## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work
> - Chat-style tasks show an agent's plan in a dedicated "Plan" pane,
and a plan confirmation lets the user accept or request changes to that
plan
> - When an agent asked for confirmation but never actually published
the plan document (it only wrote the plan in a comment or a question),
the Plan pane rendered empty, and the confirmation call-to-action that
used to sit pinned at the bottom of the pane had disappeared
> - A user asked to confirm a plan they cannot see, with no visible CTA,
is stuck — the feature silently fails
> - This pull request closes the gap on both sides: it prevents plan
confirmations that don't point at a real, latest plan revision, it
teaches agents to publish the plan document before confirming, and it
restores the sticky confirmation action bar and an explanatory empty
state so the pane never goes silently blank
> - The benefit is that when a plan is expected, it reliably shows up in
the right pane with reachable accept/revise actions
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
<!-- No public GitHub issue exists; describing in-PR per the bug
template. -->
**Bug report**
- **What happened:** A task in planning mode could present a plan
confirmation while the Plan pane stayed empty (no plan document
rendered), and the plan-card confirmation CTAs that were previously
pinned to the bottom of the Plan pane no longer appeared.
- **Expected behavior:** When a plan is expected, the plan document
appears in the Plan pane; when a plan is genuinely missing, the pane
explains why rather than showing nothing; and the accept/request-changes
CTAs stay visible and reachable while the plan scrolls.
- **Steps to reproduce:** Put a task in planning mode with the
chat-style task view enabled, have an agent create a plan confirmation
without first publishing the `plan` document, and open the Plan tab —
the pane is blank and the confirmation actions are missing.
- **Deployment mode:** Local dev and self-hosted; UI + server.
Related PR (not a duplicate): #9609 "Pin pending confirmations by
composer" pins confirmations in a different surface (the composer); this
PR restores the Plans-pane action bar and the server/agent guarantees
behind it.
## What Changed
- **Server:** Reject a `request_confirmation` whose target is a plan
document unless a plan document exists and the target points at its
*latest* revision, so a confirmation can never reference a plan the pane
cannot render (`readPlanTarget` is now exported for reuse).
- **Agent instructions:** The CEO and default agent instruction bundles
now spell out a plan-publish contract — publish the `plan` document,
re-`GET` it and capture `latestRevisionId`, then create the confirmation
targeting that revision; never present a plan only in a thread comment
or via `ask_user_questions`.
- **UI — sticky CTAs:** Restore the plan confirmation action bar pinned
to the bottom of the Plans tab so accept/revise stay reachable while the
plan scrolls.
- **UI — diagnostics:** Keep the Plan tab visible whenever an issue is
in planning mode (even before a plan document exists) and show an empty
state explaining why the pane is empty instead of rendering nothing.
- **UI — annotations:** Add a `panelPlacement="inline"` mode so the
plan-document annotation panel renders in document flow instead of as a
floating side panel when hosted in the narrow task properties pane.
## Verification
- `pnpm check:token-gates` → 3/3 CLEAN
- `pnpm typecheck` → clean (all packages)
- UI: `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui exec vitest run
src/components/issue-properties/IssuePlanConfirmationActionBar.test.tsx
src/components/IssueProperties.test.tsx
src/components/IssueDocumentAnnotations.test.tsx` → 69 passed
- Server: `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/server exec vitest run
src/__tests__/issue-thread-interaction-routes.test.ts
src/__tests__/agent-skills-routes.test.ts` → 60 passed
- Manual: with a planning-mode task, the Plan tab stays visible, shows
the plan document (or a diagnostic empty state), and the confirmation
CTAs stay pinned at the bottom.
Visual note: snapshot baselines are intentionally not updated — per
`doc/design/DECISION-SHEET.md` "Per-change snapshot verification demoted
to dormant (Jul 13 2026)". The `storybook-visual` label is intentionally
not added.
## Risks
Low-to-moderate. The server change adds a validation gate on
plan-document confirmations: an interaction that targets a stale or
nonexistent plan revision is now rejected with a 422 instead of being
created. This is the intended guarantee, but any caller that relied on
creating such confirmations will now need to publish the plan document
first (which the updated agent instructions cover). UI changes are
additive to the Plans tab and gated by the existing chat-style-task
experimental flag.
## Model Used
Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic), model id `claude-opus-4-8`, extended
thinking enabled, with tool use (file editing, shell, test execution).
## 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
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [ ] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [ ] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [ ] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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