feat(insights): a date on each conclusion, and no category enum

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ the archive; if it broke production, it belongs in `docs/incidents/`. See
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+- **Insights** — each conclusion says when you settled it, and the four-category enum was dropped before it was built — web, mobile, shared · [details](docs/changelog-archive/2026-H2.md#2026-09-10-insights-a-conclusion-can-be-removed)
 - **Insights** — a conclusion filed against the wrong chapter can be removed; it used to be permanent — backend, web, mobile · [details](docs/changelog-archive/2026-H2.md#2026-09-10-insights-a-conclusion-can-be-removed)
 - **Progress** — one "mark as finished" across web and mobile, and the first write for a book stops being the exception — backend, web, mobile, shared · [details](docs/changelog-archive/2026-H2.md#2026-09-10-progress-the-same-action-writes-the-same-thing)
 - **MCP** — the assistant can see where you are, and can record a chapter you finished somewhere else — backend · [details](docs/changelog-archive/2026-H2.md#2026-09-10-mcp-the-assistant-can-see-where-you-are)

apps/mobile/src/components/library/BookInsightsSection.tsx

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
 import { View, Text, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity } from 'react-native'
-import { insightsApi, insightChapterLabel, type BookInsight } from '@textstack/shared'
+import { insightsApi, insightChapterLabel, insightDateLabel, type BookInsight } from '@textstack/shared'
 import { useTheme } from '../../context/ThemeContext'
 import { useLanguage } from '../../context/LanguageContext'
 import { Ionicons } from '@expo/vector-icons'
@@ -84,6 +84,10 @@ export function BookInsightsSection({ userBookId, editionId }: Props) {
             <Text style={[styles.scope, { color: colors.textSecondary }]}>
               {(insightChapterLabel(insight) ?? t('library.insights.wholeBook')).toUpperCase()}
             </Text>
+            {/* When it was last written — a конспект is read months later. */}
+            {insightDateLabel(insight) ? (
+              <Text style={[styles.date, { color: colors.textSecondary }]}>{insightDateLabel(insight)}</Text>
+            ) : null}
             <TouchableOpacity
               onPress={() => remove(insight.id)}
               disabled={removing === insight.id}
@@ -118,7 +122,8 @@ const styles = StyleSheet.create({
   title: { fontSize: 18, fontFamily: fonts.sansBold, marginBottom: 2 },
   lead: { fontSize: 13, fontFamily: fonts.sans, marginBottom: 16, lineHeight: 18 },
   item: { paddingLeft: 12, borderLeftWidth: 3, marginBottom: 20 },
-  head: { flexDirection: 'row', alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'space-between', gap: 8 },
+  head: { flexDirection: 'row', alignItems: 'center', gap: 8 },
+  date: { fontSize: 11, fontFamily: fonts.sans, opacity: 0.75, marginRight: 'auto' },
   scope: { fontSize: 11, fontFamily: fonts.sansBold, letterSpacing: 0.6 },
   question: { fontSize: 15, fontFamily: fonts.sansBold, marginTop: 2, lineHeight: 20 },
   body: { marginTop: 6 },

apps/web/src/components/library/BookInsightsSection.tsx

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
 import ReactMarkdown from 'react-markdown'
 import remarkGfm from 'remark-gfm'
-import { insightChapterLabel, type BookInsight } from '@textstack/shared'
+import { insightChapterLabel, insightDateLabel, type BookInsight } from '@textstack/shared'
 import { getBookInsights, deleteBookInsight } from '../../api/insights'
 import { useTranslation } from '../../hooks/useTranslation'
 
@@ -84,6 +84,13 @@ export function BookInsightsSection({ userBookId, editionId }: Props) {
               <div className="book-insights__scope">
                 {insightChapterLabel(insight) ?? t('library.insights.wholeBook')}
               </div>
+              {/* When it was last written. A конспект is read months later, and without a date it
+                  cannot answer "is this what I thought then, or what I think now". */}
+              {insightDateLabel(insight) && (
+                <time className="book-insights__date" dateTime={insight.updatedAt}>
+                  {insightDateLabel(insight)}
+                </time>
+              )}
               {/* A conclusion filed against the wrong chapter is never revisited by the assistant —
                   it only ever replaces its own row for the chapter it MEANT. Removing it is the
                   reader's, and only the reader's. Its own element, not inside the label: the label

apps/web/src/styles/books.css

@@ -8338,6 +8338,7 @@ a.read-later__title:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
 .book-insights__scope { font-size: 12px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 0.04em; text-transform: uppercase; color: var(--color-text-secondary, #666); }
 /* Pushed to the end of the eyebrow row rather than given a corner of its own: removing a note
    is a rare correction, not an action the panel should advertise. */
+.book-insights__date { font-size: 11px; font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums; color: var(--color-text-secondary, #666); opacity: 0.75; }
 .book-insights__remove { margin-left: auto; border: 0; background: none; cursor: pointer; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1; padding: 0 4px; color: var(--color-text-secondary, #666); }
 .book-insights__remove:hover:not(:disabled) { color: var(--color-error, #c0392b); }
 .book-insights__remove:disabled { opacity: 0.4; cursor: default; }

docs/05-features/assistant-handoff.md

@@ -160,22 +160,15 @@ required", and `last_used_at` is stamped. That covers the bridge path
   to-do here in error. **Do not re-raise it** — the earlier wording here has already misled one agent
   into reporting it as an urgent deadline.
 
