feat(cli): de-gutter homogeneous container listings (TTY only)

[mikegreiling]

What & why

TTY listings shed the redundant left uuid gutter where a container's title is already a first-class write handle, disambiguating a colliding LIVE twin with the fused Title [8charPrefix] suffix instead.

Ratified refinement (this revision). The first cut drew the law per-VIEW ("mixed item views keep gutters on every row"), which was one level too coarse — things area Family still showed the uuid gutter on its PROJECT rows. The law is now per-SECTION:

A section/block whose rows are ALL containers renders bare titles with the fused [8charPrefix] suffix on promotion (the same shared round-trip predicate); any list that intermixes to-do rows keeps the gutter on every row in it (project rows included).

TTY presentation only — --json is byte-identical (verified by a TTY-vs-piped byte-identity test). The gutter width is still computed over the whole card/view, so the guttered to-do rows are byte-identical (the de-guttered project rows stay in the width set they no longer draw from).

Before / after (real CLI output, synthetic fixture)

things area show Family — the reported bug (projects section)

before:
  Area: ⬡ Family
    uri: things:///show?id=area-0001
    tags: #home

  proj-000  ( ) New Stuff ‹8/8› #focus     ← PROJECT rows carried the gutter
  SpA1tQwE  ( ) Split ‹0›                    ← the uuid WAS the twin disambiguator
  SpB2tZxC  ( ) Split ‹0›

  Td1oQwEr  [ ] call plumber
  Td2oZxCv  [ ] renew passport

after:
  Area: ⬡ Family
    uri: things:///show?id=area-0001
    tags: #home

  ( ) New Stuff ‹8/8› #focus               ← projects section de-guttered
  ( ) Split [SpA1tQwE] ‹0›                  ← fused suffix now disambiguates the twins
  ( ) Split [SpB2tZxC] ‹0›

  Td1oQwEr  [ ] call plumber               ← to-do section KEEPS its gutter
  Td2oZxCv  [ ] renew passport

Count chip / tags intact; the area name stays suppressed (the card header names it). The loose pseudo-area view follows the same path.

things projects --area Family (the flagged flat variant — now resolved)

before:  proj-000  ( ) New Stuff ‹0› (Family)
after:   ( ) New Stuff ‹0› (Family)
         ( ) Dup [DpA1tQwE] ‹0› (Family)   (twins fused)

De-guttered, but the (Family) context suffix STAYS — no ── ⬡ Family ── header precedes these rows, so it is the row's sole area label.

things anytime — group HEADINGS de-gutter, children keep gutters

before:                              after:
── ⬡ Work ──                         ── ⬡ Work ──
Lo0seQwE  [ ] loose direct           Lo0seQwE  [ ] loose direct       ← direct to-do KEEPS gutter

Al1phaQw  ( ) Alpha ‹2/2›            ( ) Alpha ‹2/2›                  ← heading de-guttered (header, not a row)
Ch1ldQwE  [ ] child one              Ch1ldQwE  [ ] child one          ← child to-do KEEPS gutter
Ch2ldZxC  [ ] child two              Ch2ldZxC  [ ] child two

(things areas and things projects sidebar were de-guttered in the first commit and are unchanged here.)

Audit — every TTY section classified (view → section → verdict)

