Work on the hive TUI

The TUI is Bubble Tea v2 (charm.land/bubbletea/v2, bubbles/v2, lipgloss/v2). For general Bubble Tea guidance, read the upstream docs; this skill covers how this TUI is put together and the rules it is reviewed against.

Where things live

cmd/hive/internal/tui/
├── model.go              # Model, Update loop, message types, key routing
├── model_handlers.go     # one handler per message or action
├── model_render.go       # View composition
├── keybindings.go        # KeybindingResolver (config -> action)
├── modal_coordinator.go  # every modal, pending action, and stream state
├── command_palette.go    # the `:` palette
├── components/           # reusable widgets: dialogs, form, status bar
├── views/                # one package per view: sessions, tasks, messages, review, shared
├── sourcepicker/         # the issue/PR source picker
└── testutil/             # RequireGolden, StripANSI, fixtures
cmd/hive/internal/styles/ # lipgloss styles and the active theme

The UI owns no business logic. It calls the service layer (internal/hive) and shared packages in internal/, which must never import charm (depguard fails the lint).

Views

Each view is its own package under views/, with its own model, Update, View, SetSize, and message types. A view that needs to resolve keys declares a small KeyResolver interface (views/sessions/key_resolver.go) that the parent's KeybindingResolver satisfies. That interface exists to break the import cycle between tui and the view; do not import tui from a view.

ViewType in view.go names the views. Its String() value is the scope name that cfg.Views.<View>.Keybindings matches against.

Keys

The precedence is in the root AGENTS.md ("Keybinding Precedence"). The rule that matters most: a user-overridable key is never an if keyStr == "x" block in view code. To add one:

1. register an action.Type in cmd/hive/internal/action/type.go and run mise run generate:enums;
2. add a default UserCommand to defaultUserCommands (cmd/hive/internal/config/config.go);
3. bind it in defaultViewsConfig (cmd/hive/internal/config/config_views.go);
4. dispatch it from model_handlers.go.

Hardcoded keys are only the layer-1 set: ctrl+c, esc, tab, shift+tab, and modal dismissal. Document a new default on docs/docs/cli/configuration/keybindings.md (the docs-audit skill).

Modals

All modal state lives on ModalCoordinator. A new modal is a field there, a UIState value for "this modal is open", a key handler in model.go that routes keys to it in that state, and a case in ModalCoordinator.Overlay. Do not keep modal state on a view. NewDangerousModal is the confirm dialog for anything that destroys work: the user types the verb to enable it.

Async work

Update never blocks. Anything that touches git, tmux, the database, or the network runs in a tea.Cmd that returns a message, and the handler applies the result. Batch fan-out work into one completion message (GitStatusBatchCompleteMsg) rather than one message per item. Polling is a tick message that schedules the next tick (sessions.TerminalPollTickMsg).

Background failures cannot reach the user directly, so log them: debug for expected or transient failures, warn for configuration problems. Show a degraded state (a StatusMissing indicator) instead of dropping the item.

Testing

Test behavior through the public surface: build the model, call SetSize, send messages through Update, and assert on state or on View() output. Always call SetSize before rendering; a zero-size view renders nothing useful.

Golden files cover rendered output (views/review/view_golden_test.go, modal_golden_test.go):

view := New(docs, "", nil, nil, 0)
view.SetSize(80, 24)
testutil.RequireGolden(t, testutil.StripANSI(view.View()))

Strip ANSI so output does not depend on the terminal's color profile. A package whose output still depends on the theme pins one in TestMain (styles.SetTheme with tokyo-night, as modal_golden_test.go does). Fix timestamps in fixtures (testutil.CreateTestComment).

Golden files live in each package's testdata/. Regenerate them only after you have read the diff and agree the new output is right:

go test ./cmd/hive/internal/tui/views/review -run TestView_ListMode -update

Do not test cosmetic details in assertions; a golden file is the place for layout. End-to-end CLI behavior belongs in the Docker integration tests (mise run cli:integration), never run on the host.

Verify

go test ./cmd/hive/...
mise run lint
mise run cli:dev     # run the TUI against the dev config and .data/

For anything that needs real tmux sessions, use mise run cli:container, or the cli-smoke skill when an agent drives it.