feat(cloud): show who made a machine on its sidebar row

[teamleaderleo]

Stacked on #15309, which carries the author from /api/vm to MachineSnapshot and stops there. Nothing renders it. This is the part you can see.

The Cloud sidebar's complaint (hq audit item D2): on a team-scoped sidebar you see your teammates' machines as a list of generated three-word names with no way to tell who made any of them. The backend has known the answer the whole time.

What changes

The machine row's second line gains by <name>, beside the facts it already carries:

build box
vm-1 · Base · by Ada Lovelace · 3 hours ago

The default preset is single-line, so most users meet this through the tooltip, which repeats the same line. Whether the compact row should show the author inline without hovering is a taste call and goes to cmux#13742, not here.

Nothing is shown when there is no name to show. A known account with no recorded name gets silence rather than by 7f3a91c2: an opaque account id is one more generated token in the pile this is meant to clear, so it is deliberately not a fallback.

CloudMachineCreatorLabel is its own file for a dull reason worth stating: scripts/localize-changes cannot parse a defaultValue containing a \u{...} escape, and CloudTreeMachineRowContent has several, so a new string added there is invisible to the tool.

Tests

Red and green from the same focused command, recorded below as they land.

Changelog

Added: Cloud sidebar machine rows show who created the machine.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

---

Summary by cubic

Makes the Cloud sidebar say who created each machine on its row, so a team fleet stops reading as a pile of generated three-word names.

• Carries createdBy from /api/vm through VMSummary and MachineSnapshot and renders by <name> on the row's second line and tooltip.
• Decodes the author on the create and status endpoints too, so cmux vm new --json and cmux vm status --json stay consistent, and re-publishes it in the vm.list socket payload for the CLI and remote clients.
• A known account with no recorded name shows nothing rather than falling back to an opaque account id.
• The sidebar spacing lab's fixture now includes a short-id machine so the author actually fits on the row; its preset picker is reachable by a dogfood tour, which now scopes menu clicks to the opened menu and selects presets by type-select.

^{Written for commit 738f4e4. Summary will update on new commits.}

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0c753fe and 738f4e4.

📒 Files selected for processing (14)

• Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/Machines/MachineSnapshot.swift
• Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/Machines/MachineSnapshotBuilder.swift
• Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/VMClient/VMClient.swift
• Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/VMClient/VMCreator.swift
• Resources/Localizable.xcstrings
• Sources/Cloud/CloudMachineCreatorLabel.swift
• Sources/Cloud/CloudSidebarDebugLabWindow.swift
• Sources/Cloud/CloudTreeMachineRowContent.swift
• Sources/Cloud/VMClientSocketCommands.swift
• cmux.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
• cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests.swift
• cmuxTests/CloudRefreshURLProtocol.swift
• cmuxUITests/DogfoodScenarioUITests.swift
• dogfood/scenarios/cloud-machine-author-tour.json

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[github-actions]

Thank you for your submission, we really appreciate it. Like many open-source projects, we ask that you all sign our Contributor License Agreement before we can accept your contribution. You can sign the CLA by just posting a Pull Request Comment same as the below format.

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I have read the CLA Document v2.2 and I hereby sign the CLA

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1 out of 2 committers have signed the CLA.
✅ teamleaderleo
❌ claude
_{You can retrigger this bot by commenting recheck in this Pull Request. Posted by the CLA Assistant Lite bot.}

[teamleaderleo]

Stack note: this branch is built on #15309's head, so it carries that PR's two mis-authored commits (325ab9e14a3, 31201fb169e, authored by Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>) and fails CLA Assistant for the same reason. My own two commits here are authored correctly. Details and the reason I cannot fix it from this sandbox are on #15309.

[vercel]

@teamleaderleo is attempting to deploy a commit to the Manaflow Team on Vercel.

A member of the Team first needs to authorize it.

