v1.81.0.0 feat: Aside is the browser gstack drives first; every browsing skill, the PDF/diagram renderer, and web research; the bundled browser stays the automatic fallback (#2810)

* feat(aside): browser-driver contract, cookbook, research and fallback resolvers

{{ASIDE_SETUP}} (readiness probe + ten rules for driving the user's real browser), {{ASIDE_COOKBOOK}} (script shapes verified live against Aside CLI 1.26: one flow per aside repl script, CDP console hook before navigation, evidence lines, session-directory artifact handoff, GSTACK_STEP_OK sentinel), {{ASIDE_RESEARCH}} (research through aside exec, WebSearch when Aside is absent, knowledge otherwise) and {{BROWSE_FALLBACK}} (the fifteen-row Aside-step to $B-command table plus the rules that differ, so every browsing skill keeps working on gstack's own headless browser). test/aside-driver.test.ts pins the sentences and asserts every browsing skill carries the Aside block followed by the fallback; test/helpers/aside-available.ts is the shared live-Aside probe.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(render): Aside-first local-HTML renderer with the bundled browser as fallback

lib/aside-render.ts serves the HTML's directory on loopback (Aside refuses file:// URLs), opens it with waitUntil load, prints through CDP Page.printToPDF so tagged output, outlines, header/footer templates and page numbers survive, emulates device metrics for sized screenshots, and writes in-page evaluations to files; when Aside is absent it runs the same spec through the browse daemon (newtab, load, js, pdf, screenshot, closetab) and reports ENGINE=aside|browse. bin/gstack-render.ts is the CLI skill templates call. lib/claude-bin.ts and lib/error-handling.ts become the canonical copies (browse/src re-exports them).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(browse): /browse drives Aside first, with the $B reference behind the fallback

Contract, cookbook, mode choice (aside repl by default, aside exec for reading), report format, the fallback section, and the full command reference carved on demand.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(qa): /qa and /qa-only drive Aside, fall back to $B

QA_METHODOLOGY runs every phase as Aside scripts (orient, explore, document, re-test, mobile viewport via CDP emulation, links via HEAD fetch); the authenticate phase is 'you are already signed in'; a 13th rule requires consent before mutating actions on non-local targets; the fallback section translates each step onto $B. The qa E2E tests run on whichever engine is present.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(design): design-review, design-consultation, design-shotgun, plan-design-review, design-html drive Aside

Design-system extraction is one script printing FONTS/COLORS/HEADINGS/TOUCH_TARGETS/NAV; competitor research confirms the exact URLs before opening them in the real browser and runs on the bundled browser when Aside is absent; design-html's viewport screenshots, sketches and comparison boards render through gstack-render.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(deploy): benchmark, canary, land-and-deploy Step 7, devex-review drive Aside

One aside repl script per page prints NAV/PAINT/LCP/RESOURCES/SCRIPTS/CSS/SUMMARY (benchmark), CONSOLE_ERRORS/NAV/TEXT + screenshot (canary, re-run every 60s), and the post-deploy check reads responseStatus from the navigation entry; each carries the $B fallback.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(third-party-actions): Aside is the recommended driver; gstack's visible browser stays the fallback

The readiness probe is lifted from {{ASIDE_SETUP}} at gen time (byte-identity pinned) and rule 3 points at browse/SKILL.md for how to drive; the consent question offers Aside first and gstack's own visible browser (handoff/resume for sign-in) as the fallback, as v1.72 framed it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(scrape): /scrape reads pages through Aside; the browser-skills runtime rides the fallback

Look-then-extract scripts build the JSON inside the page and print it between JSON_START/JSON_END; aside exec for fuzzy intents; on the $B fallback the browser-skills match/prototype flow and /skillify apply as before.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(make-pdf): print through Aside first, the bundled browser otherwise

asideClient.ts replaces the direct $B client with one render() call per PDF (the exact option mapping the browse pdf command had: paper, margins, header/footer/page numbers, tagged, outline, printBackground, preferCSSPageSize, Paged.js wait); the diagram pre-pass, oversized-image downscale and DOCX rasters each run as one render script with per-fence try/catch; exit 4 now means no browser is available and names both remedies; $P setup reports which engine it found. The e2e gates run on whichever engine is present, so the Linux lane exercises the fallback.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(diagram): the triplet is one gstack-render call

SVG, PNG and excalidraw from one invocation over the content-addressed bundle staged under /tmp/gstack-render; every diagram type gets an excalidraw export; gstack-render picks the engine and prints ENGINE=; the diagram E2E gates on either engine.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(research): web research runs in Aside first, WebSearch second

