feat(web): compact sidebar footer actions

[maria-rcks]

Problem

The sidebar footer gave three secondary destinations full-width rows, consuming space that is more useful for threads. Its history-based back action could also bounce between Usage and Pull Requests instead of returning to the normal sidebar.

What changed

• Condenses Settings, Pull Requests, and Usage into a left-aligned row of icon actions with centered tooltips.
• Gives Usage and Pull Requests one full-width Back action that always returns to the thread list.
• Places the Electron-only update control at the right of the same row: refresh checks for updates, then changes into the download or restart action when an update is available.
• Keeps update details in a content-sized, update-tinted glass tooltip.

Root cause

The footer treated utility destinations as primary navigation rows, and special-page navigation relied on browser history rather than an explicit destination.

Before / After

Before

After

Impact

The shared web/desktop sidebar preserves more vertical space and has predictable navigation. Update controls remain desktop-only; mobile is unaffected.

Validation

• vp lint apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarChrome.tsx apps/web/src/components/sidebar/SidebarUpdatePill.tsx
• vp test run apps/web/src/components/desktopUpdate.logic.test.ts apps/web/src/state/desktopUpdate.test.ts apps/web/src/components/ui/sidebar.test.tsx (40 tests passed)
• git diff --check

Built with GPT-5.6 Sol in T3 Code via the Codex harness.

Note

Compact sidebar footer into icon buttons with tooltips and add update check action

• Replaces the sidebar footer's text-based controls with icon-only SidebarMenuButton components (Settings, Pull Requests, Usage), each wrapped in a tooltip, laid out in a single flex-row menu.
• Adds an explicit "Check for updates" action to SidebarUpdateControl when no update is in progress; removes the manual dismiss button.
• Introduces SidebarUpdateArchitectureWarning to display an alert when Electron is running an Intel build on Apple Silicon.
• The back button now always navigates to / instead of attempting window.history.back().
• Behavioral Change: the update pill is no longer dismissible and is always visible in Electron.

^{Macroscope summarized 84454d7.}

---

Note

Low Risk
UI-only sidebar footer layout and navigation tweaks. Update check/download/install still use the existing desktop bridge; no auth or data-path changes.

Overview
Compacts the sidebar footer into a single icon row and makes Back navigation always return to the thread list.

Settings, Pull Requests, and Usage become icon-only buttons with tooltips instead of full-width labeled rows. On Usage/PR pages, a single full-width Back button always navigates to / (no more history.back() bouncing between those pages).

The Electron update control sits on the right of the same row: idle state is a Check for updates refresh button, then it switches to download/restart when an update is available. The dismissible full-width update pill is removed, and the Intel-on-Apple-Silicon warning is split into its own SidebarUpdateArchitectureWarning above the row.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 84454d7. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

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[macroscopeapp]

Approvability

Verdict: Approved 84454d7

This PR refactors sidebar footer buttons to use compact icon-only buttons with tooltips and adds a minor feature to manually check for updates. The changes are self-contained UI modifications with no security or backend implications.

^{You can customize Macroscope's approvability policy. Learn more.}