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>

qa/SKILL.md.tmpl

@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ You are a QA engineer AND a bug-fix engineer. Test web applications like a real
 | Mode | full | `--regression .gstack/qa-reports/baseline.json` |
 | Output dir | `.gstack/qa-reports/` | `Output to /tmp/qa` |
 | Scope | Full app (or diff-scoped) | `Focus on the billing page` |
-| Auth | None | `Sign in to user@example.com`, `Import cookies from cookies.json` |
+| Auth | Your Aside session (already signed in) | If a sign-in wall appears, you sign in yourself in Aside — no credentials in chat (see BROWSER SETUP). Fallback browser only: /setup-browser-cookies or `$B handoff` |
 
 **Tiers determine which issues get fixed:**
 - **Quick:** Fix critical + high severity only
@@ -66,12 +66,6 @@ You are a QA engineer AND a bug-fix engineer. Test web applications like a real
 
 **If no URL is given and you're on a feature branch:** Automatically enter **diff-aware mode** (see Modes below). This is the most common case — the user just shipped code on a branch and wants to verify it works.
 
-**CDP mode detection:** Before starting, check if the browse server is connected to the user's real browser:
-```bash
-$B status 2>/dev/null | grep -q "Mode: cdp" && echo "CDP_MODE=true" || echo "CDP_MODE=false"
-```
-If `CDP_MODE=true`: skip cookie import prompts (the real browser already has cookies), skip user-agent overrides (real browser has real user-agent), and skip headless detection workarounds. The user's real auth sessions are already available.
-
 **Check for clean working tree:**
 
 ```bash
@@ -90,9 +84,11 @@ RECOMMENDATION: Choose A because uncommitted work should be preserved as a commi
 
 After the user chooses, execute their choice (commit or stash), then continue with setup.
 
-**Find the browse binary:**
+**Browser: Aside**
 
-{{BROWSE_SETUP}}
+{{ASIDE_SETUP}}
+
+{{BROWSE_FALLBACK}}
 
 **Check test framework (bootstrap if needed):**
 
@@ -101,7 +97,8 @@ After the user chooses, execute their choice (commit or stash), then continue wi
 **Create output directories:**
 
 ```bash
-mkdir -p .gstack/qa-reports/screenshots
+REPORT_DIR=".gstack/qa-reports"
+mkdir -p "$REPORT_DIR/screenshots"
 ```
 
 ---
@@ -137,11 +134,11 @@ Record baseline health score at end of Phase 6 (per the Health Score Rubric in t
 .gstack/qa-reports/
 ├── qa-report-{domain}-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md    # Structured report
 ├── screenshots/
-│   ├── initial.png                        # Landing page annotated screenshot
-│   ├── issue-001-step-1.png               # Per-issue evidence
-│   ├── issue-001-result.png
-│   ├── issue-001-before.png               # Before fix (if fixed)
-│   ├── issue-001-after.png                # After fix (if fixed)
+│   ├── initial.jpg                        # Landing page screenshot
+│   ├── issue-001-step-1.jpg               # Per-issue evidence
+│   ├── issue-001-result.jpg
+│   ├── issue-002.png                      # Annotated screenshot (static bugs)
+│   ├── issue-001-after.jpg                # After fix (if fixed); the Phase 5 evidence is the before
 │   └── ...
 └── baseline.json                          # For regression mode
 ```
@@ -209,17 +206,36 @@ git commit -m "fix(qa): ISSUE-NNN — short description"
 ### 8d. Re-test
 
 - Navigate back to the affected page
-- Take **before/after screenshot pair**
+- Take **before/after screenshot pair** — the Phase 5 evidence is the before; capture the after now
 - Check console for errors
-- Use `snapshot -D` to verify the change had the expected effect
+- Compare the snapshot tree and `CONSOLE_ERRORS=` against the Phase 5 evidence to verify the change had the expected effect
+
+One flow, one script (tabs close when the script ends, so re-navigate from the URL):
 
 ```bash
-$B goto <affected-url>
-$B screenshot "$REPORT_DIR/screenshots/issue-NNN-after.png"
-$B console --errors
-$B snapshot -D
+aside repl '
+const HOOK = `(() => { window.__gstackErrs = window.__gstackErrs || []; const oe = console.error; console.error = (...a) => { window.__gstackErrs.push(a.map(String).join(" ")); oe.apply(console, a); }; window.addEventListener("error", e => window.__gstackErrs.push("uncaught: " + e.message)); })()`;
+const pg = await openTab("about:blank");
+await pg._sendToTarget("Page.addScriptToEvaluateOnNewDocument", { source: HOOK });
+await pg.goto("<affected-url>");
+const s = await snapshot(pg, { interactive: true });
+console.log(s.tree);
+console.log("CONSOLE_ERRORS=" + JSON.stringify(await pg.evaluate(() => window.__gstackErrs)));
+await pg.screenshot({ path: "issue-NNN-after.jpg", type: "jpeg", quality: 60, fullPage: true });
+console.log("ASIDE_DIR=" + pwd);
+await closeTab(pg);
+console.log("GSTACK_STEP_OK");
+'
 ```
 
+Then copy the evidence out of the `ASIDE_DIR` the script printed:
+
+```bash
+cp "<ASIDE_DIR>/issue-NNN-after.jpg" "$REPORT_DIR/screenshots/issue-NNN-after.jpg"
+```
+
+Read `$REPORT_DIR/screenshots/issue-NNN-after.jpg` so the user sees the after state inline. If the bug needed an interaction to reproduce, re-run the Phase 5 Drive-a-flow script instead and compare its `DIFF` and `CONSOLE_ERRORS=` lines with the original evidence.
+
 ### 8e. Classify
 
 - **verified**: re-test confirms the fix works, no new errors introduced