Admin channel management: create, rename, archive/restore

[JosephMaynard]

Admin channel management: create, rename, archive/restore

The first way to create channels in LOAM. Until now the two seed channels (Announcements, General) were the only channels that could ever exist — the schema and data model anticipated more, but nothing was exposed. This adds an admin-only Channels panel to the existing /admin area.

What an admin can do

• Create a channel — name, optional description, who can post (everyone / admins-only), and whether threaded replies are allowed.
• Rename any channel.
• Archive / restore — archiving removes a channel from everyone's sidebar live; restoring brings it back.

All changes propagate to every connected client immediately via a new channelUpserted websocket event.

Why no private channels (yet)

Channel visibility exists in the schema but is not enforced anywhere — GET /api/channels returns every non-archived channel to everyone. Offering a "private" option now would be a false privacy guarantee, which cuts against LOAM's whole intent. So created channels are public + discoverable, and the code has comments flagging exactly what must change (membership + broadcast filtering) before private channels can be honestly offered.

Server

• GET /api/admin/channels — full list including archived (admin only), so archived channels stay visible and restorable even though GET /api/channels hides them.
• POST /api/admin/channels — creates a public channel; the server assigns a URL-friendly slug id (unique, with a short random suffix on collision or emoji-only names), createdAt, and ownerUserId.
• PATCH /api/admin/channels/:id — rename / posting policy / archive / restore.
• New channelUpserted broadcast. Persist-before-mutate throughout, mirroring applyUserUpdate (store write first, then in-memory mutation, then broadcast — a failed write never surfaces an unpersisted channel).

Client

• parseSocketEvent handles channelUpserted (validated with ChannelSchema).
• upsertChannels drops archived channels from the sidebar + local cache, so archive/restore is reflected live.
• The admin Channels panel fetches its own full list (so archived channels remain manageable after a reload), with a create form and per-channel rename + archive/restore controls. New CSS is layout-only and reuses the existing admin panel/button styles.

Tests (10 new)

Server: auth matrix (non-admin → 403 on list/create/update), create validates + assigns slug, slug-collision suffix, emoji-name fallback, rename, archive hides from the public list + restore re-adds, 404 on unknown channel, admin list shows archived, hyphenated-slug survives a restart + ChannelSchema.parse. Client: channelUpserted parse (valid + invalid).

Full suite green (server 73, client 31). CodeRabbit: reviewed against master, clean — an earlier pass flagged persist-order and a double-close in one test; both fixed in this branch before push.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added admin tools to create, rename, archive, and restore channels.
  • Channel changes now update the sidebar and admin list automatically.
  • Archived channels are hidden from the public channel list but remain visible in admin views.

• Bug Fixes

  • Improved channel ID handling to avoid duplicate or invalid IDs.
  • Channel updates now sync more reliably across connected clients in real time.

• Tests

  • Expanded coverage for channel management, access control, validation, and persistence.

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Review details

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 4abd4cb2-657d-4a50-a951-252740653de2

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0df2e8d and cc79deb.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• apps/server/src/app.test.ts

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Adds admin channel management: new Zod schemas for channel create/update requests, server endpoints (GET/POST/PATCH) for admin channel CRUD with unique-id generation and realtime broadcast, client protocol support for a channelUpserted event, and a new admin UI panel to create/rename/archive channels.

Changes

Admin Channel Management

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Channel request schemas packages/schema/src/index.ts	Adds ChannelCreateRequestSchema and ChannelUpdateRequestSchema with inferred types for validating admin channel payloads.
Server update logic and id generation apps/server/src/app.ts	Adds applyChannelUpdate() and uniqueChannelId(), extends ClientEvent with channelUpserted, and makes channelUpserted a globally broadcast event.
Admin REST endpoints and tests apps/server/src/app.ts, apps/server/src/app.test.ts	Adds GET/POST/PATCH /api/admin/channels[/:channelId] with authorization, validation, and broadcasting, plus tests for authorization, creation, validation, id collisions, renaming, archiving, 404s, and persistence.
Client protocol support apps/client/src/lib/protocol.ts, apps/client/src/lib/protocol.test.ts	Adds channelUpserted to SocketEvent union and parseSocketEvent, validating the channel payload via ChannelSchema, with tests for valid/invalid cases.
Client channel state and admin UI apps/client/src/app.tsx, apps/client/src/global.css	Adds upsertChannels state merging in App, wires channelUpserted websocket handling, adds onChannelUpsert to AdminView, and implements AdminChannelsPanel/AdminChannelRow with create/rename/archive actions and supporting CSS.

