fix(react): stop advertising app as a bound expression-scope root — the #8164 post-merge audit residue, swept as a class

.changeset/6487-visibility-advice-per-tier.md

@@ -29,11 +29,13 @@ prose that described it:
   byte-for-byte what it was.
 - **`'app-shell'`** — the chrome gate `ExpressionProvider.evaluateVisibility`
   runs, wired onto this reporter by objectui#6443. Its evaluator is built from
-  `{ current_user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app, data, features }`, so
-  the line now names `current_user` with its three ADR-0068 alias spellings,
-  `app`, and `features` — the deployment-flag root that provider documents for
-  exactly this kind of predicate — and states outright that `record` and
-  `page.<var>` do not exist there.
+  `{ current_user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, data, features }`, so
+  the line now names `current_user` with its three ADR-0068 alias spellings and
+  `features` — the deployment-flag root that provider documents for exactly
+  this kind of predicate — and states outright that `record` and `page.<var>`
+  do not exist there. (That bag and that paragraph also carried an `app` root
+  when this entry was first written; objectui#8155 removed it from both before
+  either shipped, so the released message names five roots, not six.)
 
 **Why not generalise the copy instead.** Dropping the concrete root names would
 have made one paragraph true everywhere at the cost of making it useful nowhere:

.changeset/7727-conditional-formatting-record-scope.md

@@ -60,13 +60,34 @@ consumer aligns to it, rather than the engine growing a root to match this consu
 population cannot be measured from this repository.** In-tree usage is zero — swept
 across `packages/`, `apps/`, `examples/` and `content/` with a firing control — but
 metadata authored in real deployments lives outside this tree and no sweep here can
-see it. Any predicate that reads `app.*` — a conditional-formatting condition, an
-action `visible` / `disabled`, a field `visibleWhen` — stops resolving and, because
-unresolvable visibility predicates **fail open**, will start reading as "yes" rather
-than erroring. That is the accepted cost of the ruling, not an oversight. There is no
-replacement root: `app` was never in the protocol. If you need a "current app" value in
-a predicate, that is a spec/engine vocabulary widening to be filed (the producer-side
-card, objectstack#16420, stays open as the record to reopen).
+see it. Any predicate that reads `app.*` stops resolving. There is no replacement
+root: `app` was never in the protocol. If you need a "current app" value in a
+predicate, that is a spec/engine vocabulary widening to be filed fresh — the
+producer-side card objectstack#16420 was closed `not_planned` by the same ruling
+(2026-09-07), so there is no open record waiting for it.
+
+**What a stale `app.*` predicate does now depends on the surface — the direction is
+NOT uniform, and two of them fail the safe way.** Measured per surface on the merged
+head, each with a resolvable control predicate firing in the same run:
+
+| Surface | Entry point | A stale `app.*` predicate now |
+|---|---|---|
+| Conditional-formatting `condition` | `resolveConditionalFormatting` → `evalRowPredicate` (`fallback: false`) | **fails CLOSED** — the rule silently stops matching, no style is applied |
+| Row/header action `visible` / `disabled` | `evalRowPredicate` (`fallback: false`) | **fails CLOSED** — the action is hidden / left enabled |
+| Action `visible` on `action-button` / `action-menu` / `action-bar` | `useCondition(…, { throwOnError: true })` | **fails CLOSED** — hidden, with a one-time console warning |
+| Action `visible` on `action-icon` / `action-group` | `useCondition` (default) | **fails OPEN** — the action is shown |
+| Field `visibleWhen` (form field rules) | `resolveFieldRuleState` → `evalFieldPredicate` (fallback `true`) | **fails OPEN** — the field is shown |
+| Field `visibleWhen` (app-shell object field) and nav / area `visible` | `isObjectFieldVisible` / `evaluateVisibility` | **fails OPEN** — shown, with a console diagnostic |
+| Field `readonlyWhen` / `requiredWhen` | `resolveFieldRuleState` (fallback `false`) | **fails CLOSED** — not readonly, not required |
+
+So the cost is not one shape: on the fail-OPEN surfaces a gate that used to hide
+something starts showing it, and on the fail-CLOSED surfaces a rule that used to fire
+silently stops. Both are accepted costs of the ruling, not oversights — but they need
+opposite checks after upgrading, which is why they are listed apart rather than
+summarised. Every faulting predicate warns on the console; the app-shell diagnostic
+names the roots this tier really binds, and objectui#8155's follow-up removed `app`
+from that list so it no longer sends an author back to the root that is the reason
+(`packages/react/src/utils/visibilityDiagnostic.ts`).
 
