Desktop: channels nested under a project show no unread or activity state

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
82/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
typescript
Domain
desktop, frontend

Research direction

Start by comparing SidebarProjectsSection.tsx with SidebarSection.tsx, focusing on how project child-channel rows differ from the shared channel rows. Trace the existing unread, mention, and ChannelActivityPopover handling, then verify that a nested project channel shows the same indicators as the channel in a custom section while following the reproduction steps.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Summary

Channels nested under a project in the sidebar render as plain navigation rows. They show no unread state, no mention badge, and no activity indicator, while the same channels listed under Channels (or in a user-defined section) show all three.

What I observed

Desktop 0.5.22, self-hosted relay 0.2.1.

  1. Create a project, add channels to it with Add channel so they appear nested under the project in the sidebar.
  2. Put one of those same channels into a custom section as well (right-click → Move to section).
  3. Have an agent post in that channel.

The row under the section shows the working indicator and the unread state. The row for the same channel under the project shows nothing — it looks idle whether or not work is happening.

Where this comes from

SidebarProjectsSection.tsx renders its own rows and never references unread state, mention counts, or ChannelActivityPopover. The popover is only mounted in SidebarSection.tsx, which the project tree does not use.

Why it matters

The project tree is the natural place to watch a project — it is the grouping the app itself proposes. As it stands, a user who organises work by project has to keep the same channels in a second, flat list just to see that something is happening, which defeats the grouping.

Suggestion

Reuse the same row rendering (or at least the unread/mention/activity affordances) for project child channels, so a channel looks and behaves the same wherever it is listed.

Dominant language
Rust
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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