rivet serve dashboard has no presentation/clean mode — branch + 'N uncommitted' chrome leaks into recorded video/screenshots

[avrabe]

Friction (hit while recording the intro video)

Recording the rivet serve dashboard for the release/intro video (tools/intro-video/), every captured frame shows the working-state chrome in the top bar: the branch name + short SHA (fix/req-204-deterministic-iter-output@970cea1) and a 6 uncommitted badge. For a published artifact (video, blog screenshot, docs image) that's noise at best and leaks in-progress branch names at worst — and there's no way to suppress it.

Verified directly: the captured frames at the open_dashboard / browse_artifacts / show_coverage scenes all carry the branch + N uncommitted badge in the header.

Why it matters

• Anyone producing demo media (the intro-video tool, docs screenshots, conference slides) has to either crop the header or commit/stash first to get a clean frame.
• The branch+dirty indicator is genuinely useful for interactive dogfooding — this isn't a request to remove it, just to make it suppressible for capture.

Suggested fix (small, additive)

A presentation/clean toggle that hides the working-state chrome (branch, SHA, N uncommitted badge — possibly also the Reload/Print buttons), leaving the project name + content:

• ?presentation=1 query param (zero-config, works per-tab — ideal for the Playwright capture which already drives URLs), or
• RIVET_SERVE_CLEAN=1 env / rivet serve --clean flag for a whole session.

The intro-video capture.spec.ts would then just append ?presentation=1 to each goto, and docs screenshots get a clean frame for free. Defaults unchanged (chrome stays on for normal interactive use).

Found while dogfooding the intro-video pipeline (the capture frames are how this surfaced).

[avrabe]

Triage pass — friction confirmed against main (the dashboard header in rivet-cli/src/serve/templates/ renders branch + short-SHA + the N uncommitted badge unconditionally), and the fix is small and additive. But the body explicitly offers two surfaces (?presentation=1 URL param or RIVET_SERVE_CLEAN=1 / --clean flag), which is the call that blocks autonomous pickup under "one PR per issue, keep PRs focused."

Quick assessment of each option (so the maintainer call is informed):

• ?presentation=1 query param — zero-config, per-tab, ideal for the Playwright capture (tools/intro-video/capture.spec.ts already drives URLs). Reversible without restarting rivet serve. No server-side state change, so a screenshot writer can ask for the clean view without polluting other tabs in the same session. Recommended cheapest-high-value start.
• RIVET_SERVE_CLEAN=1 env / --clean flag — session-wide, suits a "demo deployment" of the dashboard (e.g. an always-on conference projector). Doesn't help mixed sessions (no way to flip back without restart).
• Both — costs ~10 lines more than either alone; the env/flag just sets the same template guard the query param sets, so they compose.

The third decision the body doesn't pin: what exactly disappears? Body lists branch+SHA, N uncommitted, "possibly Reload/Print buttons." Mode toggle vs. fine-grained suppression matters for what the screenshot ends up looking like.

Could you lift the chosen surface(s) into an explicit ## Acceptance Criteria block? Sketch for what looks like the cheapest high-value start (query-param-only, all chrome off); replace if you'd rather start elsewhere:

## Acceptance Criteria — first slice (query param, full-chrome off)
- [ ] `GET /` (and all dashboard subpaths) accept a `?presentation=1` query param; when present, the rendered header omits the branch+short-SHA, the `N uncommitted` badge, and the Reload/Print buttons (project name + content stay visible)
- [ ] The flag propagates across navigation within the dashboard (links rewritten to preserve `?presentation=1`) so a Playwright capture that `goto`s multiple URLs only needs to set it once per `goto`
- [ ] Default (no query param) is byte-for-byte unchanged from current behaviour — verified by a snapshot test of the rendered header HTML
- [ ] `tools/intro-video/capture.spec.ts` is updated to append `?presentation=1` to each `goto`, and the recorded `out/rivet-intro.mp4` no longer carries the working-state chrome in any captured frame
- [ ] Regression test: a request with `?presentation=1` returns HTML containing the project name but **not** the branch name, the short-SHA, or the `uncommitted` badge; same request without the param contains all three
- [ ] Commit trailers: `Implements: REQ-NNN` (file a new REQ for the presentation toggle) + `Refs: FEAT-001`
- [ ] `cargo test -p rivet-cli` green; `rivet validate` PASS; `cargo fmt --check` / `clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings` clean
- [ ] **Explicitly out of scope (file separately if wanted):** the `RIVET_SERVE_CLEAN=1` env / `--clean` flag (session-wide variant — the same template guard, different ingress), and any fine-grained per-element toggles (`?presentation=branch,uncommitted` selective form)

If you'd rather start with the env/flag form (e.g. for the conference-projector use case), the AC shape is the mirror image — --clean sets a server-side default that the template guard reads when the query param is absent — happy to re-shape.

Process side-rail (same as the other open triage threads this week): https://pulseengine.eu/blog/ is still HTTP 503 (the site also has an expired TLS cert) — same symptom flagged on #479/#488/#422/#420/#408. The binding workflow guidance can't be consulted, so no PR will land from this triage run regardless. Comment is the AC ask only.

Not implemented this run.

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Generated by Claude Code — issue-triage agent run 2026-06-05.

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Generated by Claude Code