# desk-channel

The desk as a channel of the operator's conversation: kind `desktop` of the `channel` and `intake` benches the
router (`messenger`) declares (novox/hq ADR 0258, ADR 0259). It shows the router's messages on the notifier of
each machine the operator sits at (the `node-notifier` seat), and says which button was chosen there.

- **It proves nothing about who clicked.** Any process of the operator's account can choose a notification's
  action (`dunstctl action`), so its claim declares no `verified-sender`: the router offers here only
  acknowledgements (Silence for a week, Details) and says in the words where an approval can be given.
- **An answer is taken only on a machine its message was shown on**, and once; a refused click is said where it
  was made. A message with buttons stays until it is dismissed.
- **What it remembers is never shown again** (issue 384: on 2026-10-10 a notifier that started again was
  shown nine old popups from the desk's memory, resolved and silenced ones among them). Its memory — which
  notification each handle has on each machine — serves only to replace or edit a message in place. When the
  notifier's bundle starts again on a machine (`dunst.started`), its notifications stay on screen and the
  answers they waited for are lost: the desk keeps their ids and says in its standing when that happened
  (`answers-lost-at`); the router, which alone knows what is still open and unanswered, says that again under
  its handle, replacing the notification in place so its buttons work again. Nothing resolved, silenced or
  cancelled comes back.
- A message no machine took is said to the router as failed; the router tries it again.
- **One notification per message** (issue 373): an `edit`, and a `send` or `show` under a handle already shown (a
  reminder, an escalation), replace that message's notification on each machine by its id (the notifier's
  `replace_id`), so a problem is one notification updated in place. An edit goes only where it was shown; a
  message said again is shown anew on a machine it was not. A replace that fails on a machine keeps that
  machine's notification on record, so a later edit still reaches it.

## What the operator gives

The machines to show on, as a setting: `settings` for `desk-channel` with
`{"desktop-machines": ["<the machine the operator sits at>", …]}`. Until then it says it cannot send, and the
router sends warnings to the channel that reaches the operator away.

## Where it runs

Held once for the mesh, on the same machine as the router, which is where it is assigned. **It runs as the
account `desk-channel`, in a runtime of its own, on a bus account of its own** (`runs-as`), as telegram does:
what it shows and the answers it says are out of reach of the operator's account, which agents run as. It asks
each machine's notifier through the mesh: nothing new runs on the machines.

## A link's code (the review of 2026-10-09)

- **It is shown only where it is seen.** Each machine's notifier says whether it is paused (`dunst.paused`, at
  least every two minutes). A message the router marks secret is shown only on a named machine heard unpaused in
  the last five minutes; while there is none, it is said to the router as failed and the desk says it cannot
  send, so the router starts no link. A code held by a paused notifier would appear later, to whoever is at the
  screen then.
- **It is kept nowhere.** Not in this module's state, and sent `secret` to the notifier, which sends it
  transient in the category `mesh.secret`: dunst's rules keep it out of its history, and
  `node-notifier.history`, which every caller of the mesh's verbs may read, leaves it out.
- **What remains**: while it is on screen, a program of the operator's account on that X display can read it
  (X11 isolates no client from another). It is shown for as long as the router's code lives.

## Tools

| tool | does |
|---|---|
| `desk_channel_status` | whether it can show messages, the machines and each one's last answer, and its rules |