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~60 minutes

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant AdminUI
  participant ServerAPI
  participant Store
  participant Sockets
  participant ClientApp

  AdminUI->>ServerAPI: POST /api/admin/channels (create)
  ServerAPI->>ServerAPI: uniqueChannelId(name)
  ServerAPI->>Store: upsertChannel(channel)
  ServerAPI->>Sockets: broadcast channelUpserted
  Sockets-->>ClientApp: channelUpserted event
  ClientApp->>ClientApp: upsertChannels(channel)

  AdminUI->>ServerAPI: PATCH /api/admin/channels/:id (rename/archive)
  ServerAPI->>ServerAPI: applyChannelUpdate(channel, update)
  ServerAPI->>Store: upsertChannel(updatedChannel)
  ServerAPI->>Sockets: broadcast channelUpserted
  Sockets-->>ClientApp: channelUpserted event
  ClientApp->>ClientApp: upsertChannels(channel)

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🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the main change: admin channel management with create, rename, and archive/restore actions.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch feat/admin-channels

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

apps/client/src/app.tsx (1)

2614-2786: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🔵 Trivial

Admin channel list can go stale across concurrent admin sessions.

AdminChannelsPanel fetches /api/admin/channels once on mount and afterward only updates its local adminChannels state via its own applyChannel calls (create/rename/archive). It does not listen to the channelUpserted websocket broadcasts that LoamApp already handles at Line 724-727, so if another admin (or another tab) creates/renames/archives a channel while this panel is open, the list here won't reflect it until a manual reload.

This is a minor architectural gap worth tracking for a follow-up (e.g., wiring the panel into the same channelUpserted stream, or lifting a full admin-channel list — including archived — up to LoamApp so it stays consistent with the socket connection already open there).

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@apps/client/src/app.tsx` around lines 2614 - 2786, AdminChannelsPanel only
loads /api/admin/channels once and then mutates its own local adminChannels
state, so it can miss channel changes made by other admins or tabs. Update
AdminChannelsPanel to subscribe to the same channelUpserted updates that LoamApp
already receives, or move the shared admin channel list state up into LoamApp
and pass it down so AdminChannelRow/AdminChannelsPanel stay in sync with
websocket broadcasts.

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@apps/server/src/app.test.ts`:
- Around line 1038-1052: The test for persisting channels across a restart can
leak the initial LoamApp instance if createChannel or the created.id assertion
fails before reopenApp runs. Wrap the
buildApp/newSession/createChannel/reopenApp sequence in a try/finally so the
original app is always closed on failure, while keeping the existing reopenApp
teardown behavior intact; use the buildApp, createChannel, and reopenApp flow as
the place to add the cleanup.

---

Nitpick comments:
In `@apps/client/src/app.tsx`:
- Around line 2614-2786: AdminChannelsPanel only loads /api/admin/channels once
and then mutates its own local adminChannels state, so it can miss channel
changes made by other admins or tabs. Update AdminChannelsPanel to subscribe to
the same channelUpserted updates that LoamApp already receives, or move the
shared admin channel list state up into LoamApp and pass it down so
AdminChannelRow/AdminChannelsPanel stay in sync with websocket broadcasts.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 99ca5710-c956-4521-a9d4-23c03dc7d4b4

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 5d67d96 and 0df2e8d.

📒 Files selected for processing (7)

• apps/client/src/app.tsx
• apps/client/src/global.css
• apps/client/src/lib/protocol.test.ts
• apps/client/src/lib/protocol.ts
• apps/server/src/app.test.ts
• apps/server/src/app.ts
• packages/schema/src/index.ts