-### Left behind by the cut — a follow-up, found 2026-09-10 after PR #596 opened
-
-Removing the chat left inert plumbing on the mobile side. None of it is a correctness risk — the
-modules have no importers and the one live-looking block cannot execute — but it is exactly the
-residue this work exists to remove, so it goes in its own small PR rather than riding along:
-
-- **`apps/mobile/src/lib/sse.ts` and `sseParser.ts` (+ its test) have no consumers at all.** Their
-  only caller was `bookChat.ts`. Note the web's `lib/sse.ts` is NOT dead — `useExplain` still streams
-  through it.
-- **`ReaderShell.tsx` still imports `citationChapterSlug` and `makeSnippet`**, and keeps
-  `pendingCitationRef` + `scrollToCitation` alive at :653-654 and :960-963. The only writer of that
-  ref was the deleted `handleCitation`, so the ref is permanently null and the block at :960 can
-  never run.
-- **`packages/shared/src/reader/citation.ts`** exists for that path only.
-- **`AskCitation`, `AskResponse`, `AskTurnDto`, `AskTarget`** in `packages/shared/src/types/api.ts`
-  are now referenced only by the dead `sseParser` and by `citation.ts`'s own doc comment.
+### Left behind by the cut — ~~a follow-up~~ done in PR #597
+
+Removing the chat left inert plumbing on the mobile side: `apps/mobile/src/lib/sse.ts` and
+`sseParser.ts` (+ its test), `ReaderShell`'s `citationChapterSlug` / `makeSnippet` imports and its
+permanently-null `pendingCitationRef`, `packages/shared/src/reader/citation.ts`, and the `AskCitation`
+/ `AskResponse` / `AskTurnDto` / `AskTarget` types. **All removed in #597** — verified 2026-09-10:
+every one of those names now has zero references anywhere in `apps/` or `packages/`, and the files
+are gone. The list is kept struck through rather than deleted because the reasoning (the web's own
+`lib/sse.ts` is NOT dead — `useExplain` still streams through it) is the part worth not re-deriving.
 
 ### Found while cutting — decisions still open
 
@@ -212,7 +205,7 @@ residue this work exists to remove, so it goes in its own small PR rather than r
 | 9 | Catalog screens pass progress into the handoff | 1 |
 | 10 | Mobile handoff stops swallowing the open failure | 1 |
 | 11a | ~~DELETE for an insight~~ — shipped 2026-09-10, reader-only, no MCP counterpart | 2 |
-| 11b | Insight categories (**Conclusions · Watch for · Discussed · Questions**) — **open, see below** | 2 |
+| 11b | ~~Insight categories~~ — **not being built**, owner chose per-book retrieval; see below | 2 |
 | 12 | Hide the six chats and the RAG UI behind a flag | 3 |
 | 13 | One mark-as-read locator across web and mobile (defect 4) | later |
 | 14 | `LocatorKind` + `MayReplace` on the catalog path (defects 5, 6) | later |
@@ -459,11 +452,21 @@ over the lifecycle. They disagreed on the answer and converged on the question.
   documents at once. Facet → key later is a free re-index on tens of rows; key → facet later forces
   you to choose which row per chapter survives.
 
-**Open, and only the owner can answer it.** Both voices arrived at the same question from opposite
-directions: **is the return path per-book or cross-book?** Opening *Dracula* and seeing four buckets
-needs no categories — a label and reading order carry it. Seeing every open question across all 33
-books cannot be done without a typed field, and also needs a `/me/insights` route with no book
-filter, which today answers 400.
+**Answered by the owner, 2026-09-10 — and the answer removes the work.** Asked concretely, both
+questions came back the way that needs no schema:
+
+- **The return path is per-book.** "I open *Dracula* and see what I worked out about it." Categories
+  buy nothing there: a chapter label and reading order carry it, and both already ship. No column, no
+  migration, no tabs.
+- **One insight per chapter, refined over time** — so even if a category is ever added, it stays a
+  label and the unique key does not move. Re-running keeps refreshing the конспект instead of
+  accumulating four rows per chapter.
+
+So the category enum is **not being built**. What the panel was actually missing for "come back a
+month later" was a date, which is one pure function and no schema — shipped instead. Revisit only if
+the retrieval ever turns cross-book ("every open question across all 33 books"), which is the one
+shape that genuinely needs a typed field, and which would also need the filter-less `/me/insights`
+route that answers 400 today.
 