The planning, review, design, security and investigate skills research through {{ASIDE_RESEARCH}}; WebSearch stays in allowed-tools as the fallback; testing.ts's bootstrap step follows; skeleton ceilings ratcheted for the research block.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(setup,gen-skill-docs): prune renders of skills that no longer exist

setup gains _prune_stale_generated for every host tree and the doc generator removes gstack-* output dirs it did not write, so a skill removed from the source tree can never linger in an install.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: registries, budgets and suite reconciled for Aside-first with the $B fallback

Touchfiles + E2E tiers gain the Aside keys, coverage matrix and eval baselines updated, size budget re-baselined to parity-baseline-v1.80.0.0.json (the contract plus fallback ride in every browsing skill), parity ceilings ratcheted with measured values, LLM-judge prompts and the E2E fixtures speak Aside-first, browse-fallback.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: Aside first, gstack browser fallback

README, BROWSER.md, docs/, CONTRIBUTING, CLAUDE.md, ARCHITECTURE, AGENTS.md, TODOS and the root router describe the one product story: Aside is the browser gstack drives first; the bundled headless browser is the automatic fallback (Linux, Windows, app closed) where cookie import, GStack Browser, pair-agent and browser-skills still apply.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: regenerate SKILL.md docs, llms.txt, agents digest, ship goldens, context-budget fixture

bun run gen:skill-docs over the templates; goldens re-rendered; context-budget ceilings recaptured.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* v1.80.0.0: Aside is the browser gstack drives first; the bundled browser is the fallback

MINOR: new capability across ten skills, the renderer and research; nothing removed. CHANGELOG release summary + itemized changes; VERSION 1.80.0.0; package.json 1.80.0.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(todos): file non-Claude host ownership-gate and version-heading pin follow-ups

Two follow-ups from the /plan-ceo-review + /plan-eng-review pass on merging
PR #2804 with main's v1.80.0.0 ownership gate: bring the Codex/Factory/
OpenCode/Cursor/Kiro copy loops and the stale-render prune under the
.gstack-owned marker rule, and a free test pinning that the CHANGELOG top
heading equals VERSION (the collision that git cannot see).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: pre-landing review fixes for the Aside-first branch

Review army + adversarial passes (Claude and Codex) on the merged branch:

setup
- _prune_stale_generated scans the host dirs too (the generator already
  removed the render before setup ran, so the host branch was dead), skips
  symlinks in the render tree (rm -rf on a slash-terminated link empties its
  target), removes a host symlink only when it resolves into gstack, cleans a
  bannered real dir through _cleanup_weak_dir, recognizes frontmatter-renamed
  skills, and logs through log. The always-run codex render passes every host
  dir that may link to it.
- NEEDS_BUILD checks all three binaries (with $_EXE) and lib/ sources; the
  browser hint and the bootstrap summary honor GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE, treat a
  requested skip as a request, and derive one skill list.

lib/aside-render.ts + bin/gstack-render.ts
- The loopback server carries a per-render secret path, checks containment on
  the real path (symlink escapes are 403), and rejects malformed encoding.
- Inline eval results are one base64 line, so page text cannot forge
  ASIDE_DIR= or the sentinel; the last ASIDE_DIR wins.
- runProc escalates SIGTERM to SIGKILL, bounds every wait, and clears every
  timer (an uncleared one kept gstack-render alive after printing OK).
- renderTmpDir refuses a shared /tmp name owned by someone else; the work dir
  and server are created inside try; goto's budget follows the render budget.
- probeAside classifies a present-but-failing CLI as ASIDE_NOT_RUNNING like
  the skills' bash probe; render() retries on gstack's own browser when Aside
  could not start or its private CDP bridge is gone (never on a page error
  or a timeout of a running script); the CLI reports the engine that actually
  rendered, exits 0 on --help, rejects non-numeric flags, documents
  --wait-timeout, fences EVAL/PAGE_ERRORS as untrusted content, and names the
  daemon's cookie-import JS lock remedy.
- The browse path passes --scale only when asked (a scale change rebuilds
  the daemon context) and restores the viewport after a sized screenshot.

resolvers / templates
- The bash probe honors GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE and has a perl deadline on stock
  macOS; .local is no longer LOCAL (mDNS); same-origin filters compare parsed
  origins; link status is HEAD-checked only on LOCAL targets; every
  aside exec goes through the receipted _aside_exec prelude
  ({{ASIDE_EXEC_PRELUDE}}), including nine template blocks that called it
  bare; the design sketch and diagram staging use private directories.
- The generator prunes only bannered renders and never a host whose
  generation failed.