 `ExpressionProvider` still accepts an `app` prop and still publishes `app` on its React
 **context value**, which components read as a plain value (`DashboardView` does). Only

.changeset/8155-app-root-residue-swept.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+'@object-ui/react': patch
+---
+
+The published visibility diagnostic no longer tells an author that `app` is a bound
+expression-scope root (objectui#8155 follow-up).
+
+`@object-ui/react`'s `SCOPE_TIER_ADVICE['app-shell']` — the paragraph
+`reportUnresolvableVisibilityPredicate` prints in production when a predicate cannot be
+evaluated — read "App-shell predicates bind `current_user` … plus `app` and `features`".
+objectui#8155 removed `app` from `buildExpressionScope`, so that sentence was printed at
+exactly the moment a saved `app.*` predicate faulted, and it answered "why did my
+predicate not resolve?" by naming the root that is the reason. The line now names the
+five roots the provider really binds: `current_user`, its `user` / `ctx.user` / `os.user`
+aliases, and `features`.
+
+**Swept as a class, not as two coordinates.** Every other place in this tree that stated
+`app` was a bound expression-scope root is corrected in the same change — the diagnostic
+copy and its byte-pin, the ambient-scope docblocks in `@object-ui/react`
+(`SchemaRenderer`, `useExpression`), `@object-ui/core` (`ActionRunner.ParamDef.visible`,
+`RowPredicateOptions.scope`), `@object-ui/components` (`form.tsx`, `containers.tsx`),
+`@object-ui/plugin-detail`, `@object-ui/plugin-form` (docblock and README),
+`@object-ui/app-shell` and the console app, plus fourteen test fixtures that transcribed
+the old bag with an `app` key. The fixtures in `@object-ui/app-shell` now call
+`buildExpressionScope` instead of transcribing it, so that pair cannot drift again.
+
+Nothing that was true before objectui#8155 changed: the `app` prop on
+`ExpressionProvider` and the `app` field on its React context value are untouched (they
+were never CEL roots), and no root other than `app` was added to or removed from any
+message, bag or fixture.
+
+Two release-bound corrections travel with it. The producer-side card objectstack#16420
+was closed `not_planned` on 2026-09-07 by the same ruling that removed the root, not left
+open; and the consequence of a stale `app.*` predicate is **not** uniformly "fails open" —
+it is per surface, and the changeset that carries the removal now states the seven
+measured directions instead of one.

apps/console/src/components/FormPage.predicateScope.test.tsx

@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ vi.mock('sonner', () => ({ toast: { success: vi.fn(), error: vi.fn() } }));
  */
 function hostScope(positions: string[]) {
   const user = { id: 'u1', name: 'Kim', role: 'user', isPlatformAdmin: false, positions };
-  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app: {}, data: {}, features: {} };
+  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, data: {}, features: {} };
 }
 
 /** The SAME principal shape, one admitted by `GATE` and one refused by it. */

apps/console/src/components/FormPage.tsx

@@ -1677,7 +1677,8 @@ export function FormPage({ mode, recordPath }: FormPageProps) {
   const isCreateForm = target.kind !== 'edit';
   /**
    * The host shell's global predicate scope — `current_user` plus the ADR-0068
-   * `user` / `ctx.user` / `os.user` aliases, `app`, `data`, `features` — read
+   * `user` / `ctx.user` / `os.user` aliases, `data`, `features` (⛔ no `app`:
+   * objectui#8155 unbound that root) — read
    * from the `PredicateScopeProvider` an `ExpressionProvider` mounts, and
    * threaded into all three evaluators below (objectui#6110). Same binding the
    * sibling renderer took in #6010, so one authored `visibleWhen` means one

packages/app-shell/src/providers/ExpressionProvider.evaluateVisibility.test.ts

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 
 import { describe, it, expect } from 'vitest';
 import { ExpressionEvaluator } from '@object-ui/core';
-import { evaluateVisibility } from './ExpressionProvider';
+import { buildExpressionScope, evaluateVisibility } from './ExpressionProvider';
 