View	Section / block	Row population	Verdict
things areas	whole list	areas	de-gutter (1st commit)
things projects (sidebar)	per-area groups	projects	de-gutter (1st commit)
things projects --area <ref>	flat list	projects	de-gutter (new)
things area show <ref>	active-projects section	projects	de-gutter (new)
things area show <ref>	Someday-projects block	projects	de-gutter (new)
things area show <ref>	direct-to-dos section	to-dos	keep
things area show <ref>	Someday direct-to-dos block	to-dos	keep
things area show <ref>	Upcoming section	projects + to-dos + templates (mixed)	keep
things project show <ref>	heading subheads (headers)	headings	de-gutter (1st commit)
things project show <ref>	child rows	to-dos	keep
things anytime	project headings (headers)	headings	de-gutter (new)
things anytime	area-direct + project-child rows	to-dos	keep
things someday	"own" block	projects + direct to-dos (mixed)	keep
things someday	"From active projects" headings (headers)	headings	de-gutter (new)
things someday	those headings' child rows	to-dos	keep
things today / --evening	Today / This Evening	projects + to-dos (mixed)	keep
things upcoming	date-grouped sections	projects + to-dos + templates (mixed)	keep
things inbox	flat list	to-dos	keep
things search	flat list	mixed	keep
things logbook	flat list	resolved rows	keep
things trash	flat list	trashed rows	keep

Group-HEADING note. The underlined project titles that head their own children ARE headers, not rows: project show subheads were already de-guttered (1st commit); the anytime and someday (From-active-projects) headings carried a gutter and are de-guttered here. renderSections — the type-correct SidebarSection[] fallback that is never reached in TTY (anytime/someday always hand back precomputed lines) but is still exercised directly by unit tests — was kept consistent with renderAnytimePreview so the two never diverge.

Untouched (locked by tests)

• Any section that intermixes to-do rows keeps a per-section aligned gutter on every row including project rows (today/inbox/upcoming/search, an area's direct to-dos, anytime/someday children).
• To-do rows keep gutters everywhere (a to-do's uuid is its only write handle).
• Trash & logbook keep gutters (trashed/logged titles don't name-resolve under the liveness law).
• The predicate is liveness-scoped: a TRASHED same-title twin never triggers a suffix.
• --json byte-identical (TTY-vs-piped comparison, elapsedMs normalized).

Shared machinery (no fork)

fusedTitleSuffix(ref, kind, projectUuid?) and formatItem's noGutter + selfRef opts (1st commit) drive every de-guttered section, over the SAME render-time RefPromoter / roundTrips predicate the JSON *Uuid emission, the inline container hints, and the ≡ canonical-ref echo consult. New this revision: renderContainerList (the de-guttered counterpart to renderList for a flat all-container list), and noGutter/selfRef threaded through the area-show projects section and the anytime/someday/renderSections headings.

Files

• src/cli/commands/area.ts — area-show projects section (+ someday-projects block) de-gutter
• src/cli/commands/reads.ts — projects --area routes through renderContainerList
• src/cli/render.ts — renderContainerList; renderAnytimePreview / renderSections / renderSomedayPreview heading de-gutter (plus 1st-commit fusedTitleSuffix / noGutter / selfRef / sidebar)
• src/cli/commands/project.ts — heading section-header de-gutter (1st commit)
• test/cli/e2e.test.ts — area-show / projects --area / anytime coverage (+ 1st-commit areas/projects/heading/liveness/byte-identity)
• test/cli/render.test.ts — area-show project-row unit test flipped to de-guttered plain rows
• test/unit/render-styling.test.ts — noGutter + selfRef mechanics (1st commit)
• CHANGELOG.md, skills/things-cli/SKILL.md

Flagged (did not improvise)

• Design docs (render-language.md / width-aware-tty.md) still describe the id column as always-present fixed furniture. Not in the ratified cascade, so left unedited — you may want the per-SECTION gutter law recorded there.
• things someday's "own" block lists someday projects FIRST then direct to-dos; because they share one truncation block that CAN contain to-dos, it is treated as a mixed block and KEEPS gutters (rather than de-guttering a project-only leading sub-run). Called out in case you want that leading run treated as its own pure-container block.

⚠️ DO NOT MERGE — opened for local aesthetic evaluation per the task brief.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[mikegreiling]

Rebased onto origin/main (39855da)

Both commits replayed onto current main (past the read-shape doctrine arc #375–#379, heading fidelity #372, #369, and the ordering-lock #380). Force-pushed rebased branch: 5f852aed9ffd60611078f744d59059400a9efc98. CI: green (1m20s). Full local npm run check also green (113 files / 2326 tests).