Docs, stale comments and dead code cleaned; goldens re-rendered; tests
updated and added for every behavior above.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: coverage for the render CLI, setup rebuild check, make-pdf exit codes, and prose $B spans

New free tests from the ship coverage audit: test/gstack-render-cli.test.ts
(argv guards, --help, output contract with a fake daemon, failure and
serve-root paths, no-browser case, prompt exit), test/setup-needs-build.test.ts
(every binary and source set flips NEEDS_BUILD, Windows suffixes),
make-pdf/test/cli-exit-codes.test.ts and setup-smoke.test.ts (error to exit
code mapping, runSetup stages, renderPdf's engine), and prose-span cases for
extractBrowseCommands in test/skill-parser.test.ts.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: CHANGELOG and TODOS cover the review fixes (v1.81.0.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: sync project docs with the v1.81.0.0 review fixes

BROWSER.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, README.md, CLAUDE.md,
docs/TESTING_INTERNALS.md and docs/PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md now describe the
shipped renderer and setup: the loopback render server's per-render secret
path and real-path containment, ENGINE= naming the engine that actually
rendered (mid-run retry on gstack's own browser), EVAL/PAGE_ERRORS fenced as
untrusted content, --wait-timeout and the CLI's argv guards, the receipted
_aside_exec prelude ({{ASIDE_EXEC_PRELUDE}} in the placeholder table), the
LOCAL host rule without .local, LOCAL-only HEAD checks in the links script,
GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE across probe/renderer/setup, the ownership-gated
retired-skill prune, the widened NEEDS_BUILD check, and the new free tests
(gstack-render-cli, setup-prune-stale-generated, setup-browser-hint,
setup-needs-build, make-pdf cli-exit-codes and setup-smoke).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: CHANGELOG states the precise mid-run retry rule

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(test): skill-e2e-bws slices the $B setup block from the Browser fallback section

browse/SKILL.md no longer has '## SETUP' / '## Core QA Patterns' (Aside is the
primary driver; the $B block moved under 'Browser fallback'), so the gate test
sliced an empty block and handed the agent nothing to run. Anchor on
'### Find the `$B` binary' up to the next heading. 7/7 pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(test): gate POSIX-only fixtures off Windows

windows-free-tests: the gstack-render CLI tests drive a shebang fake browse
that CreateProcess cannot exec, and two NEEDS_BUILD cases assert an execute
bit and a bare-name miss that MSYS bash does not have (test -x ignores mode
bits and resolves design -> design.exe). Those describes and cases now
self-skip on win32; argument guards, --help, the no-browser case, and every
other rebuild-check case still run there.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(render): runProc waits for the exit code until the kill deadline; newtab retries once on a cold daemon

A process whose pipes have reached EOF is exiting, but runProc gave the exit
code only five seconds to arrive and then returned null, which run() reports
as a failed command. Under CI's six-shard load one such render failed with the
artifact already written. The SIGTERM/SIGKILL timers already bound the wait,
so the exit race now runs to the kill deadline.

The first CLI call auto-starts the browse daemon; on a cold start it can
answer 'Unable to connect' once while the server is still coming up. That
single case is retried after 1.5s; every other newtab failure is not.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test(aside-render): warm the daemon before live fallback cases; failures name the render error

- Live fallback cases run 'goto about:blank' up to twice before asserting and
  skip (never fail) when the daemon cannot come up.
- expectOk() puts r.error and the browse transcript into the assertion so a
  failed render is diagnosable from the CI log.
- The argv-contract cases dump the fake's log on a miss.
- File default timeout is 30s: the subject is the CLI contract, not latency.
- Two cases pin the cold-daemon newtab retry and that other errors are not
  retried.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: CHANGELOG notes the cold-start tolerance of the bundled-browser renderer

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Sina <sdroid674+github@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/TESTING_INTERNALS.md

@@ -44,6 +44,49 @@ a baseline, so a run can't compare against itself).
 
