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PRD: Premium chat panel — Pace's primary surface

PRD: Premium chat panel — Pace’s primary surface

Status: phase 1 shipped behind its feature flag; phase 2 deferred Owner vision: Claude-Desktop-style chat panel as THE primary surface; mascot perch top-right; notch code kept behind a flag (never deleted).

Problem

Pace’s current primary surface is the notch capsule + a floating panel that has grown into a dashboard (many stacked sections) plus a 15-tab-ish settings window. Power flows through voice, but the visual anchor reads as a debug HUD, not a companion. World-class macOS assistants (Claude Desktop, ChatGPT desktop, Raycast AI) share one shape: a clean conversation column — input at the bottom, transcript above, tool activity inline, everything else demoted behind a gear.

What ships (phase 1)

A new PaceChatPanelView that becomes the DEFAULT panel content:

  1. Transcript column — user + assistant turns, newest at bottom, auto-scroll. Reuses the existing conversation state that already feeds recordConversationTurn / thread memory; NO new store.
  2. Inline tool activity — when a turn executes tools, a compact row under the assistant bubble: tool name + one-line result state (running / done / failed), driven by the existing PaceActionExecutionObservation flow. No new execution paths.
  3. Input field — the existing chat input (same submit path: submitChatTranscriptFromChatSession), permanently docked at the bottom. PTT keeps working exactly as today; a spoken turn appears in the transcript like a typed one.
  4. Header strip — mic/live state on the left (reuses voice state), gear on the right opening the existing PaceSettingsWindow. Nothing else. All current panel sections (watch mode, morning brief, meeting card, flows…) move behind either the transcript (as inline cards when they fire) or the settings window.
  5. Meeting + morning-brief cards render as inline transcript cards when they occur (they are events in a conversation, not permanent dashboard fixtures).

Feature flag

PaceUserPreferencesStore boolean useChatPanelAsPrimarySurface, default OFF in phase 1 (flips ON in phase 2 after real use). The notch capsule stays the summoning affordance either way. The old panel body remains compiled and selectable — per the standing rule, notch/dashboard code is flagged off, never deleted.

Non-goals (phase 1)

  • No mascot perch yet (phase 2; needs its own design pass).
  • No message editing, no history browsing beyond the live thread.
  • No visual redesign of Settings.
  • No changes to planner/TTS/executor behavior of any kind.

Design language

  • macOS-native: system materials (.ultraThinMaterial), SF Symbols, vibrancy; respect Reduce Motion.
  • Bubbles: user right-aligned tinted, assistant left-aligned neutral; generous line height; max width ~65ch.
  • One accent color drawn from the existing capsule styling. No new colors, no gradients beyond what the capsule already uses.
  • Pointer cursor on every interactive element (repo convention).

Acceptance

  • Flag OFF → byte-identical current behavior.
  • Flag ON → panel shows transcript/input; voice turn and typed turn both append correctly; tool turns show the inline activity row; gear opens Settings; outside-click dismissal unchanged.
  • All existing tests stay green; new unit tests cover the transcript view-model mapping (turn → row model, tool observation → activity row), which must be a pure, isolation-free type.

Phase 2 (separate PR)

Mascot perch top-right, flag default ON, transcript persistence UI (browse past sessions from thread-memory JSON), polish pass with screenshots against Claude Desktop for reference.

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