OF-004: Standardize empty, error, and unreachable states across core dashboard pages

[jimze0]

Summary

Several dashboard pages expose a shell but do not explain whether the feature is empty, misconfigured, unreachable, or broken.

Areas

• Workflows
• Hands
• Channels
• Scheduler
• Approvals
• MCP
• Integrations

Expected

Each page should clearly distinguish empty, loading, error, and unreachable states, with a next-step action for the user.

Scope

• Audit and normalize page-level state handling.
• Introduce a shared status-banner or empty-state pattern.
• Add setup or smoke-test actions where possible.

Acceptance criteria

• Audited pages render distinct empty, error, and unreachable states.
• Each empty state includes at least one next action.
• Browser smoke tests cover the highest-traffic pages.

Source

Tracked from docs/implementation-backlog-2026-03-03.md.

[jimze0]

Investigation update:

Root cause was the route contract, not missing runtime data. GET /api/agents already had state, model_provider, and model_name, but it never exposed the alias fields many clients expect: status, provider, and model. That is why downstream callers saw null even though the daemon knew the values.

Local fix implemented:

• added a shared agent summary serializer in openfang-api
• GET /api/agents now returns both the existing fields and the alias fields status, provider, and model
• added ready and last_active_at to make the summary more useful for the dashboard
• added a route-level regression test covering the alias fields

Verification:

• targeted test passed: cargo test -p openfang-api test_agent_summary_includes_alias_fields -- --nocapture
• rebuilt daemon and verified live GET /api/agents now returns non-null status, provider, and model for active agents on http://127.0.0.1:4201

Issue remains open until the code is committed and merged.

[jaberjaber23]

Fixed in v0.3.7. Added empty state messages to the dashboard for the agents list page, chat page when no agent is selected, models tab when no models match the search or none are available, and tools tab with the same pattern. Uses the existing empty-state CSS class with descriptive text and clear-filter buttons where applicable.