Ensure Spec-Kitty dashboard is correctly launched each time

[polmichel]

Summary by CodeRabbit

Release Notes

• Documentation
  • Improved dashboard startup procedure to automatically terminate any existing instances before launching a fresh session, enhancing reliability.
  • Updated terminal output messaging to provide context-aware guidance based on work package state.
  • Refined workflow recommendations with explicit handling for scenarios where no work packages have been generated yet.

• Restructured the dashboard command to always kill existing instances and launch the browser dashboard first, before displaying terminal output
• Made the dashboard launch unconditional (handles empty/missing work packages gracefully) instead of being an optional step
• Added guidance for when no work packages exist yet

Test plan

• Run /kitty-spec.dashboard with existing work packages — dashboard should launch and terminal summary should display
• Run /kitty-spec.dashboard with no work packages — dashboard should still launch, terminal should note no WPs exist
• Run /kitty-spec.dashboard when a dashboard is already running — old instance should be killed before launching new one

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Walkthrough

The changes update the dashboard specification documentation. Previously, the workflow validated work-package directory existence before conditionally launching the browser dashboard. The new workflow unconditionally kills existing dashboard instances and immediately starts a fresh one. The startup procedure now uses python .../dashboard.py --kill (with stderr suppressed) followed by a background execution of nohup python .../dashboard/server.py --feature <branch-name>. Terminal output and next-actions guidance were modified to account for scenarios where no work packages exist, with state-specific suggestions retained for planned, under-review, and completed states.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and specifically summarizes the main change: ensuring the dashboard is correctly launched each time, which is exactly what the changeset accomplishes.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description covers key sections including summary of changes, test plan with specific scenarios, and notes the tool used; however, it lacks detail in some template sections like behavioral impact, backward compatibility, and deployment notes.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

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🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

dev/commands/kitty-spec.dashboard.md (1)

33-34: Consider consistency in script invocation and potential startup failure handling.

Two observations:

1. Inconsistency: Line 33 invokes dashboard.py --kill while line 34 calls server.py directly. Line 20 also uses dashboard.py for consistency. While both approaches work (dashboard.py is a thin wrapper forwarding to server.py), using dashboard.py consistently would improve maintainability.

2. Error suppression risk: Line 33 suppresses stderr with 2>/dev/null. If the kill operation fails and a dashboard instance remains running, the new dashboard on line 34 may fail to start due to a port conflict (default port 5050). Consider whether startup failures should be surfaced to the user or if the documentation should note this edge case.

♻️ Proposed change for consistency

-   python dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard.py --kill 2>/dev/null
-   nohup python dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard/server.py --feature <branch-name> > /dev/null 2>&1 &
+   python dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard.py --kill 2>/dev/null
+   nohup python dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard.py --feature <branch-name> > /dev/null 2>&1 &

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

In `@dev/commands/kitty-spec.dashboard.md` around lines 33 - 34, Use dashboard.py
consistently (replace the direct server.py invocation with the dashboard.py
wrapper) and remove or limit blind stderr suppression so startup errors are
visible; specifically, change the nohup invocation that currently runs server.py
to call dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard.py --feature <branch-name> and
avoid redirecting stderr to /dev/null (or add a note about port 5050 conflicts)
so failures like port-in-use from an unsuccessful --kill are surfaced to the
user.

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Nitpick comments:
In `@dev/commands/kitty-spec.dashboard.md`:
- Around line 33-34: Use dashboard.py consistently (replace the direct server.py
invocation with the dashboard.py wrapper) and remove or limit blind stderr
suppression so startup errors are visible; specifically, change the nohup
invocation that currently runs server.py to call
dev/spec-kitty/kittify/scripts/dashboard.py --feature <branch-name> and avoid
redirecting stderr to /dev/null (or add a note about port 5050 conflicts) so
failures like port-in-use from an unsuccessful --kill are surfaced to the user.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 3df5070a-8d17-4c09-930d-6320a62aca61

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 7383297 and e6664ae.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• dev/commands/kitty-spec.dashboard.md