EPIC: app consolidation + launcher tiering (45 default apps -> ~12)

[jaylfc]

App consolidation and launcher tiering

Jay, 2026-07-26: taOS ships 45 always-on apps plus 9 optional studios and 3
games. macOS ships around 30 and hides most of them. The problem is not the
feature count, it is that many entries are not apps at all: they are settings
panes or file handlers wearing app costumes.

The tiering model

• Tier 1 - apps (launcher by default): Files, Messages, Mail, Browser,
  Projects, Agents, Teams, Decisions, Store, Library, Images, Settings.
• Tier 2 - System group (launcher, grouped, not Settings): Cluster,
  Memory, Observatory, Models. These are real management surfaces with their
  own workflows; burying them in Settings would repeat the Decisions mistake.
• Tier 3 - Settings sections (no launcher entry): Providers (into Models),
  MCP, Secrets, Channels. Genuinely config-shaped.
• Tier 4 - handlers (no launcher entry, open from Files): Text Editor,
  Image Viewer, Media Player. Preview/QuickLook model.
• Tier 5 - Store-optional, off by default: studios, games, feeds.

Result: ~12 default icons instead of 45, with nothing deleted.

Merges

1. Models + Providers -> one app. Providers configures models; one mental
   model, one icon.
2. Notification Archive -> tab inside Notifications. A launcher icon for
   "the archive of the thing in your menu bar" is a UX smell.
3. Text Editor / Image Viewer / Media Player -> file handlers. Registry
   gains handler: true; excluded from the launcher, still openable by id
   (agents open them directly - the id must keep working).
4. Todo -> Projects Lists. The Lists feature (Projects app: Lists section for idea capture with agent triage (statuses, checkboxes, agent tidy) #2140) IS the personal
   checklist. Blocked until Lists S1+S2 land.
5. Contacts -> shared pane read by Mail and Messages; Channels ->
   Settings (it is connector configuration).
6. Reddit / YouTube / X / GitHub browsers -> one Feeds app, Store-optional,
   off by default. agent-browsers needs an inventory before it is folded -
   do not assume it duplicates Browser.
7. Chess / Wordle / Crosswords -> one Games entry, Store-optional.
8. Dashboard ("Activity") vs Observatory overlap on "what is happening now"
   and need an inventory before the split is decided.

Explicitly NOT merged: Decisions. It looks like a notifications duplicate
but it is the human-in-the-loop approval gate. Burying approvals inside a
notification feed is how agent consent requests get missed.

Constraints any slice must respect

• Existing installs must not break. Users have these apps pinned to docks
  and launchpads. Removing an app id orphans a pin. Every removal ships a
  redirect map (old id -> {app, section}) so a pinned Providers icon opens
  Models/Providers rather than vanishing. Unresolvable pins are removed once,
  with a notification explaining where the thing went.
• Agents drive the OS by app id. Renaming or removing ids breaks agent
  skills, the agent manual, and the desktop control API. Every slice updates
  the agent-facing docs in the SAME PR, and ids are kept resolvable.
• Optional apps are a backend contract (OPTIONAL_FRONTEND_APPS in
  tinyagentos/routes/apps.py), not just a frontend flag. Tier 5 moves must
  update both sides plus the store catalog.
• Deep links keep working. Any documented URL route for a moved surface
  redirects to its new home.

Slices

• S1 registry tiering foundation - tier/group/handler fields, launcher
  grouping + System group, redirect map + migration for pinned items. Blocks
  most others.
• S2 Models + Providers merge.
• S3 Notification Archive -> tab.
• S4 file handlers out of the launcher.
• S5 Contacts pane + Channels -> Settings.
• S6 Feeds consolidation (after agent-browsers inventory).
• S7 Games hub.
• S8 Todo -> Projects Lists (blocked on Lists S1+S2).
• S9 docs + agent-manual sweep across every id that moved.

[jaylfc]

Correction from Jay (2026-07-26): Todo stays a standalone app

S8 as written (fold Todo into Projects Lists) is withdrawn. Jay: users need a standalone tasks/todo app for personal use, with the ability to share all lists or individual lists with agents.

Revised:

• Todo stays Tier 1, its own app, personal and cross-project. It is not project-scoped and does not fold into Projects.
• Projects Lists (Projects app: Lists section for idea capture with agent triage (statuses, checkboxes, agent tidy) #2140) stays project-scoped idea capture. Two different things: personal lists live in Todo, project lists live in the project. No merge between them.
• New capability (separate spec, not part of this epic): per-list agent sharing. A personal list is private by default; the user can share all lists or an individual list with specific agents or all their agents. This is a permission surface and must key off the existing agent grant model rather than inventing a second one - an agent reading a shared list uses its identity and grants, the same as everywhere else.
• Rename 'Tasks' -> 'Routines'. The confusion Jay flagged is partly naming: the current Tasks app is scheduled routines/triggers (calendar-clock), not a to-do list. With Todo staying, having both 'Tasks' and 'Todo' in the launcher is exactly the ambiguity this epic exists to remove. Small card, after S1, and it must keep the old app id resolvable through the S1 redirect map.

Tier 1 list in the epic body is amended to include Todo.

[jaylfc]

Correction from Jay (2026-07-26): Secrets stays standalone

Secrets does not become a Settings section. It moves to Tier 2 (System group) as its own app.

Rationale, so no later slice reverses it: Secrets is not passive configuration. It is an active management surface with its own workflows - adding credentials, granting individual secrets to individual agents, materialising keys at deploy, revoking access. It also carries the highest blast radius of any surface in the OS, which is an argument for it being somewhere deliberate and findable rather than a pane a user stumbles into while changing a theme.

Tier 3 (absorbed into Settings) is now: Providers (into Models), MCP, Channels. That is the full list.

Standalone-by-decision so far, none of which any slice may fold away: Decisions (human-in-the-loop approval gate), Todo (personal lists, shareable per-list with agents), Secrets (credential management), Cluster and Memory (large management surfaces, System group).

[jaylfc]

HOLD (Jay, 2026-07-26): feeds + browser consolidation

S6 (Reddit / YouTube / X / GitHub -> Feeds) and the Dashboard-vs-Observatory split are on hold and are not to be carded or built. No agent should pre-empt them, including as part of a neighbouring slice: if a tiering change touches browser, agent-browsers, the feed apps, dashboard or observatory, limit it to the tier field itself and leave the surfaces alone.

Reason for the hold rather than a decision: agent-browsers has not been inventoried, and folding surfaces together before knowing what they each do is how features get quietly lost. Revisit with Jay later.

Everything else in this epic proceeds: S1 (tsk-2vptcw) then S3 (tsk-dhrnz3), S4 (tsk-h72kga), and the Routines rename (tsk-fgj5yp).