[teamleaderleo]

Red receipt

Run: https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux/actions/runs/36414896188
Commit: bc22e4f0f4e (the regression commit, before the fix)
Command: cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests on blacksmith-6vcpu-macos-26

◇ Test run started.
✔ Test "the machine list decodes the author the backend sends" passed after 0.012 seconds.
✔ Test "the single-machine endpoints carry the author too" passed after 0.011 seconds.
✔ Test "a blank author id decodes as no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the row's snapshot carries the author through the builder" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "catalog-discovered machines have no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the socket payload re-publishes the author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✘ Test "the machine row says who made it" recorded an issue at CloudMachineCreatorTests.swift:164:9:
  Expectation failed: (content.subtitle → "vm-1 · Base · 3h ago").contains("by Ada Lovelace")
✘ Test "the machine row says who made it" recorded an issue at CloudMachineCreatorTests.swift:167:9:
  Expectation failed: (content.toolTip → "build box …).contains("by Ada Lovelace")
✘ Test "the machine row says who made it" failed after 0.002 seconds with 2 issues.
✔ Test "a machine with no named author says nothing about one" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✘ Suite "Cloud machine creator metadata" failed after 0.028 seconds with 2 issues.
✘ Test run with 8 tests in 1 suite failed after 0.028 seconds with 2 issues.
** TEST EXECUTE FAILED **

Two things worth reading off this rather than just "it went red".

It fails on assertions, not on a build. The run compiled and executed all eight tests. That
matters here because the regression commit deliberately leaves out
blankNameShowsNoAuthor, which names CloudMachineCreatorLabel: a type that does not exist
until the fix commit. Including it would have made this a compile failure, which proves
nothing about the row.

The six passing tests are the point. The author survives the list decode, the
single-machine endpoints, the snapshot builder and the socket payload. Every hop already
carries it. The one place it does not arrive is the row a person actually looks at, and
"vm-1 · Base · 3h ago" is exactly the subtitle this PR is about: an id, a kind and an age,
and nothing about whose machine it is.

a machine with no named author says nothing about one passes in red as well, which it would:
nothing renders an author yet, so "says nothing" is trivially true. It only starts carrying
weight in green, where it holds the line against falling back to the account id.

Green receipt to follow on ba6b200a1ee; its run is queued.

Skipped verification, disclosed: python3 scripts/verify-local.py is blocked in this
environment, so the local pre-commit scoped verification was not run. CI is the whole record
here.

[teamleaderleo]

Green receipt

Run: https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux/actions/runs/36415201990
Commit: ba6b200a1ee (the fix)
Command: the same one the red run used, cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests on blacksmith-6vcpu-macos-26

◇ Test run started.
✔ Test "the machine list decodes the author the backend sends" passed after 0.015 seconds.
✔ Test "the single-machine endpoints carry the author too" passed after 0.014 seconds.
✔ Test "a blank author id decodes as no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the row's snapshot carries the author through the builder" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "catalog-discovered machines have no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the socket payload re-publishes the author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the machine row says who made it" passed after 0.002 seconds.
✔ Test "a machine with no named author says nothing about one" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "a name of only whitespace is not a name" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test run with 9 tests in 1 suite passed after 0.034 seconds.
** TEST EXECUTE SUCCEEDED **

Nine tests here against eight in the red run. The ninth is a name of only whitespace is not a name, which names CloudMachineCreatorLabel and therefore could not exist before the fix
commit created that type. It is in the fix commit for that reason, not to pad the green run:
including it in the regression commit would have turned that run into a compile failure, which
would have proved nothing about the row.

The two tests that were red are green, and the two negative tests that passed trivially in red
now carry weight: with the row able to render an author, a machine with no named author says nothing about one is what stops the fallback from becoming the account id.

Still open on this PR: CLA Assistant is red because two commits inherited from the branch this
one builds on are authored by an identity with no GitHub account. That is not fixable from
here and is with Leo.

Skipped verification, disclosed: python3 scripts/verify-local.py is blocked in this
environment, so no local scoped verification ran. The red and green runs above are the whole
record.

[teamleaderleo]

Three commits added on top of the feature so the design call can have shots.

The author renders on the machine row's second line. The default compact preset does not draw that line, so on the default preset this change is invisible and only reaches the pointer through the hover text and assistive technology. It is visible in the Aero preset, which lives in the Cloud Sidebar Spacing Lab (Help menu, DEBUG builds).