 ## Runners: how the suites execute (2026-08 overhaul)
 
+**Aside-only E2E tests self-skip without a live Aside; browser-driving tests
+run on either engine.** Every skill that opens a web page drives the Aside AI
+browser first (`scripts/resolvers/aside.ts`) and falls back to gstack's own
+browse engine when Aside is absent (and Chromium bootstrapped). The cases that
+need Aside itself (`test/skill-e2e-aside.test.ts`, `design-review-fix` in
+`test/skill-e2e-design.test.ts`) call `asideAvailable()` from
+`test/helpers/aside-available.ts` (the same probe the skills run in BROWSER
+SETUP) and skip when the `aside` CLI or the Aside app is absent. CI runners have
+no Aside, so those run only on macOS dev machines and sit in the periodic tier;
+set `GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE=1` to force the skip locally (which also exercises the
+fallback hand-off). The qa E2E files (`test/skill-e2e-qa-workflow.test.ts`,
+`test/skill-e2e-qa-bugs.test.ts`) gate on `asideAvailable() ||
+fs.existsSync(browseBin)`: the skill's own BROWSER SETUP picks the engine, so
+on a Mac they drive Aside and on Linux CI they drive the built browse binary,
+skipping only when neither exists. The `$B`-driven E2E cases and `browse/test/`
+run on every platform as before, so Linux CI proves the fallback engine live.
+
+**The renderer picks the same way, so the render gates are engine-agnostic.**
+`/make-pdf`, `/diagram`, and design previews print and screenshot their local
+HTML through `lib/aside-render.ts` / `bin/gstack-render.ts`, which render in
+Aside when `probeAside()` says `READY` and through the browse engine otherwise.
+make-pdf's `*-gate.test.ts` and `test/skill-e2e-diagram.test.ts` (periodic,
+paid) gate on `browserAvailable()` (`make-pdf/test/e2e/browser-available.ts`:
+`asideAvailable() || resolveBrowseBin() !== null`) — on a Mac they print
+through Aside, on Linux CI through the browse binary `bun run build:gates`
+compiles, and they skip only when neither exists. Only
+`test/aside-render.test.ts`'s two live Aside cases (a full round-trip and a
+late-readiness `--wait-expr` poll) are Aside-only: its option
+mapping and generated-script pins run everywhere, and its fake-executable cases
+drive both engines hermetically (fake `aside` / `browse` scripts on PATH pin
+probe classification, the stdout contract, loopback-server policy, the timeout
+kill, engine choice and the mid-run fallback). `test/gstack-render-cli.test.ts`
+does the same for `bin/gstack-render.ts` with `GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE=1` and
+`GSTACK_BROWSE_BIN` pointed at a fake daemon that logs every argv line. A green
+gate on Linux proves the fallback engine, not Aside; the Mac run is the Aside
+evidence.
+The browse-binary leg presumes Chromium bootstrapped: `resolveBrowseBin()`
+only checks that the binary (or the `find-browse` shim) exists, never that
+Chromium can launch, so on an install where the best-effort Chromium step
+was skipped (`GSTACK_SKIP_PLAYWRIGHT=1`) or failed, these gates run and fail
+at browser launch instead of skipping. Fix the bootstrap (or move the binary
+aside) before running them locally; CI always installs Chromium first.
+
 **Free suite (`bun run test:free`).** `scripts/test-free-shards.ts` runs N
 concurrent shard processes (serial within each) with strict-output
 classification per shard. Full-suite shards are packed by RECORDED PER-FILE
@@ -123,8 +166,9 @@ in the test trees must carry a `timeout`, enforced by
 ratchet.
 
 **Anchor-sliced `setup` harnesses.** `setup` is one large bash script, so the
-free tests that pin its linker, cleanup, and Chromium-bootstrap behavior never
-run the whole thing. They slice the source by anchor (`extractFn(name)` takes
+free tests that pin its linker, cleanup, retired-skill prune, browser hint,
+rebuild decision, and Chromium-bootstrap behavior never run the whole thing.
+They slice the source by anchor (`extractFn(name)` takes
 `name() {` through the next `\n}\n`; `test/setup-playwright-best-effort.test.ts`
 slices the `# 2. Ensure Playwright's Chromium is available` block up to
 `# 2b.`), join the extracted functions with stubbed collaborators, and execute
@@ -135,7 +179,14 @@ testing nothing, and `test/setup-link-ownership.test.ts` and
 `test/setup-playwright-best-effort.test.ts` throw on any `command not found` on
 stderr as harness drift (a helper the test forgot to extract) rather than
 letting it degrade into a pass. Files: `test/setup-link-ownership.test.ts`,
-`test/setup-cleanup-orphans.test.ts`, `test/setup-playwright-best-effort.test.ts`.
+`test/setup-cleanup-orphans.test.ts`, `test/setup-playwright-best-effort.test.ts`,
+`test/setup-prune-stale-generated.test.ts` (`_prune_stale_generated` against a
+temp render tree plus host dirs: host cleanup after the generator already
+pruned, symlink targets survive, frontmatter-renamed skills, foreign links),
+`test/setup-browser-hint.test.ts` (`_browser_hint` and the bootstrap summary
+across Aside present/absent, bootstrap ok/failed/skipped, `GSTACK_SKIP_ASIDE`),
+and `test/setup-needs-build.test.ts` (the `NEEDS_BUILD` block sliced between
+two anchors: every binary and source set flips it, Windows `.exe` suffixes).
 `test/relink.test.ts` shells out to a copy of the real `bin/gstack-relink`
 against a temp `GSTACK_INSTALL_DIR` / `GSTACK_SKILLS_DIR`, and
 `test/hook-scripts.test.ts` runs the real `careful/bin/check-careful.sh` and