Stacktree Sideshow Handoff

stacktree-sideshow-handoff

Sideshow is where an agent iterates in front of its operator: surfaces render in a local viewer, the viewer supplies the chrome, comments steer the work. That is the right shape for iteration and the wrong shape for delivery — the person you send it to has no viewer, no localhost, and no token. This skill is the handoff: turn a finished surface into a self-contained page on stacktr.ee with a private URL anyone can open in a plain browser.

When to invoke

• A sideshow surface (diagram, mockup, explainer, diff walkthrough) is done and someone outside this terminal needs it: a client, a teammate, the user's phone.
• The user says "send this to…", "give me a link for this", or "publish the surface".

Do not use this when the audience is the operator at this terminal (keep iterating in sideshow — that is its job), or for a live status page that refreshes on a loop (use stacktree-status-dashboard).

The judgment this skill encodes

1. Delivery inverts the token economics. Sideshow parts are lean because the viewer supplies the chrome. A delivered page has no viewer, so the document must carry everything: inline the CSS, pin any script (e.g. Mermaid) to a versioned CDN URL or pre-render it, and never reference localhost or a sideshow asset URL. Self-contained is the entire point of the handoff.

2. Compose parts into one document. A surface is an ordered list of parts (html, markdown, mermaid, diff, terminal, image). Recompose them into a single readable page in that order — render markdown to HTML, wrap terminal output in <pre>, render diffs as pre-highlighted HTML, and either pre-render Mermaid to SVG or include the pinned mermaid script with the source in a <pre class="mermaid"> block. Images must be embedded (data: URI) or uploaded with the page, never hotlinked from the local server.

3. Snapshot semantics by default. A delivered surface is "the work as of now". Keep the default 7-day expiry for review handoffs; use --expires-never only when the user calls it a keeper. If the surface keeps iterating after delivery, update the SAME site (--update <id-or-slug> or update_site) so the link you already sent stays current.

4. Private by default, gate for clients. The unlisted URL is the credential. Add set_password or set_email_gate when the recipient is an external client and the content is sensitive. Never use a public slug for a review artifact.

5. The PII bar rises on delivery. A local surface can safely show internal hostnames and log excerpts; a delivered page cannot. Keep --pii-check block and treat hits as real before the link leaves the machine.

Steps

1. Identify which surface (and which parts) the user wants delivered. Fetch the content from the running sideshow server if needed (SIDESHOW_URL, default http://localhost:8228) or reconstruct from the conversation.
2. Compose a single self-contained HTML document per the judgment above. Match the surface's reading order; a short header naming the work and the date helps the recipient.
3. Publish to Stacktree:

   echo "$HTML" | bash scripts/publish.sh          # unlisted, 7-day default
   

   or the publish_html MCP tool. Capture id and url. Add gates if the recipient warrants them.
4. On later iterations of the same surface, republish in place:

   echo "$HTML_V2" | bash scripts/publish.sh --update <id-or-slug>
   

5. Reply with the URL, the expiry, and the note that it opens in any browser with no account and no viewer — and that the sideshow session stays local and unaffected.

What to tell the user

The link, when it expires (and how to keep it), that the recipient needs nothing installed, and that further iteration can either stay in sideshow (local) or refresh the delivered page in place (same URL) — their choice.