[POC] FEA-1469: run Symphony Desktop in Electron with local SQLite

[aeyeCEO]

POC ONLY - not intended to merge to main

This is a draft prototype PR for FEA-1469, stacked on PRD-407-in-process-only. It is meant to capture and review what we proved locally, not to be treated as production-ready or merged directly into main.

If anything from this branch should ship, it should be extracted deliberately into follow-on production features after the PRD-415 strategy decisions are made.

What this prototype demonstrates

• Electron can launch a local Symphony app runtime and expose it inside the desktop app.
• Symphony can run in desktop-local mode against a localhost API backed by SQLite.
• The POC can route common Symphony API calls to local data, including projects, workstreams, documents, users, local identity, settings, agents, loops, and session history.
• Basic local single-player CRUD works for projects, workstreams, and documents without team/multiplayer data.
• Classic desktop remains available as an escape hatch while Symphony Desktop becomes the default experimental surface.
• Session history and agent catalog data can be read from the existing Classic/agent-monitor SQLite data and shaped for Symphony routes.
• First-run UI can show app-server readiness separately from background session import/backfill work.
• The port-conflict path from the PRD-407 in-process monitor is safer: legacy orphan sidecars can be reclaimed, but live ClosedLoop/Electron app holders require explicit consent instead of silent killing.

Architecture in this POC

• The Electron main process owns a SymphonyWebPocRuntime that starts a desktop-local API server and either points at an external Symphony URL, spawns a sibling Symphony app, or falls back to a local harness.
• The renderer defaults to the Symphony Desktop surface when the feature flag is enabled, with Desktop Classic available as a fallback button.
• The local API persists POC entities in SQLite under application support and maps selected Symphony API contracts to local handlers.
• The POC passes desktop_api_url, desktop_api_token, and desktop_local=1 to the Symphony app to keep local data access scoped to the Electron-managed runtime.
• Team and multiplayer concepts are intentionally minimized or no-op in desktop-local mode.

What was not accomplished

• This does not package a production-built Symphony app. Dev mode still relies on the source app / next dev style workflow.
• This does not replace the iframe-style POC hosting with direct BrowserWindow.loadURL(...) as the long-term primary surface.
• This does not complete the full Symphony Postgres-to-SQLite schema story.
• This does not implement cloud sync, team upgrade, multi-device sync, or multiplayer features in desktop-local mode.
• This does not retire Desktop Classic or merge its IA into Symphony.
• This does not include a production auth/security hardening pass for the local API/token boundary.
• This does not ship a polished final IA for which screens stay, move, hide behind Labs, or get removed.

Major decisions still pending

• Production runtime shape: direct-loaded packaged Next standalone/runtime vs another local-server packaging approach.
• Whether and how to generate the local SQLite schema from the cloud schema.
• Exact single-player capability matrix: which team/org/collaboration surfaces disappear, become Labs, or become local-only equivalents.
• How Classic is exposed long term: secondary route, secondary window, menu item, or temporary fallback only.
• How local sessions/agents become first-class Symphony data without coupling production code to the POC bridge.
• Whether FEA-1471 should be the immediate next productionization feature after this handoff.

Validation

• rtk pnpm --dir apps/desktop exec tsc -p tsconfig.json --noEmit
• rtk pnpm --dir apps/desktop exec tsx --test test/feature-flags.test.ts test/symphony-web-poc-runtime.test.ts test/agent-monitor-port-reconcile.test.ts test/agent-monitor-wiring-static.test.ts

The focused test bundle passed 66 tests locally.

Related ClosedLoop docs

• PRD-415: Unified Product Runtime strategy root
• FEA-1469: this POC
• FEA-1471: recommended follow-on for direct packaged runtime productionization

[github-actions]

Compatibility Smoke Test Results ⚠️

Status: skipped
Electron SHA: 2d90cf96846e9e31204c9ed9c1ac2f95302e448d
Symphony Alpha SHA (last-known-good): 24741ed9be45cc761195d7a7b6613bd30cdfce84
Note: Skipped because the stage GitHub App credentials are not configured for this workflow run.

View Actions run

[mikeangstadt]

This was solid prototype; landing new PR inspired by this from @thadeusb this AM