## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work
> - The nightly release lane publishes only after the release smoke
suite passes against the newest canary
> - Onboarding was reordered: step 1 now creates the company and routes
straight to the agent step, and the mission step is gone (collected
later in the tenant app, deliberately writing no goal)
> - The smoke spec still walked the removed mission step, so the
scheduled nightly has been red since the reorder shipped
> - This pull request updates the spec to the current flow and asserts
the deliberate empty goal list
> - The benefit is a green nightly lane and an unblocked beta promotion
from current master
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
**What happened?**
The scheduled `Release` nightly run fails in `smoke_nightly / smoke`
since 2026-08-23 (runs 32630184811, 32710905212):
`docker-auth-onboarding.spec.ts` waits for the `Define your mission`
heading after step 1, but the wizard now routes 1 → 3 with no mission
step (the step buttons literally skip from 1 to 3). The retry then fails
on step 1 because the first attempt's company persists.
**Expected behavior**
The smoke passes against canaries carrying the reordered wizard, and the
nightly lane publishes again.
**Steps to reproduce**
Run `scripts/docker-onboard-smoke.sh` with
`PAPERCLIPAI_VERSION=2026.824.0-canary.7` and `pnpm run
test:release-smoke` against it.
**Paperclip version or commit**
`2026.824.0-canary.7`
Related (not duplicates): #11565 updated this same spec for the
chat-first rewrite; this is the follow-up for the mission-less reorder.
## What Changed
- Remove the mission-step interaction; step 1's "Next" now creates the
company and the spec goes straight to the agent step.
- Replace the mission-goal API assertion with the truthful one:
onboarding deliberately writes no goal, so a fresh company's goal list
is empty.
- Update step comments to match the shipped flow.
## Verification
- Local run of the exact CI harness against
`paperclipai@2026.824.0-canary.7`: 1 passed (6.8s), exit 0.
- The suite's remaining API assertions (company, CEO agent, seeded task
assignment, landed issue URL, assignment-sourced heartbeat run) pass
unchanged.
## Risks
- Low risk: test-only. The spec remains copy-coupled to the wizard —
this is the third drift in two weeks; stable `data-testid` hooks in the
wizard remain the durable fix and can follow separately.
## Model Used
Claude Fable 5 (Claude Code)
## Pre-submission checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
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