 /**
  * Regression: nav/area `visible` predicates arrive from the server as
@@ -20,9 +20,14 @@ import { evaluateVisibility } from './ExpressionProvider';
  * unimplementable from app metadata.
  */
 
+/**
+ * The provider's own bag, from the provider's own builder. It used to be a
+ * hand-written transcription carrying an `app` key; `buildExpressionScope` has
+ * not bound one since objectui#8155 (ruled 2026-09-07), and a copy is how a
+ * fixture keeps asserting a root the shipped builder no longer has.
+ */
 function makeEvaluator(user: Record<string, unknown>) {
-  const context = { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app: {}, data: {}, features: {} };
-  return new ExpressionEvaluator(context as any);
+  return new ExpressionEvaluator(buildExpressionScope({ user }) as any);
 }
 
 describe('evaluateVisibility', () => {

packages/app-shell/src/providers/ExpressionProvider.tsx

@@ -99,11 +99,13 @@ export interface ExpressionScopeInput {
  *
  * The ruling is that the engine's `SCOPE_ROOTS` is the contract and this
  * consumer aligns to it, NOT that the engine grows a root to match this
- * consumer (option A, objectstack#16420, is explicitly not taken and stays
- * open as the record to reopen should a real need for a "current app" root
- * ever be measured). ⛔ The other refused route was suppressing the diagnostic
- * in `celAuthoring.ts`: that is the lenient-fallback shape AGENTS.md #0.1
- * bans.
+ * consumer. Option A — widen the engine vocabulary — was the producer-side
+ * card objectstack#16420, and the same ruling CLOSED it `not_planned`
+ * (2026-09-07T04:16:22Z). Should a real need for a "current app" root ever be
+ * measured, it is a fresh spec/engine vocabulary widening; there is no open
+ * record waiting for it. ⛔ The other refused route was suppressing the
+ * diagnostic in `celAuthoring.ts`: that is the lenient-fallback shape
+ * AGENTS.md #0.1 bans.
  *
  * Every root below is one the engine accepts, so the three surfaces — what
  * this binds, what the editor advertises, what the linter admits — now agree.
@@ -310,7 +312,9 @@ export function evaluateVisibility(
       // NODE tier's advice, telling an author whose nav predicate faulted to
       // check `record` and `page.<var>` — two roots the bag built in
       // `ExpressionProvider` above does not contain at all — while the identity
-      // aliases, `app` and `features` that it DOES contain went unnamed.
+      // aliases and `features` that it DOES contain went unnamed. (`app` was in
+      // that list until objectui#8155 removed the root; the advice no longer
+      // names it either.)
       'app-shell',
     );
 

packages/app-shell/src/providers/ExpressionProvider.visibleFaultDiagnostic.test.ts

@@ -72,14 +72,24 @@ import {
   __resetVisibilityPredicateWarnings,
 } from '@object-ui/react';
 import { hasVisibleNavigationItems } from '@object-ui/layout';
-import { evaluateVisibility } from './ExpressionProvider';
+import { buildExpressionScope, evaluateVisibility } from './ExpressionProvider';
 
 /** The label this site puts in the reporter's `type` slot — the dedupe-key decision. */
 const SURFACE = 'app-shell:visible';
 