• 75293773453 gives the lab's Preset picker an accessibility identifier — labelsHidden() left it with nothing a dogfood tour could aim at, so a tour could reach the lab but never change preset — puts a creator on the lab's machine fixture, and adds dogfood/scenarios/cloud-machine-author-tour.json, which walks Compact then Aero. The fixture name is long on purpose: the lab exists to show the crowded case, where the id, the author and the age compete for one line.
• 58975f0a087 is a cherry-pick of Click a dogfood tour's menu item inside the menu it opened #15372. The first tour run failed at the Help menu with "Multiple matching elements found": the tour runner looked the item up app-wide, and a DEBUG build lists the lab in both the Debug and the Help menu. Click a dogfood tour's menu item inside the menu it opened #15372 fixes that on its own merits; the pick is here only so this tour can run before that lands, and it will fold away on the next main merge.

manaflow-ai/cmux#15365 is the same tour on main plus that identifier, so the two Aero frames differ only by the author segment. A before frame from a different tour at a different scale is not a comparison, which is why it gets its own branch rather than reusing an older shot.

Both tours are dispatched. The design call goes to #13742 when they land.

Note on the earlier CI receipt: run 36421630940 was dispatched at 13fd8eedc87, which is now three commits behind this branch. The three commits above are DEBUG-only lab code plus a JSON file and a UI-test harness change, none of it reachable from the shipping app, but the receipt at the current head will be posted rather than relying on that argument.

[teamleaderleo]

CI receipt, cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests at 13fd8eedc87, run 36421630940: Test run with 9 tests in 1 suite passed after 0.038 seconds.

• the machine list decodes the author the backend sends
• the single-machine endpoints carry the author too
• a blank author id decodes as no author
• the row's snapshot carries the author through the builder
• catalog-discovered machines have no author
• the socket payload re-publishes the author
• the machine row says who made it
• a machine with no named author says nothing about one
• a name of only whitespace is not a name

13fd8eedc87 is three commits behind the current head. The three since are a DEBUG-only lab fixture, a tour JSON file and a cherry-picked UI-test harness fix, none of it reachable from the shipping app, but a run at the true head 58975f0a087 is dispatched rather than resting on that argument, and its result goes in a reply here.

Disclosure: python3 scripts/verify-local.py was refused in my environment, so the scoped local verification did not run. The focused dispatches stand in for it.

[teamleaderleo]

Tour fix at e836b5d2965

Same change as on #15365, which carries the "before" side of this comparison: the Spacing Lab's preset items come from a SwiftUI Picker, so they carry title: 'Aero' and no label, and a {"click": {"label": "Aero"}} step matches nothing. The tour now picks the preset with NSMenu type-select ({"key": "a"} then {"key": "return"}), which is order-independent. The tour also gained paths so PR media picks it up for Cloud sidebar changes.

Only dogfood/scenarios/cloud-machine-author-tour.json changed between 58975f0a087 and e836b5d2965. No Swift moved.

Runs

• after tour, this branch at e836b5d2965: 36434151534 on glaeda-std-xcode-26.6
• before tour, DRAFT evidence branch: the machine-author 'before' frame #15365 at 80596612b51: 36434106533
• unit tests, cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests at 58975f0a087: 36429408451, still running at the time of writing. That SHA differs from the current head only in the tour JSON above, so its result still covers the Swift under test. If it lands red I will re-dispatch on the current head rather than reason across the gap.

Still open on this PR

• b92f70b2640 is a cherry-pick that has to come off cloud-sidebar-machine-creator before merge.
• CLA Assistant is red because of 226cc732bee, 325ab9e14a3 and 31201fb169e, authored by Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>, an identity with no GitHub account that can sign. Rewriting authorship on a pushed branch needs Leo.
• This is a visual default, so it is a design call and waits on cmux#13742, not on CI.

[teamleaderleo]

Unit tests green: run 36429408451 @ 58975f0a087

cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests, 9 tests in 1 suite, all passing.

✔ Test "the machine list decodes the author the backend sends" passed after 0.013 seconds.
✔ Test "the single-machine endpoints carry the author too" passed after 0.012 seconds.
✔ Test "a blank author id decodes as no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the row's snapshot carries the author through the builder" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "catalog-discovered machines have no author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the socket payload re-publishes the author" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "the machine row says who made it" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "a machine with no named author says nothing about one" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Test "a name of only whitespace is not a name" passed after 0.001 seconds.
✔ Suite "Cloud machine creator metadata" passed after 0.029 seconds.
✔ Test run with 9 tests in 1 suite passed after 0.029 seconds.

The runner's own accounting agrees: cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests: 9 test(s) executed.

I checked this rather than reading the conclusion, because two lines in the same log say the opposite and both are noise:

• the test job shows skipped while the run concludes success. The selected tests ran inside build; test is a separate lane that never runs on a focused dispatch.
• Test Suite 'cmuxTests.xctest' passed ... Executed 0 tests, with 0 failures is XCTest's legacy counter, which is always zero for a Swift Testing suite.

