msg send`). User reports this symbol disappears unexpectedly — task that should have an unread message indicator stops showing it.

User report 2026-04-30: 'the message symbol seems to disappear, like the little letter symbol seems to disappear from the TUI and I don't know why that's happened.'

## Likely cause hypotheses
1. **Indicator is cleared too eagerly** — maybe any read of task state (not just `wg msg read`) marks messages as read and removes the symbol
2. **Indicator-render logic doesn't refresh** — message gets sent, indicator should appear, but the row's render cache doesn't invalidate until something else triggers a redraw
3. **Per-task vs per-batch state confusion** — the indicator may be tracking a stale field that gets overwritten by other state-update paths

## Investigation + fix
1. Find where the indicator is rendered (likely in src/tui/ near the task-list row rendering)
2. Find where unread message state is computed — is it 'has unread' or 'has any messages'?
3. Identify the disappearance trigger — what state change clears it inappropriately?
4. Fix: indicator should appear when `wg msg send` adds a message and stay until `wg msg read` is called against that task

## Validation
- [ ] Failing test or repro: `wg msg send <task-id> 'test'` → indicator appears in TUI for that task. Pre-fix: disappears unexpectedly during some state update. Post-fix: stays until `wg msg read <task-id>`.
- [ ] Live smoke: send a message via wg msg send, watch the indicator across normal TUI activity (state transitions, scrolling, switching tabs). Confirm indicator persists.
- [ ] No regression: indicator correctly clears when read
- [ ] cargo build + cargo test pass
- [ ] cargo install --path . was run before claiming done

Depends on

done .assign-fix-tui-message

Required by

(none)

Log

2026-05-01T00:16:38.853107194+00:00 Task paused
2026-05-01T00:17:18.370225484+00:00 Task published
2026-05-01T00:18:04.528167700+00:00 Spawned by coordinator --executor claude --model opus
2026-05-01T00:18:31.521403562+00:00 Starting investigation: find where TUI renders the message indicator and where unread state is computed
2026-05-01T00:28:01.302928573+00:00 Root cause: maybe_refresh only triggers viz reload on graph.jsonl mtime change. wg msg send writes only to messages/<task>.jsonl, so per-row and Msg-tab indicators stay stale. Fix: track separate messages_change_pending flag in fs_watcher; trigger viz/stats reload when set.
2026-05-01T00:46:31.236143983+00:00 Validated: 4 unit tests pass (message_indicator_refresh_tests). Live smoke: ✉ indicator now appears in wg viz after wg msg send. Full bin test suite: 3288 passed, 0 failed. cargo install --path . was run.
2026-05-01T00:47:23.645481395+00:00 Committed: 9c26e854d — pushed to remote
2026-05-01T00:47:48.581816398+00:00 Task pending eval (agent reported done; awaiting `.evaluate-*` to score)
2026-05-01T00:50:02.524048773+00:00 PendingEval → Done (evaluator passed; downstream unblocks)