Conflicts & how they were resolved

• CHANGELOG.md — the only textual conflict. Both feat(cli): de-gutter homogeneous container listings (TTY only) #368 commits and the nine merged arc PRs add entries under ## Unreleased. Resolved by placing feat(cli): de-gutter homogeneous container listings (TTY only) #368's entry at the top of Unreleased ahead of the arc entries; commit 2 then revised it to the per-SECTION prose as authored. No arc entry lost.
• src/cli/render.ts, src/cli/commands/{project,area,reads}.ts, test/** — git 3-way-merged these cleanly at the text level, but a clean auto-merge is not proof of semantic correctness against the rewritten code, so every hunk was re-verified against today's rendering paths:
  • render.ts — fusedTitleSuffix, formatItem noGutter/selfRef, renderProjectsSidebar (width 0), renderContainerList, and the renderSections / renderAnytimePreview / renderSomedayPreview group-heading de-gutters all landed on the correct (arc-rewritten) code. The library still retains its structured render grouping (the arc flattened only the wire), so feat(cli): de-gutter homogeneous container listings (TTY only) #368's render hunks apply unchanged.
  • area.ts — the fmtProject de-gutter (active-projects section + someday-projects block) sits correctly over feat(read): area-view direct to-dos dissolve to flat items[] (read-shape doctrine PR 4) #378's dissolved area view; direct to-dos / Upcoming still route through the guttered fmt.
  • reads.ts — projects --area uses renderContainerList; the areas listing de-guttered; the now-unused uuidCol/uuidDisplayWidth imports dropped as feat(cli): de-gutter homogeneous container listings (TTY only) #368 intended.

Latent break the auto-merge introduced (fixed)

src/cli/commands/project.ts: #368's hunk removed the uuidCol import, but the HEADARC arc added a new use of uuidCol at the archived-heading logged-region group header — a use #368 never saw. The textual auto-merge left that call in place against a now-missing import (would not compile). See the decision below for the fix.

Decision: archived-heading group headers (new surface since this branch was cut)

The HEADARC arc (#372) added archived-heading GROUP headers in the logged region of project show --show-logged — a heading-header surface that did not exist when #368 was written. Per the rebase brief (apply #368's heading-header de-gutter there iff pre-rebase #368 de-guttered the equivalent live heading headers — it did), I de-guttered the archived-heading group header to match, for consistency and to resolve the compile break above. This is sound: resolveHeadingRef filters only trashed = 0 (not archived), so an archived-but-not-trashed heading's title still round-trips through its project-scoped resolver → the header renders bare, fusing [8char] only on a within-project title collision, exactly like a live heading header. Its logged child to-do rows keep their gutters (a to-do's uuid is its only handle). Noted in the CHANGELOG's Group-HEADING bullet.

Scope check

No #368 behavior had to be dropped or altered to survive the arc — every de-gutter target (areas, projects sidebar, projects --area, area-show projects/someday blocks, project-show + anytime/someday heading headers, gutters retained on all to-do-intermixing sections, --json byte-identity) is intact, plus the one consistency extension above. All of #368's own test locks pass (per-section law, trashed-twin liveness, gutter-lock, TTY-vs-piped byte-identity).

(Maintainer note: your local mg/degutter-container-listings checkout needs git pull --rebase — or git reset --hard origin/mg/degutter-container-listings if you have no local changes — to pick up the rewritten branch.)

[mikegreiling]

Re-rebased onto origin/main @ 8ed706c (post-0.13.0). Light rebase this time: CHANGELOG was the only conflict (the de-gutter entry now sits under the fresh post-0.13.0 ## Unreleased section); the skill wording auto-merged. All #368 test locks pass, full npm run check green, CI green on c6a1b6b. Still unmerged — awaiting the aesthetic verdict. To evaluate locally: git checkout mg/degutter-container-listings && git reset --hard origin/mg/degutter-container-listings.