feat(database): actionable setup cards for new views + atomic property-for-view

[eliotlim]

Problem

Creating a new Timeline / Calendar / Map / Graph view on a fresh database dropped the user into a dead-end: a dashed placeholder with prose like "Choose a start date property in the view options to lay rows out on a timeline" — but the View-options picker was empty (no compatible property exists yet on a fresh DB) and there was no create-it path on the surface. Recovery meant leaving the view, opening View options, discovering the property was missing, going to the schema, adding the right typed column, coming back, and finally pointing the view at it — roughly 10–12 clicks across 3 surfaces. Charts hit the same wall when their group-by was cleared.

Epic: Database new-view → customise loop (IA 2026-07). Closes DB-R1 (actionable setup cards) + DB-R3 ("+ New …" sentinels in the View-options selects). Follow-up polish is already filed as DB-R8.

Solution

A shared ViewSetupCard replaces all 5 dead-end placeholders (timeline, calendar, map, graph, chart) with the fix itself:

• No compatible property → one disclosed click ("Create a Date/Location/Dependency property and use it") mints the correctly-typed column and points the view at it.
• A compatible property already exists → an inline picker wires an existing column (no duplicate), with the same one-click create as its last option.

Both paths are backed by a new atomic db.addPropertyForView — a single saveSchema writes the new property and the view reference in one shot. (The naive two-call approach — addProperty then updateView — races a stale-schema closure and drops one of the two writes; doing it atomically fixes that.) The View-options selects carry the same one-step create as a "+ New … property" sentinel option, so the picker and the card mint identical columns.

Key files: ViewSetupCard.tsx (new), useDatabase.ts (atomic addPropertyForView), databaseMenus.tsx (sentinel), the 5 view components (databaseTimeline/Charts/Graph/Map/Layouts.tsx), i18n ×4 (en/de/ja/zh). New deps: none.

Before / After

Behaviour	Before	After
Add a Timeline view to a fresh DB (the one-click flow — motion is the point)	Dashed dead-end: "Choose a start date property in the view options…" — empty picker, no way to create it here.	One disclosed click: the ViewSetupCard creates the Date property, wires the view, and the live canvas appears — "click anywhere on the timeline to add one."
Static fallback (card → working canvas)	—	The actionable card, then the dated timeline canvas.

Test procedure

pnpm verify is green on the branch. Observed counts:

• Unit (pnpm -r run test): 1766 passed — sdk 171 (13 files) · ui 950 (108 files) · server 645 (53 files). 0 failures.
• New spec packages/web/e2e/database-view-setup.spec.ts: 7/7 passed — the one-click create for timeline / calendar / map / graph, the chart's inline picker over an existing property, and both View-options sentinels ("+ New date property", "+ New dependency property").
• Adjacent DB e2e green: ran database-view-setup + database-timeline + database-map + database-views + database-board + database-swimlanes + database-gallery together → 34/34 passed (chromium). The setup cards don't regress the existing timeline/map/board/swimlanes/gallery/views flows.

Operational notes

• No migrations, no env, no irreversible steps. Pure UI + a client-side atomic schema write over the existing saveSchema path.
• Deferred nits (all reviewer-endorsed, non-gating), tracked as DB-R8: auto-close the View-options popover after a sentinel create, and align the Select / "Category" create-button wording.
• chart.setup.missing copy is dead-but-defensive (a fresh chart always auto-groups by the Status select, so the "missing" branch isn't reachable today) — kept intentionally.
• The Escape-after-async-rerender popover quirk (Escape can be unreliable right after a schema save re-renders the panel) is pre-existing, not introduced here; the specs close View options by toggling the trigger instead.

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Verify: ✅ green (unit 1766 · DB e2e 34/34 · new spec 7/7) · Gates cleared: code ✅ Quinn · design ✅ Devon

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
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