+/**
+ * The provider's bag, taken from the provider's own builder rather than
+ * transcribed. It was a hand-written copy carrying an `app` key, and a copy is
+ * how a fixture goes on asserting a root the builder has stopped binding
+ * (objectui#8155) — `buildExpressionScope` is the single declaration, so the
+ * cells below measure the shipped bag instead of a snapshot of it.
+ */
+function makeScope(user: Record<string, unknown> = { id: 'u1', positions: ['worker'] }) {
+  return buildExpressionScope({ user });
+}
+
 function makeEvaluator(user: Record<string, unknown> = { id: 'u1', positions: ['worker'] }) {
-  const context = { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app: {}, data: {}, features: {} };
-  return new ExpressionEvaluator(context as any);
+  return new ExpressionEvaluator(makeScope(user) as any);
 }
 
 type WarnSpy = { mock: { calls: unknown[][] } };
@@ -321,8 +331,8 @@ describe('objectui#6443 — the rate limit, measured in both directions', () =>
  * The card #6443 made visible: once this site started printing, it printed the
  * NODE gate's closing paragraph, telling a nav author to check `record` and
  * `page.<var>`. The bag `ExpressionProvider` builds is
- * `{ current_user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app, data, features }` —
- * it contains neither.
+ * `{ current_user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, data, features }` — it
+ * contains neither.
  *
  * These cells are the END-TO-END half of the pin: the unit matrix in
  * `@object-ui/react` proves the two paragraphs differ, and these prove the
@@ -347,19 +357,73 @@ describe('objectui#6487 — the line carries the APP-SHELL tier`s roots', () =>
   it('it names the roots this provider really binds — including `features`', () => {
     // `features` is the deployment-flag root this provider's own docblock
     // documents for exactly this kind of predicate, and it was unnamed.
-    // Asserted against the bag `makeEvaluator` builds, which is a copy of the
-    // provider's: every root named below is a key of it.
+    // Asserted against the bag `makeEvaluator` builds, which IS the provider's
+    // (`buildExpressionScope`): every root named below is a key of it.
     const warn = spyWarn();
     const evaluator = makeEvaluator();
 
     evaluateVisibility('nosuchroot6487shellroots.x > 1', evaluator);
     const [line] = reports(warn);
     expect(line).toBeDefined();
-    for (const root of ['`current_user`', '`user`', '`ctx.user`', '`os.user`', '`app`', '`features`']) {
+    for (const root of ['`current_user`', '`user`', '`ctx.user`', '`os.user`', '`features`']) {
       expect(line).toContain(root);
     }
   });
 
+  /* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *
+   * objectui#8155 — the COUPLING pin. The advice copy lives in
+   * `@object-ui/react` and the bag lives here, so neither package can pin the
+   * pair alone; this is the only seat that reaches both. Modelled on the
+   * three-sided pin PR #8164 left on `ConditionalFormattingEditor.test.tsx`.
+   * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+
+  it('objectui#8155 — the printed advice does not name `app`, and the bag does not bind it', () => {
+    // Face 1 (copy, `@object-ui/react`) and face 2 (bag, this package) asserted
+    // in one run against the REAL line this surface prints. Re-adding `app` to
+    // the diagnostic string reddens the first expect; re-adding it to
+    // `buildExpressionScope` reddens the second.
+    const warn = spyWarn();
+
+    evaluateVisibility('nosuchroot8155copy.x > 1', makeEvaluator());
+    const [line] = reports(warn);
+    expect(line).toBeDefined();
+    expect(line).not.toContain('`app`');
+    expect(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(makeScope(), 'app')).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  it('objectui#8155 — every root the advice names is a root the bag really binds', () => {
+    // Face 3, and the one that makes the pair a fence rather than two lists.
+    // The defect this card cleans up was precisely an advertised root the bag
+    // did not bind, so the invariant — not the spelling — is what is pinned:
+    // re-adding `app` to the COPY alone (leaving the bag aligned to the
+    // engine) reddens here even though the census cell above is the one that
+    // names it. The reverse case, a root bound but not advertised, is legal
+    // and deliberate (`data`), so this direction is asserted and not the other.
+    const warn = spyWarn();
+    const scope = makeScope();
+
+    evaluateVisibility('nosuchroot8155coupling.x > 1', makeEvaluator());
+    const [line] = reports(warn);
+    expect(line).toBeDefined();
+
+    // Root names as the advice spells them, mapped to the key an author would
+    // have to be able to name for the advice to be true. `ctx.user` / `os.user`
+    // are member paths, so the root is the segment before the dot.
+    const advertised = ['current_user', 'user', 'ctx.user', 'os.user', 'app', 'features', 'record', 'data']
+      .filter((root) => (line as string).includes(`\`${root}\``))
+      .map((root) => root.split('.')[0]);
+    expect(advertised.length).toBeGreaterThan(0); // the line named SOMETHING
+    for (const root of advertised) {
+      // `record` is named only by the sentence declaring it ABSENT at this
+      // tier, which is the one advertised name that must NOT be a key.
+      if (root === 'record') {
+        expect(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(scope, root)).toBe(false);
+        continue;
+      }
+      expect(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(scope, root)).toBe(true);
+    }
+  });
+
   it('CONTROL: the first paragraph is UNCHANGED — it is true on this fail-open surface too', () => {
     // Green both ways, deliberately. Only the LAST paragraph is per-tier; the
     // "gate did NOT bite" sentence is true on every surface wired to this

