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Frontmatter
id17540
titleDock Layouts becomes a guide series: adopt, mechanics, features, UI
stateOpen
labels
documentationepicai
assignees[]
createdAtAug 22, 2026, 3:00 PM
updatedAtAug 23, 2026, 6:37 AM
githubUrlhttps://github.com/neomjs/neo/issues/17540
authorneo-fable
commentsCount2
parentIssuenull
subIssues
17569 Dock guide series part 1: the adoption guide — docking in YOUR app, taught against the engine class
17574 lint-guides hard-fails ticket ids in learn/guides — operator rule: guides describe, trackers decide
subIssuesCompleted2
subIssuesTotal2
contentTrust
projected
quarantined0
signals[]
blockedBy[x] 17541 Lift the dock workspace host into Neo.dashboard.DockWorkspace
blocking[]

Dock Layouts becomes a guide series: adopt, mechanics, features, UI

Open Backlog/active-chunk-18 documentationepicai
neo-fable
neo-fable commented on Aug 22, 2026, 3:00 PM

Context

learn/guides/uibuildingblocks/DockLayouts.md (#17514, merged 2026-08-21) is the subsystem's first architecture guide — an intro: the ownership loop, one gesture end to end, the four-row state discipline, the adoption checklist, the wire vocabulary, the traps. It reviewed at 9/10, and it is one page for a subsystem of 29 engine modules, four host apps, and a multi-window choreography.

Operator direction (2026-08-22): once the host-class debt is resolved, double down on guides — mechanics, features, and how docking connects to ordinary Neo UIs — as a series, with one mental model at the front: a human or an AI peer asking "how can I use and configure it inside MY Neo app?"

The Problem

The intro answers "what is this and why does it work"; it does not answer the adopter's questions in order. Today a reader who wants docking in their own app has to reverse-engineer one of the hosts (4–5k lines each until the host class lands), the ADR, and the model contract. The Knowledge Base inherits the same gap: a question about configuring panes, vessels, perspectives or auto-hide in a consumer app has no single guide to cite, so answers are stitched from the ADR and source.

Why an epic: each guide is its own authored, reviewed, tree-registered artifact under guide-authoring (grounding, render-verified Mermaid, cross-family review); the set shares one mental model, one vocabulary, and one sequencing constraint (the adoption guide must teach extends DockWorkspace, so it lands after the host class) — coordination a single ticket cannot carry.

Intended Solution Shape

A series under the existing guides/uibuildingblocks tree node, the intro kept as its front door and each part answering one adopter question in the order an adopter asks it: adopting and configuring docking in your own app (document, panes, policies, vessel render target, persistence, theming by tokens); the mechanics as they run (gesture, claim, vessel lifecycle, conversion, reintegration); the features (perspectives, auto-hide rails, grouped drag, overflow, keyboard); and how it connects to Neo UIs (panes as ordinary components — state providers, stores, tab containers, controllers, layouts). Every part follows the house pattern the intro established (ownership loop plus one-gesture pairing, claims with receipts, traps with tickets), and every code example runs against the engine class, not a hand-rolled host. Placement inside the tree, part naming and the exact split are the first leaf's structural pre-flight, not this body's.

Out of Scope

  • Rewriting the intro (DockLayouts.md) beyond the one correction the host-class epic owes it.
  • Reference documentation generated from JSDoc; the ADR and the model contract stay the authority tiers.
  • Video or film assets (the #15252 arc).

Avoided Traps

  • One giant page. The intro is already at the length where a reader stops; the series exists so each part can go deep.
  • Teaching the hand-rolled host. A guide written against today's 5k-line hosts teaches the debt; the adoption part sequences after the engine class.
  • Prose over receipts. The house pattern cites a witness for every mechanical claim; a guide part without receipts fails its own review.

Decision Record impact

none — the guides describe; ADR 0029 and DockZoneModel.md decide.

Related

#17514 (the intro) · the dock-host epic (linked; the adoption part is blocked by its first leaf) · #13158.

Structure-map gate: N/A — learn/guides content; no Agent OS placement.

Live latest-open sweep: checked latest 20 open issues at 2026-08-22T12:58:37Z; no equivalent found (only #17514, closed, the intro). A2A in-flight claim sweep: latest 30 all-state messages at the same timestamp; no overlapping claim found.

Origin Session ID: bd272031-6109-449d-8a0c-38230064a8f3

Retrieval Hint: query_raw_memories("dock layouts guide series adopt configure mechanics features Neo UI mental model")

Mnemosyne (Claude Fable 5, Claude Code) 🪢