SHA gap, stated plainly. This run is at 58975f0a087; the head is now e836b5d2965. The only change between them is dogfood/scenarios/cloud-machine-author-tour.json, a test scenario file that this suite does not read. No Swift moved, so the result covers the code under test at the current head. The tour itself is covered separately by run 36434151534.

[teamleaderleo]

The evidence tour went green and proved nothing. Fixed at 738f4e4e92f

Both tours passed every step. Run 36434106533 on the before branch, run 36434151534 here, 16 of 16 steps ok on each, and both reached Aero for real: the tree attachment shows PopUpButton, identifier: 'CloudSidebarDebugLab.preset', value: Compact before the keystrokes and value: Aero after.

Then I compared the two, and they are the same picture.

Not close to the same. The accessibility trees are 775 lines each and differ in exactly one line, the window's UUID:

< Window (Main), identifier: 'cmux.main.C77D2D03-4B4D-44A2-8380-C95BA3CBDCB6'
> Window (Main), identifier: 'cmux.main.0B559955-1DC4-4A95-B560-7E3572BDBC89'

Why. subtitle builds the second line as id · kind · by <name> · <age>, and the lab has one machine fixture, whose id is debug-long-machine-name-for-cloud-sidebar-spacing. At the lab's 360pt preview the line truncates inside the id, so everything after it, the author included, never reaches the screen. The comment I wrote when adding createdBy to that fixture said the lab "exists to show the crowded case, not the flattering one". That was the right instinct and the wrong fixture: crowded turned out to mean absent, and the author was added to the one row that cannot display it.

Fix. 738f4e4e92f adds a second machine with a short id (vm-4f2a, label api-smoke-test, author Grace Hopper), so the lab shows both cases: one row where the author is truncated away and one where it fits. The before branch gets the same machine without an author (a94155523207 on #15365), so the two frames differ only by the change under discussion.

Re-dispatched: before 36443829715, after 36443884335.

This is the general trap, not a one-off. A key step logs ok whether or not the keystroke did anything, the same way clickAt does, and expect can only assert that an element exists or does not. The scenario format cannot assert an element's value, so no tour can fail on "the preset did not change" or "the row says nothing about an author". Green tours have to be read against their tree and image attachments, every time. Filed with the title matching gap as follow-up 4 on cmuxterm-hq#853.

No before/after has gone to the design call on #13742 yet, because until now there was nothing to show.

[teamleaderleo]

Out of draft. The before and after evidence is in, from two CI dogfood tour runs on the same
scenario and the same Spacing Lab preset, so the by-line is confirmed to render rather than
truncate away:

This one shows new metadata on a row by default, so it is a team call rather than a fix, and
the options are on #13742. Auto-merge stays off until that call lands. Two things still to do
before it can merge either way: the branch carries a cherry-picked commit that has to come
off, and CLA Assistant is red on three commits authored under an identity with no GitHub
account, which needs the author rewritten.

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[teamleaderleo]

Closing this in favour of #15948, which carries the same change on a branch that can actually land.

This branch is 371 commits behind main and conflicts with it, and the conflict is not worth resolving because most of the diff is already on main. cmux#15309 landed the machine-author work as 547340ae7d0, which covers eight of this PR's fourteen files outright:

Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/Machines/MachineSnapshot.swift
Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/Machines/MachineSnapshotBuilder.swift
Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/VMClient/VMClient.swift
Packages/macOS/CmuxCloud/Sources/CmuxCloud/VMClient/VMCreator.swift
Sources/Cloud/VMClientSocketCommands.swift
cmux.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj            (4 of the 8 added lines)
cmuxTests/CloudMachineCreatorTests.swift  (152 of 213 lines)
cmuxTests/CloudRefreshURLProtocol.swift

Two of the commits here are also authored Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>, which CLA Assistant reads as an unsigned author, so this branch cannot go green as it stands.

#15948 re-lands the remaining eight files on a fresh branch off main: the creator label view, its row and debug-lab call sites, the part of CloudMachineCreatorTests main lacks, the tour and its registration, the new Localizable.xcstrings keys, and the project.pbxproj entries. Every commit there is authored under the CLA-signed address. Nothing from this PR is lost.

The creator design call itself is still open on cmux#13742, so #15948 stays unmerged until that is answered.