fix(desktop): restore the braille task spinner

[charlesvien]

Problem

Working tasks use the generic loading spinner instead of the ASCII-style activity spinner used for agent work.

Source: original report.

Changes

• Loading and working task rows now use the existing braille activity spinner.
• The status column keeps its current width, so task labels stay aligned.
• The task states and accessible labels do not change.

The image uses a standalone render of the marker markup and CSS.

How did you test this code?

• The focused component test catches a regression back to the generic spinner. It asserts a braille frame renders and no svg element does.
• Not checked: the marker inside the running Electron app. The change swaps one spinner component, and the component test covers that markup.

Automatic notifications

• Publish to changelog?

Docs update

None. The existing desktop conventions assign the braille spinner to agent activity.

🤖 Agent context

Autonomy: Human-driven (agent-assisted)

The agent updated this open pull request instead of opening a duplicate. The first revision used a dot ring. This revision uses the requested braille spinner.

A later session merged master into the branch and re-ran CI.

Tools used: PostHog Desktop coding agent, GitHub CLI, Vitest, TypeScript, Biome, and Playwright.

Skills invoked: /posthog-desktop, /writing-ui-components, /writing-tests, /writing-code-comments, /running-ci-preflight, and /writing-pr-descriptions.

---

Created with PostHog Desktop

[trunk-io]

😎 Merged successfully - details.

[github-actions]

React Doctor found 1 issue in 1 file · 1 warning.

1 warning

packages/ui/src/features/sidebar/components/items/TaskStatusDot.tsx

• ⚠️ packages/ui/src/features/sidebar/components/items/TaskStatusDot.tsx:128 Non-component export in component file only-export-components

_{Reviewed by React Doctor for commit 0bdf075.}

[github-actions]

🤖 CI report

✅ Trunk lane — non-backend lane (fe:product:desktop)

This PR is assigned to the non-backend lane (fe:product:desktop). It does not run backend Python tests and may merge in parallel with PRs in other lanes.

[hosthog]

HostHog preview — posthog-desktop-web

The previews for this PR have been torn down and no longer serve.

[greptile-apps]

_{Reviews (1): Last reviewed commit: "fix(desktop): put the dot ring back on t..." | Re-trigger Greptile}

[stamphog]

Approved.

Trivial, single-team UI fix by an author on the owning team, with test coverage and no risky territory touched.

• Author wrote 14% of the modified lines and has 5 merged PRs in these paths (familiarity MODERATE).
• 3 of the 3 changed files are governed by products/desktop/AGENT_APPROVALS.md.

Gate mechanics and policy version

Gate		Result
prerequisites	✓	all clear
deny-list	✓	no deny categories matched
size	✓	11L, 2F substantive, 19L/3F incl. docs/generated/snapshots — within ceiling
tier	✓	T1-agent / T1a-trivial (19L, 3F, single-area, fix)
stamphog 2.0.0b4		.stamphog/policy.yml @ 04438f4 · reviewed head 04438f4

A new stamphog review started for this PR — the fresh verdict replaces this approval.

[stamphog]

Not approved — escalated to a human reviewer.

Re-add the stamphog label to request another review once you have addressed this.

The PR description extensively describes restoring a "DotRingSpinner" ring mark with a whole revert-audit narrative, but the actual diff swaps in a different component (DotsCircleSpinner) rendering a braille-character animation, not a ring — the stated intent doesn't match the code change.

• Author wrote 14% of the modified lines and has 5 merged PRs in these paths (familiarity MODERATE).
• 👍 on the PR from greptile-apps[bot].
• 3 of the 3 changed files are governed by products/desktop/AGENT_APPROVALS.md.
• PR description claims restoration of 'DotRingSpinner' but diff imports and uses 'DotsCircleSpinner' with a braille-frame animation ('⠋'), not a dot ring — description and diff disagree on what visual component is being restored.

Gate mechanics and policy version

Gate		Result
prerequisites	✓	all clear
deny-list	✓	no deny categories matched
size	✓	9L, 2F substantive, 15L/3F incl. docs/generated/snapshots — within ceiling
tier	✓	T1-agent / T1a-trivial (15L, 3F, single-area, fix)
stamphog 2.0.0b4		.stamphog/policy.yml @ f976cec · reviewed head f976cec

[charlesvien]

Two automated findings, both checked and neither actionable here.

React Doctor — only-export-components at TaskStatusDot.tsx:128. The export it points at is export function TaskDotMark, which is a component, and it is unchanged by this PR. It sits at line 127 on master and moved to 128 only because the diff adds one const SPINNER_SIZE line above it. Declining: this PR neither introduces the export nor the warning, and renaming or relocating an untouched component to quiet a pre-existing lint warning would widen the diff for no behavior change.

test / unit-test failure on f976cec. The failing case is apps/code/src/main/services/secure-store/service.test.ts > SecureStoreService > round-trips a value through encryption, failing with Test timed out in 5000ms. That file is not in this PR's diff, which is three files under packages/ui/src/features/sidebar/components/items/. The test body is fully synchronous and in-memory, and the same file runs green locally in 69 ms for all 14 cases. The run's own summary reports environment 14.43s for a 14.96 s suite, so the runner was starved rather than the test being slow. Treating it as an infrastructure flake; the branch has since been updated from master, which re-ran the job.

_{🦉 via talyn.dev}

[stamphog]

Approved.

Small, contained UI fix swapping one spinner component for another in the desktop task sidebar; tests updated to match, author is on the owning team, no risky territory.

• Author wrote 14% of the modified lines and has 5 merged PRs in these paths (familiarity MODERATE).
• 👍 on the PR from greptile-apps[bot].
• 3 of the 3 changed files are governed by products/desktop/AGENT_APPROVALS.md.

Gate mechanics and policy version

Gate		Result
prerequisites	✓	all clear
deny-list	✓	no deny categories matched
size	✓	9L, 2F substantive, 15L/3F incl. docs/generated/snapshots — within ceiling
tier	✓	T1-agent / T1a-trivial (15L, 3F, single-area, fix)
stamphog 2.0.0b4		.stamphog/policy.yml @ 0bdf075 · reviewed head 0bdf075

[charlesvien]

CI is green on 0bdf075. All 14 required checks report success, and the three that failed on f976cec — Desktop Tests Pass, test / Desktop Tests Pass, test / unit-test — pass on this head, which confirms the secure-store timeout was a runner flake.

master is merged in as a two-parent commit, so the branch has no conflicts and the PR diff is still the same three files under packages/ui/src/features/sidebar/components/items/. The branch protection does not require branches to be up to date, so the ordinary drift behind master does not block the merge.

The PR still reads BLOCKED. What remains is a human step an agent cannot take: the review request for Team PostHog Desktop is open, and this repository merges only through the Trunk queue on explicit approval. Nothing in the code or the checks is outstanding.

_{🦉 via talyn.dev}

[talyn-app]

/trunk merge

[deployment-status-posthog]

Deploy status

Environment	Status	Deployed At	Workflow
dev	✅ Deployed	2026-09-10 06:38 UTC	Run
prod-us	✅ Deployed	2026-09-10 06:48 UTC	Run
prod-eu	✅ Deployed	2026-09-10 06:51 UTC	Run