 **Two findings from the lifecycle read, not yet acted on:**
 

docs/STATUS.md

@@ -44,9 +44,14 @@ answers "what happened" and nothing answered "what is half-finished right now".
   progress-path defects they could not work around (unvalidated chapter slug, a refusal reporting
   success, `chapterId` missing from `get_book`, `chapterSlug` selected by the shelf and discarded).
 
-  **Not done:** insight categories (Conclusions · Watch for · Discussed · Questions) with tabs and a
-  DELETE, so a wrong conclusion can be removed; and the owner-only check that the mobile Claude and
-  ChatGPT apps accept a custom connector at all.
+  **Since decided:** insight categories are **not being built**. A three-way consilium argued it out
+  and the owner's answer settled it — the return path is per-book ("I open Dracula and see what I
+  worked out"), which a chapter label and reading order already serve. DELETE shipped (the part all
+  three voices agreed on); a date on each note shipped in place of the enum. Revisit only if
+  retrieval turns cross-book.
+
+  **Not done:** the owner-only check that the mobile Claude and ChatGPT apps accept a custom
+  connector at all.
 
   **Not yet run:** CI, and both destructive migrations (`DropBookChat`, `DropRagSpine`) against
   production. Back up first.

docs/changelog-archive/2026-H2.md

@@ -30,6 +30,17 @@ This came out of a three-way consilium on insight categories, which agreed on th
 disagreed on everything else; what it settled and what it left for the owner is written up in
 [`assistant-handoff.md`](../05-features/assistant-handoff.md).
 
+**Follow-up, same day — the categories were dropped before they were built.** The plan called for
+four fixed categories (Conclusions · Watch for · Discussed · Questions) with tabs. Three independent
+readings of the code disagreed about them and converged on one question for the owner: *when you come
+back in a month, do you open one book or all of them?* The answer was one book — and per-book
+retrieval is served by a chapter label and reading order, both of which already shipped. No column,
+no migration, no tabs. What the panel was genuinely missing was a **date**: a конспект is read months
+later, and without one it cannot answer "is this what I thought then, or what I think now". That is
+one pure function (`insightDateLabel`), absolute rather than relative, ISO so it is unambiguous in
+every locale. The enum is revisitable if retrieval ever turns cross-book — the one shape that really
+needs a typed field.
+
 <a id="2026-09-10-progress-the-same-action-writes-the-same-thing"></a>
 
 ## Progress — the same action writes the same thing, and the first write stops being the exception — backend, web, mobile, shared — 2026-09-10

packages/shared/src/library/insightDateLabel.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+import { describe, it, expect } from 'vitest'
+import { insightDateLabel } from './insightScope'
+
+describe('insightDateLabel', () => {
+  it('dates a conclusion by when it was last written, not when it was created', () => {
+    // A re-run REPLACES the row and moves updatedAt. The reader asking "is this still what I think"
+    // is asking about the text in front of them, which is the updated one.
+    expect(insightDateLabel({ updatedAt: '2026-09-10T22:31:00+00:00' })).toBe('2026-09-10')
+  })
+
+  it('normalises an offset rather than shifting the day', () => {
+    // 23:30 in +03:00 is still the 10th in UTC. Picking the local calendar day here would make the
+    // same insight show two different dates on two devices.
+    expect(insightDateLabel({ updatedAt: '2026-09-11T02:30:00+03:00' })).toBe('2026-09-10')
+  })
+
+  it('returns null for an unparseable timestamp instead of printing Invalid Date', () => {
+    expect(insightDateLabel({ updatedAt: 'not a date' })).toBeNull()
+    expect(insightDateLabel({ updatedAt: '' })).toBeNull()
+  })
+})

packages/shared/src/library/insightScope.ts

@@ -30,3 +30,26 @@ export function insightChapterLabel(insight: InsightScopeInput): string | null {
   if (insight.chapterSlug === null) return null
   return insight.chapterTitle ?? insight.chapterSlug
 }
+
+/**
+ * When the conclusion was last written, as a plain calendar date.
+ *
+ * <p>The panel is something a reader comes back to after a month — that was the whole ask — and a
+ * list of conclusions with no dates cannot answer "is this what I thought then, or what I think
+ * now". A re-run replaces the row and moves `updatedAt`, so this is genuinely the age of the
+ * *current* text rather than of the conversation that started it.</p>
+ *
+ * <p>Absolute, not relative. "3 days ago" is the right register for a shelf of things in progress
+ * and the wrong one here: the question a конспект answers is *when did I settle this*, and by the
+ * time it matters the answer is months, where relative time stops being informative. ISO rather
+ * than a locale format because this package holds no locale — the clients render it verbatim, and
+ * the value is unambiguous in every one of them.</p>
+ *
+ * <p>Returns null for a timestamp that does not parse, so a bad row loses its date rather than
+ * printing `Invalid Date` next to a conclusion.</p>
+ */
+export function insightDateLabel(insight: { updatedAt: string }): string | null {
+  const at = new Date(insight.updatedAt)
+  if (Number.isNaN(at.getTime())) return null
+  return at.toISOString().slice(0, 10)
+}