feat: establish unified administration and model context baseline

docs/reports/2026-09-12-context-shelf-a-implementation.md

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+# Context shelf A: implementation and local acceptance
+
+Date: 2026-09-12. Status: implemented and deployed to local Docker; not deployed to the server.
+
+## Accepted scope
+
+The owner selected the latest option A and explicitly required functional
+preservation of Core and session management. Aesthetic refinement is limited to
+the agreed Administration workbench and global context.
+
+- Workspace, Evidence, Memory, Database and Pi open as peer pages in the work area.
+- A single top collapsible shelf selects workspace and interaction model.
+  Explicit choices are independently remembered per origin, mount and principal;
+  installation defaults fill only missing choices. Invalid saved choices fail
+  closed instead of silently choosing another context.
+- Core's composer, eight phases, review widgets and left activity log remain the
+  original production components. Session scope tabs, grouping, rename, archive,
+  bulk operations, read-only inspection and guarded Resume remain intact.
+- Visited Admin pages and Core remain mounted during page navigation.
+  Unsaved Admin edits block navigation/context changes until saved or explicitly
+  cancelled in the editor. Failed saves and failed catalog refreshes preserve drafts.
+- Workspace/model selectors are locked during operations. A navigation drawer
+  preserves access to the session rail when the log is open or space is narrow.
+- The unified Installation Model Catalog remains the only model authority.
+  Core and metadata generation consume the same canonical selection.
+  Resume now includes the session's pinned `workspaceId` in successful responses,
+  binding the global workspace immediately without replacing the selected model;
+  older backends have a manifest fallback.
+- Impeccable informed typography, warm surfaces, restrained red, spacing,
+  natural help-text wrapping and container-responsive layout. No Omics header
+  or left sidebar was added to production ThothII.
+- A, B and C prototype sources and launch scripts were preserved.
+
+## Verification
+
+Using Node 24.16.0:
+
+| Check | Result |
+| --- | --- |
+| Full frontend Vitest suite (two workers) | 671 tests passed, 82 files |
+| Full backend Vitest suite (two workers) | Passed; existing 40 opt-in auth runtime projection tests skipped |
+| Frontend TypeScript build check | Passed |
+| Backend TypeScript check | Passed |
+| Frontend production Vite build | Passed; bundle-size advisory remains |
+| Git whitespace check | Passed |
+| Strict MkDocs build | Passed |
+
+Regression fixtures now provide valid context where they exercise normal Core
+or session workflows. Separate tests explicitly cover invalid saved context,
+global selector uniqueness, lock/unlock, failed and successful saves, retained
+drafts across refresh failure, Core/Admin round trips, and pinned-workspace Resume.
+The existing 40 session-management tests remain green.
+
+Browser acceptance used the actual production React application against a
+temporary read-only synthetic API, not the earlier prototype implementation.
+Checked Core, expanded/collapsed shelf, Memory, session scope tabs and mobile
+navigation at 390, 768 and 1280 CSS-pixel application widths. The test frame
+scaled wider layouts to fit the inspection panel; layout width inside the frame
+remained the stated CSS width. No real data, provider calls or runtime mutations
+were performed. This is sampled visual acceptance, not certification of every
+Admin editor on the real portal.
+
+## Remaining release gates
+
+### Local Docker update
+
+At the owner's subsequent request, core and frontend were rebuilt from
+`/Users/mp/projects/ThothII` and recreated in the existing
+`thothii-18998cca7b0a` project. Its launcher preserves all previous Compose
+bindings and adds `/private/tmp/thothii-context-a.compose.yaml` last to override
+the old worktree build context. Only core/frontend were recreated; PostgreSQL,
+Qdrant, embedding and persistent volumes were retained.
+
+Verified HTTP 200 for the frontend and both direct/proxied core health endpoints.
+The served production bundle contains the global shelf and unsaved-change guard,
+without the synthetic preview API. All five persistent services report healthy.
+The mounted catalog is schema v2, default `zai/glm-5.3`, with shared
+DeepSeek Pro/Flash, local Qwen and GLM model identities.
+Previous image tags are retained as `before-context-a-20260912` for each image.
+This startup check does not exercise authenticated Core/provider or Admin workflows.
+
+### Server release
+
+1. Integrate on the server beneath Omics Portal's actual red header and beside
+   its existing sidebar. Supply available height through `--thoth-app-height`
+   when the host is shorter than the viewport. Check real host styles, widths,
+   zoom, keyboard traversal and Back/Forward.
+2. Use approved test data to verify configured Core/Pi and Admin/LiteLLM models
+   through their real workflows. Unit fixtures do not certify provider compatibility.
+3. Verify workspace readiness, synchronization and resume on the configured
+   stack before release. Follow the existing guarded server migration runbook.
+4. Gitea publication and final independent standards/spec review remain separate
+   gates; no remote issues or deployment are claimed by this implementation.
+
+The working tree also contains earlier model-catalog and Administration work.
+Unrelated changes were preserved; this report does not claim a clean or committed tree.