fix(workflow): the Assign button in "Hand a task to a Workflow" does nothing until you click a card #1457

Written-by: FlyBot Product

Line numbers as of 53d2c025 (2026-10-27); #1456 and #1461 touched this file but did not change the Assign dialog.
Line numbers drift: identify by symbol (AssignModal, confirmAssign, loadTasks), not by number.

What happens

The "Hand a task to a Workflow" dialog opens with no task card selected, while its Assign button is enabled — and clicking that button does nothing at all: the dialog stays open, nothing is posted, no error appears.

#1452 (merged at f0133279) replaced the demo task fixture with the real Tasks board. Before it, tasks was seeded synchronously (useState(FIXTURE_TASKS), old client.js:809), so the first render already had a card to select. After it:

• const [tasks, setTasks] = useState([]) — plugins/workflow/client.js:959
• the row opens the dialog first and loads the board afterwards: onClick: () => { setAssignOpen(true); void loadTasks() } — :1153 (loadTasks() at :1048-1063)
• but the selected card is computed once, when AssignModal first mounts:

// plugins/workflow/client.js:644-645
function AssignModal({ workflows, tasks, roster, workflowId, onClose, onConfirm }) {
  const [taskId, setTaskId] = useState(tasks[0]?.id ?? '')

That first client render happens with an empty list, so taskId freezes to '' and never re-syncs when the rows arrive. Every card then renders unselected, and the confirm handler looks up the frozen id, finds nothing, and returns without a word:

// plugins/workflow/client.js:1084-1085
const task = tasks.find(item => item.id === taskId)
if (!task) return

The confirm button (:684) carries no disabled attribute, so the click looks accepted. The service would have refused an empty task (plugins/workflow/src/service.js:724: "A task needs an id and a title") — but the client never gets that far, so even the error path is unreachable.

The same silent no-op exists on an empty board: the dialog says "No open tasks on the Tasks board.", the Assign button is still enabled, and clicking it issues no workflow/assign.

Reproduction (deterministic, the plugin's own client harness — no host, no network)

Append this test to plugins/workflow/test/client.test.js; delivery, mount, settle, findAll and textOf already exist in that file.

test('PROBE: the assign dialog starts with no card selected, and Assign does nothing', async () => {
  const calls = []
  const graph = delivery()
  const call = async (name, body) => {
    calls.push({ name, body })
    if (name === 'workflow/state') return { workflows: [graph], templates: [] }
    return { ok: true, workflows: [graph] }
  }
  const prev = globalThis.__flybot__
  globalThis.__flybot__ = { host: async () => [
    { id: 'task-live-1', title: 'Real board card one', status: 'open', priority: 'P1' },
    { id: 'task-live-2', title: 'Real board card two', status: 'open', priority: 'P2' },
  ] }
  const view = mount(client.Section, { roster: { bots: [] }, call, actions: {} })
  await settle()
  findAll(view.tree, node => node.props?.className === 'wf-row wf-assign-row')[0].props.onClick()
  await settle()

  const cards = findAll(view.tree, node => typeof node.props?.className === 'string' && node.props.className.startsWith('wf-kcard'))
  const selected = cards.filter(card => card.props.className.includes('sel')).map(textOf)
  const assign = findAll(view.tree, node => node.type === 'button' && textOf(node) === 'Assign')[0]

  console.log('cards:', cards.length, 'selected:', JSON.stringify(selected))
  console.log('assign disabled:', assign?.props?.disabled)
  assign?.props?.onClick?.()
  await settle()
  console.log('calls after clicking Assign:', JSON.stringify(calls.map(item => item.name)))
  console.log('dialog still open:', textOf(view.tree).includes('Pick a task card'))

  globalThis.__flybot__ = prev
  view.unmount()
})

Observed on f0133279 (all four probes pass — the red is the behaviour they print):

PROBE J cards: 2 selected: []
PROBE J assign disabled: undefined
PROBE J calls after clicking Assign: ["workflow/state","workflow/ingest","workflow/ingest"]   // no workflow/assign
PROBE J dialog still open: true

PROBE I empty state shown: true
PROBE I confirm label: "Assign" disabled: undefined
PROBE I calls after confirm: ["workflow/state"]                                             // empty board: still clickable, still nothing

PROBE K assign calls: [{"workflowId":"lane-a","taskId":"task-live-1","title":"Real board card one"}]

PROBE K is the control: click one card by hand and Assign posts workflow/assign normally. So only the preselection is missing; the rest of the flow is fine — and an empty board offers the same live button with the same silent result.

Still red on 53d2c025 (2026-10-27), after both #1456 and #1461: PROBE J and PROBE I reproduce unchanged, and PROBE L (the failed-load dialog, #1458) stays red too — PROBE K remains green, so the manual path still works. #1456 rewrote plugins/workflow/test/assign.test.js but only for the service layer (claim, queue, read-only); it carries no UI-preselection assertion, so nothing here is fixed.

Expected

One of the two, not silent inaction:

• select the first card once the board has loaded (for example a useEffect that sets taskId when it is still empty and tasks is non-empty), or
• keep Assign disabled until a card is actually selected.

Scope (report only — FlyBot reports this and does not implement it, and opens no PR for it)

• plugins/workflow/client.js only: AssignModal (:644-684), the two open paths (:1153, :1010 root.openWorkflowAssign — this one does not even call loadTasks), and confirmAssign (:1083-1085).
• No service change: plugins/workflow/src/service.js:717-730 already refuses a task with no id and title.

Regression — introduced by #1452 (f0133279)

This is a regression, not a missing feature. Before #1452 (on 8f5c9ca7) the dialog was seeded synchronously with the demo cards — const [tasks, setTasks] = useState(FIXTURE_TASKS) at old client.js:809 — so the first render already had a card and the frozen taskId happened to be right. #1452 replaced that fixture with the read-only host tasks board and with this initial value, so from f0133279 on the preselection can never happen.

Reachability

The running instance is at e37f1f8, which predates the Workflow surface — this defect is not yet visible to users and arrives with the next milestone. The open-then-load pair it hits is at client.js:1153 (the sidebar row) and :1171 (the drawer's button); both call setAssignOpen(true) before loadTasks() resolves.

Duplicates

As of my read (open issues):

• "Hand a task to a Workflow" — 16 results; none about the assign preselection. The nearest are #1407 (dispatch deny/hold), #1424 (reaped run status), #1446 (preset copy naming), #1272 (engine RFC), #1455 (stage chat message).
• assign workflow task card — 5 results, all closed or about other behaviour (#1402, #1272, #386, #1438, #408).
• workflow assign no task selected — 1 result, closed #1438 (canvas editor).