Make App Group

make-app-group

Treat toolbar grouping, optional CanvasTable header grouping entry, Entity Preset persistence, Service record-groups requests, records groupFilter, and CanvasTable grouped rendering as one integrated capability.

This Skill owns the consumer contract and grouping semantics. Related Skills own their implementation surfaces.

Workflow

1. Inspect the host package manager, normalized runtime schema, permission gate, Preset hook/routes, records lifecycle, existing CanvasTable integration, and tests.
2. Install @qfei-design/make-app-group@^0.1.0. Read its package.ai.json first, parse package.ai.json.readOrder, read every declared file in order, import only public exports and styles.css, and remove copied UI model, panel, styles, or drag behavior.
3. Ensure @qfei-design/canvas-table is installed. Use canvas-table-integration to read the installed package docs and verify GroupTableComponent, group:load, group:data:load, setGroup, setData, and markGroupPageLoadFailed are public.
4. Build grouping candidates from normalized runtime fields with a non-empty key and capabilities.groupable === true. Do not use visible columns, sample rows, local DSL, or field-type allowlists as the source of truth.
5. Use ordered { fieldKey, order }[] as the only grouped-list value. Persist it in Entity Preset group; use at most three unique fields.
6. Establish a permission-aware object context. Load schema and Entity Preset, sanitize saved group, and only then choose plain-record or grouped-record loading.
7. Use one controlled, click/press-opened host Popover/Drawer/Modal with package RecordGroupPanel, useRecordGroupController, the host component adapter, and a stable resetKey. Treat all portalled/teleported child popups as part of the outer interaction boundary; never close from hover, pointer leave, blur, child value selection, or child-overlay close.
8. Let onConfirm persist only { group }, let synchronous onApplied replace applied group state, and let a separate data lifecycle react to object context plus applied filter/sort/group. Always provide onApplyError.
9. When the writable list uses make-app-actions, hand off the successfully applied group generation so actions clear selection and invalidate pending precheck/submit work. Draft edits, cancel, and save/apply failure preserve the current action selection.
10. In Service, parse raw Preset and query input with a strict transport parser, validate group fields against current runtime schema, then forward the ordered group value to Make Data. Tolerant sanitization is only for saved/upstream reads.
11. When applied group is empty, use ordinary records mode and omit Data API group. When applied group is non-empty, first request the root group page, then initialize or refresh GroupTableComponent.
12. Compose groupFilter from the initial group filter plus selected group path conditions using the backend DNF expression rules. Do not concatenate complex expressions by hand.
13. Wire CanvasTable group:load to the remaining group levels and group:data:load to ordinary records with full group path groupFilter.
14. Add the model, UI, Preset, Service, groupFilter, CanvasTable, permission, concurrency, stale request, and failure-page tests listed in the testing reference.

Topic reference map

Non-negotiable invariants

• Grouping is optional until requested or already present. Once in scope, deliver toolbar grouping, Preset persistence, Service contracts, grouped CanvasTable rendering, and grouped leaf pagination together.
• Use only ordered { fieldKey, order }[]. Reject legacy groupFieldKey, field, sort, direction aliases, map objects, duplicates, unknown properties, and more than three entries.
• A Data API group item only allows fieldKey and order; properties is always invalid for grouping, including an empty string.
• Array order is the hierarchy contract: index 0 is the root group, index 1 is the second level, and index 2 is the third level.
• A field is groupable only when its normalized runtime schema has a non-empty key and capabilities.groupable === true. Service remains authoritative when the UI or Preset contains stale values.
• Do not blanket-disable Make.Field.Lookup in platform guidance. Lookup grouping support is determined by runtime schema capability and backend relation rules. A project may add a temporary V1 policy, but this Skill must not encode that as a platform rule.
• Keep applied group and panel draft separate. Editing, dragging, adding, deleting, clearing, true outside click, child-overlay interaction, and header openWithField must not request groups or records before confirm.
• The outer grouping overlay is controlled and opens only by explicit click/press, never hover or focus. Close it after confirm succeeds or after a verified true outside pointer interaction. A Select, picker, menu, tooltip, popover, or drag overlay rendered through portal/teleport remains inside the owned interaction boundary and must not close the grouping panel.
• Use package useRecordGroupController with resetKey, onConfirm, synchronous onApplied, and required onApplyError. Do not put group-data requests in onConfirm or onApplied.
• Save before apply. Preset writes are sparse, clear uses Preset { group: [] }, and filter, sort, and group never overwrite one another.
• Data API records mode uses group omitted or null. Data API group: [] is invalid and must never be used as the grouped leaf-record request.
• Grouping mode requests omit fields and ordinary sort; Make Data ignores them in grouping mode. Leaf-record requests return to ordinary records mode and may include fields, filter, groupFilter, sort, and pagination.
• Schema/Preset hydration and access checks gate the first records or group request. Entity or permission changes invalidate the old generation, panel, header menu, applied state, group cache, leaf cache, and table query context.
• groupFilter is independent from filter. Do not merge them into one expression. Backend applies them as an AND relationship.
• Appending group path conditions to an existing OR expression must preserve DNF: append the new condition to every top-level OR branch rather than producing a nested expression that the backend cannot parse.
• Grouped leaf page failure or cancellation must call markGroupPageLoadFailed(groupValue, page) so CanvasTable can retry that page.
• Grouped V1 should treat cell editing as disabled unless the product explicitly defines and tests a grouped edit lifecycle.
• Writable grouped record lists may use the default make-app-actions selection workflow. Under CanvasTable 1.3.1, GroupTableComponent does not support Shift range selection; do not emulate it in the host.
• When that action workflow is present, only a successfully applied group generation clears selection and invalidates pending action work. Group drafts, cancel, validation/Preset failure, and failed group queries preserve selection.
• Add safe boundary logs at UI-Service adapters and Service route/adapters for entry, success, failure, and stale-result branches. Never log cookies, tokens, secrets, Authorization, full expressions, or record payloads.

Handoffs

• With makeui: place the optional group trigger after filter and before sort; this Skill owns group behavior and state.
• With canvas-table-integration: it owns GroupTableComponent construction and CanvasTable public API mechanics; this Skill owns when and what to request and how to translate grouping results into the table.
• With make-app-service: this Skill defines group query and Preset semantics; Service owns strict parsing, routes, Make adapters, schema capability validation, logs, and tests.
• With make-app-permission: it owns access policy; this Skill treats permission enable/disable as an object-context transition that invalidates group requests.
• With make-app-filter: filter and group share expression semantics but stay in separate request fields. Filter panel state is persisted as filter; grouping path state is transient and sent as groupFilter.
• With make-app-sort: sort and group share one Entity Preset lifecycle but update dimensions independently. Sort applies only to ordinary records and grouped leaf records, not to grouping-mode requests.
• With make-app-actions: only for writable grouped lists using the action workflow, hand off a successfully applied group generation so actions clear selection and invalidate pending work. Draft and failure paths preserve the current selection; this Skill does not emit CanvasTable selection events.