revert(web): remove the compact sidebar

[maria-rcks]

Removes the compact sidebar: the collapsed icon rail and the dense thread rows, plus the Appearance → Sidebar setting that drove them. Reverts #11525, #9417, #11644 and #11652.

compactSidebarEnabled and sidebarCompactThreadRows are dropped from ClientSettings. Decoding already ignores unknown keys, so anyone who had either flag on lands on the default sidebar with no error — the same path the retired sidebar v2 beta keys took. packages/contracts/src/settings.test.ts now asserts that. A sidebar left collapsed goes back to the pre-existing offcanvas behaviour and still reopens from the titlebar trigger.

#11595 (sparse shelves stay pinned to the bottom) was written on top of the rail, so it is kept with its compact branches collapsed to the expanded case.

Evidence

Settings → Appearance, same scroll position and data. The Sidebar section is gone:

Existing users: set Compact sidebar to "Both", confirmed compactSidebarEnabled: true and sidebarCompactThreadRows: true were written to t3code:client-settings:v1, then loaded the reverted build without clearing storage.

Checks

vp run --filter @t3tools/web --filter @t3tools/contracts --filter @t3tools/desktop typecheck clean, vp lint on the 19 changed files 0 errors, and 218 tests pass across settings.test.ts, timestampFormat.test.ts, DesktopClientSettings.test.ts, ui/sidebar.test.tsx and Sidebar.drag.test.ts.

Mobile has no compact sidebar surface, so nothing to change there.

Written by claude-opus-5[1m] on behalf of Maria

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Changes
  • Removed the compact, icon-only sidebar mode and its related settings.
  • Sidebar content, navigation, search, project controls, and thread details now use the full layout consistently.
  • Removed the compact sidebar preview and settings search entry.
  • Older compact-sidebar preferences are discarded when settings are loaded.
  • Sidebar thread completion times are no longer displayed.
  • Relative-time formatting now always uses the current time.

[macroscopeapp]

Approvability

Verdict: Not approved

Macroscope's review found this PR not approvable — This removes a user-facing compact-sidebar mode across the production sidebar, settings UI, persisted client-settings schema, drag-and-drop behavior, and titlebar layout. It also changes the resulting experience for existing opted-in users, making the broad runtime and product-default impact appropriate for human review.

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[coderabbitai]

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ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

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Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Advanced

Run ID: f9fc1ec2-976a-4d32-acfe-25ffb766529e

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1bbca0e and 4c1bcec.

📒 Files selected for processing (22)

• apps/desktop/src/settings/DesktopClientSettings.test.ts
• apps/web/src/components/AppSidebarLayout.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/LegacySidebar.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/Sidebar.drag.ts
• apps/web/src/components/Sidebar.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/ThreadStatusIndicators.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/settings/CompactSidebarPreview.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/settings/SettingsPanels.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/settings/SettingsSidebarNav.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/settings/settingsSearch.ts
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarChrome.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.test.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarThreadHeader.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarUpdatePill.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/ui/sidebar.tsx
• apps/web/src/hooks/useSettings.ts
• apps/web/src/timestampFormat.test.ts
• apps/web/src/timestampFormat.ts
• apps/web/src/workspaceTitlebar.ts
• packages/contracts/src/settings.test.ts
• packages/contracts/src/settings.ts

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (10)

• apps/web/src/components/settings/settingsSearch.ts
• apps/web/src/timestampFormat.test.ts
• apps/web/src/hooks/useSettings.ts
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.tsx
• apps/desktop/src/settings/DesktopClientSettings.test.ts
• apps/web/src/components/ui/sidebar.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.test.tsx
• apps/web/src/components/settings/CompactSidebarPreview.tsx
• packages/contracts/src/settings.ts
• apps/web/src/components/settings/SettingsPanels.tsx

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The PR removes compact sidebar settings and rendering paths. It standardizes sidebar layouts, sorting, controls, and labels, removes related settings UI and APIs, updates schemas, and simplifies relative-time formatting.

Changes

Compact sidebar removal

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Settings contract packages/contracts/src/settings.ts, packages/contracts/src/settings.test.ts, apps/desktop/src/settings/DesktopClientSettings.test.ts	The compact sidebar settings were removed from schemas, patches, fixtures, and decoding expectations.
Settings UI apps/web/src/components/settings/*, apps/web/src/hooks/useSettings.ts	Compact sidebar controls, preview content, search entries, reset handling, and the related hook were removed.
Sidebar rendering and interactions apps/web/src/components/AppSidebarLayout.tsx, apps/web/src/components/Sidebar.tsx, apps/web/src/components/Sidebar.drag.ts, apps/web/src/components/ThreadStatusIndicators.tsx, apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarThreadHeader.tsx	Sidebar rendering now uses standard full and slim layouts. Compact row branches, footer placement, sorting options, icon-only controls, and compact status variants were removed.
Legacy sidebar and shell apps/web/src/components/LegacySidebar.tsx, apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarChrome.tsx, apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarUpdatePill.tsx, apps/web/src/components/ui/sidebar.tsx, apps/web/src/workspaceTitlebar.ts	Icon-collapsed styling, labels, tooltips, fixed footer support, and compact-specific project interactions were removed.
Relative-time formatting apps/web/src/timestampFormat.ts, apps/web/src/timestampFormat.test.ts, apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.tsx, apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarCompletedTime.test.tsx	Relative-time functions now use the current time internally. The completed-time component and explicit-clock tests were removed.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~45 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Suggested reviewers: juliusmarminge

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 4c1bc

The compact-sidebar removal preserves the offcanvas fallback and ignores retired settings keys without an identified regression. The change is ready to merge.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 23.53% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 17 functions across 12 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly identifies the main change: removing the compact sidebar as part of a web revert.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description clearly explains the compact-sidebar removal, migration behavior, retained sparse-shelves behavior, UI impact, evidence, and validation results. It does not use every template heading …
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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