Proactive reminders 1/3: event reminders (approval waiting, failed, finished) in app and desktop

Why

FlyBot is passive today: the user has to open it to learn that an approval is waiting, a task failed, or a task finished. Phase 1 of proactive reminders gives the minimum useful loop without any new infrastructure.

Part of a 3-phase proactive-reminders track. Phase 2: scheduled tasks. Phase 3: 24/7 runtime and external channels. Related: #349 (Agent inbox board), #352 (deployment).

Scope

Triggers (event-based): approval waiting (and waiting too long), task or Bot run failed, task finished, something newly assigned to me (team mode later).
Delivery: in-app notification plus desktop notification. Each reminder links to the card or conversation that needs action.
Controls: per-trigger on/off, quiet hours, merge repeated reminders into one, one-click mute from the reminder itself.
Reason line: every reminder says why it fired (e.g. "waiting for your approval for 15 min").
Safety: reminders only notify. They never execute actions; irreversible actions still go through approval.
Personal vs team: personal mode covers my approvals and my Bots. Team mode must respect [Team] Gate cross-owner agent routes by per-Bot grants (default deny; superseded the publication gate) #51 grants and never remind someone about tasks they cannot see; the model reuses assigner / owner / executingBot from [Feature RFC] Agent inbox board: one place for tasks, approvals and failures (personal first, team second) #349.

Acceptance

Each of the 3 core triggers produces exactly one reminder per event, with a working link.
Quiet hours and mute are respected; no duplicate spam after restart.
No reminder text leaks content the user is not allowed to see.
UI follows the guidelines in [Feature RFC] Agent inbox board: one place for tasks, approvals and failures (personal first, team second) #349 (one word per action, no native confirm dialogs, empty states and hints).

Out of scope

Scheduled or recurring tasks (phase 2), running while the app is closed (phase 3), Slack/email delivery (phase 3).

Process

Implementation via cloud OpenCode, review via Codex; bots do not hand-write code.

Triage on main 7b9e90b, 2026-10-19 ~12:10 Asia/Shanghai: needs-human, not agent-ready. Question for the owner: start phase 1 (in-app + desktop reminders for approval waiting / failed / finished)? Also how it relates to the Agent inbox board (#349): one notification source for both, or separate?

Triage (maintenance, 2026-10-20 08:04 Asia/Shanghai)

Checked on main a45fc8c.

Already on main

Approval waiting → system notification: core/src/client/approval-notices.js fires one notification per approval that starts waiting while the window is in the background or shows another chat; click opens that chat. Never asks for OS permission.
Sidebar rows already show Working / Waiting for your approval / Unread activity.
Missing: finished and failed reminders, "waiting too long", quiet hours, mute, and the reason line.

Expected behavior
When one of my own Bots finishes or fails a turn, or an approval has waited too long, and I am not looking at that chat, I get one notification that says why ("Coder finished", "Coder failed: ", "Waiting for your approval for 15 min") and opens that chat on click. A notification only notifies: it never approves, rejects or sends anything.

First slice (smallest shippable step)

Extend approval-notices.js (same rules: only when the window is in the background or shows another chat, only if the OS already allows notifications, one per event via tag) with finished and failed for my own Bots' chats.
One switch in Settings → General: Notifications (on by default), covering all three kinds.
Tests next to core/test/approval-notices.test.js; doc line in docs/subsystems/core-client.md.

Details I decided (say if you disagree)

Only my own Bots in this slice. Friends' chats and team mode wait for later.
Dedup per event id, so no repeats after restart (events from before the window opened are skipped, same as approvals today).
Notifications have no Approve/Reject buttons. Approving stays on the card in the chat (buttons only, never typed replies).
Quiet hours, per-trigger switches, merging repeats and "waiting too long" go in slice 2.
[Feature RFC] Agent inbox board: one place for tasks, approvals and failures (personal first, team second) #349's board and these reminders read the same events: one source, two views.

Question for the owner
Is this first slice OK: (a) desktop notifications for finished and failed, plus one Notifications switch, quiet hours later; (b) the same plus quiet hours and "waiting too long" now; or (c) wait and build it together with the #349 board?
Recommendation: (a).

Owner decision (2026-10-20): Confirmed option (a): first step only — add completion and failure notifications for the owner's own Bots, with a Notifications toggle in settings. Tapping a notification opens the matching chat (no approve-in-notification). Do-not-disturb and 'waiting too long' reminders come later.

Claimed by maintenance run (2026-10-20 08:55 Asia/Shanghai), branch feat/353-finish-fail-notifications on Birfy/FlyBot, following the Owner decision above.

Minor decisions for the first slice (PR #470), 2026-10-20 09:02 Asia/Shanghai:

Which turns count: a turn of one of my own Bots that completes or fails, in its own chat or a group I own. Not: a turn I stopped (I know), a turn switched to a new part or retried because the model wrote its tool call as text (the next one counts), a friend's Bot, a turn a friend started (their request or plain line), a hidden turn another Bot asked for, and face-to-face / inbound-share rooms (rooms with other people; "friends' chats later").
Text: title {name} finished / {name} failed: <reason>; the reason is the failure's message, else its code (an AUTH message is never shown, as today), cut at 160 characters. Body: the group's name for a group turn, else empty — no reply text, so nothing private shows on a lock screen.
Switch: Settings → General → Notifications, saved with the other team prefs (prefs.notifications, on unless false), covering approvals too. Events while it is off stay "told", so switching it on brings no backlog.
Dedup: one per event via tag (ds-bot-turn-<session>:<turn>:<time>); the host keeps the last 20 ended turns in memory only, and a window skips anything older than its opening, so a restart repeats nothing.
Deferred items are in Proactive reminders 1/3 follow-up: quiet hours, mute, waiting-too-long #469 (needs-human).

Cleanup: issue closed. Removing stale agent-working and assignee.

Agent inbox: show failed turns and a latest-activity line on each card (

Remind about approvals waiting 15 min, switch each notification kind,…

Show each scheduled task's last run, and Retry a failed one (ThinkFlo…

Map user journeys to their current coverage (ThinkFlowLab#358) (Think…

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Proactive reminders 1/3: event reminders (approval waiting, failed, finished) in app and desktop #353

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Proactive reminders 1/3: event reminders (approval waiting, failed, finished) in app and desktop #353

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Birfy commented on Oct 19, 2026

Birfy commented on Oct 20, 2026

Triage (maintenance, 2026-10-20 08:04 Asia/Shanghai)

Birfy commented on Oct 20, 2026

Birfy commented on Oct 20, 2026

Birfy commented on Oct 20, 2026

Birfy commented on Oct 20, 2026

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