packages/app-shell/src/views/metadata-admin/inspectors/ConditionBuilder.tsx

@@ -121,8 +121,11 @@ export interface ConditionSubjectVocabulary {
  *    bound through `evalFieldPredicate`'s `scope` extra.
  *
  * NOT included, on purpose: `data`, `os`, `app`, `features`, `input`, `vars`,
- * `page`. Those are real roots at some surfaces, but this builder never offers
- * them, and over-capturing there fails in the WRONG direction — `data.csv` is
+ * `page`. All but `app` are real roots at some surface — `app` is a root at
+ * none since objectui#8155 unbound it, and it stays on this list because the
+ * list is what this builder does not capture, not what exists. This builder
+ * never offers any of them, and over-capturing there fails in the WRONG
+ * direction — `data.csv` is
  * a plausible literal, and `data` IS bound, so reading it as a reference would
  * produce another silently-false predicate instead of a loud one. Which roots
  * a mounting surface actually binds is caller-supplied vocabulary

packages/app-shell/src/views/metadata-admin/predicate.ts

@@ -259,9 +259,10 @@ export interface PredicateCtx {
  *   RECORD; metadata-admin edits source metadata and has no record. Leaving it
  *   unbound is what keeps `record.status` a loud diagnostic here instead of a
  *   silent false — `predicate.test.ts` pins that.
- * - ⛔ `app` / `features`. Renderer-tier, not ADR-0068 identity, and not named
- *   by the ruling. Binding them as empty objects would turn `app.x` from a loud
- *   unresolved-root warning into a silent `undefined`.
+ * - ⛔ `app` / `features`. `features` is renderer-tier, not ADR-0068 identity,
+ *   and not named by the ruling; `app` is not a root at ANY tier since
+ *   objectui#8155 unbound it. Binding either as an empty object would turn
+ *   `app.x` from a loud unresolved-root warning into a silent `undefined`.
  */
 export const IDENTITY_ROOTS = ['current_user', 'user', 'ctx', 'os'] as const;
 

packages/components/src/renderers/form/__tests__/fieldtab-visiblewhen-6237.test.tsx

@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ const UNBOUND_ROOT = cel("'sales_manager' in no_such_root.positions");
 /** The host scope `ExpressionProvider` mounts, transcribed (see #6010's pin). */
 function hostScope(positions: string[]) {
   const user = { id: 'u1', name: 'Kim', positions };
-  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app: {}, data: {}, features: {} };
+  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, data: {}, features: {} };
 }
 
 const DENIED = hostScope(['sales']);

packages/components/src/renderers/form/__tests__/predicate-scope-parity-6010.test.tsx

@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ const UNBOUND_ROOT = cel("'sales_manager' in no_such_root.positions");
  */
 function hostScope(positions: string[]) {
   const user = { id: 'u1', name: 'Kim', positions };
-  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, app: {}, data: {}, features: {} };
+  return { current_user: user, user, ctx: { user }, os: { user }, data: {}, features: {} };
 }
 
 const DENIED = hostScope(['sales']);