feat(notifications): combine native desktop and upstream alerts

[rynfar]

Pylon needs one notification system across desktop and browser clients. This combines the native desktop work from #424 with upstream's browser alerts, sounds, in-app notices and badges, while preserving Pylon's desktop defaults and completion semantics.

Credit

ALGORITHM-0's work in #424 is a substantial foundation of this implementation. The native Electron delivery layer, per-event preferences, settings, notification lifetime handling and tests are retained and extended. All ten original commits preserve ALGORITHM-0's authorship, and the integration commit also includes a Co-authored-by trailer. This work complements upstream's additions rather than replacing that contribution.

Upstream contributions are preserved with author attribution and source trailers:

• 0e0ddaeedf30698bec131caf040a8e8d7b2e3f37 — maria / maria-rcks, #11481.
• 42b6bcc6f59bd0369377746b0f2ef370c275b624 — Bilal Bakr, #11570.
• 6e5e986f15b3cbec3588646ddf216f00b4301785 — Bilal Bakr and maria-rcks, #11569.

Comparative review

Area	#424	Upstream	Integration
Native desktop	Native transport, retained lifetime, category controls	Renderer browser transport	Preserve and extend #424 native work
Browser features	Desktop only	Browser alerts, sounds, toasts, badges	Adopt upstream additions
Event correctness	Phase-only comparison; cached reconnect gap	Live-state fence and completion timestamps	Turn-aware pure reconciliation plus live-state fence
Pylon compatibility	Interrupted/session-only completion supported	Needs adaptation	Preserve Pylon completion semantics
Click/lifetime	Renderer readiness gap; retained objects	Keyed pending notifications	Acknowledged navigation; replaced and bounded native objects

The recommendation is a combined implementation: each source contributes capabilities the other lacks. Neither should land unchanged. #424 remains an open draft and has never been merged.

Behavior and fixes

A single reconciler prevents duplicate delivery, silently re-primes after reconnect, detects successive completed turns without an intermediate running snapshot, and preserves interrupted/session-only completion states. Archived threads and older rollback completions remain silent. Native notifications are replaced per thread and capped at 128 retained objects. Click targets remain in main until a ready renderer acknowledges navigation, including window recreation.

Desktop alerts and category preferences remain on by default; custom sounds, browser alerts and in-app notices are opt-in. Preferences reset correctly. Native desktop, browser permission handling, sound, toasts and badges share the same event decisions. No mobile push or closed-client background delivery is added.

Validation

• 311 focused tests passed across 11 files, including renderer handoff, retained-object lifetime, reconnect, repeated completion, compatibility, settings and badge regressions.
• Web, desktop and contracts typechecks passed; scoped lint and formatting passed.
• Browser verification passed against isolated task-owned state: notification mode and in-app preferences persist across reload; a real provider completion produces a toast in Settings; Open thread navigates to the completed conversation. Before/after images and the 23-second delivery video are attached to this PR.
• All active CI checks passed at 34b45525070f46cf811e32ba776e807d7286a98f, including general/server tests and Windows/Linux packaged smoke. Codesmith is inactive/skipped; no automated review findings were posted.
• Scoped unused-export check passed. Native macOS/Windows/Linux presentation and remote HTTPS permission prompts were not exercised manually.

Bounded upstream head: 6d1d549441be84f19696ab59ed7e2fbf305280d4. Only the three notification sources above are included; the global upstream review cursor is unchanged.

Completes the implementation work proposed in #424. It remains open until this replacement integration is approved and merged. No release or installation performed.

Implemented with GPT-6 in Codex.

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[github-actions]

Thread transfer impact

✅ Thread transfer remains within every enforced ceiling.

Provider	Metric	Main baseline	This PR	Impact	PR ceiling
Codex	Total thread wire	14.0 KiB	14.1 KiB	+27 B (+0.2%)	15.1 KiB	✅
Codex	Thread snapshot wire	7.2 KiB	7.2 KiB	+2 B (+0.0%)	7.3 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn WebSocket wire	6.8 KiB	6.9 KiB	+25 B (+0.4%)	7.8 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn WebSocket decoded	58.8 KiB	58.8 KiB	+44 B (+0.1%)	66.4 KiB	✅
Codex	Live turn messages	9	10	+1 (+11.1%)	21	✅
Claude	Total thread wire	14.0 KiB	13.9 KiB	−134 B (−0.9%)	15.1 KiB	✅
Claude	Thread snapshot wire	7.2 KiB	7.2 KiB	+4 B (+0.1%)	7.3 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn WebSocket wire	6.8 KiB	6.7 KiB	−138 B (−2.0%)	7.8 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn WebSocket decoded	59.7 KiB	58.8 KiB	−884 B (−1.4%)	66.4 KiB	✅
Claude	Live turn messages	9	8	−1 (−11.1%)	21	✅

Baseline: 877b9d7 · PR result: 34b4552 · Source CI: success

Scenario and decoded snapshot size

10 historical turns, 5 command tools per turn, 878.9 KiB retained MCP result per historical turn, and a 1.05 MiB retained result in the measured turn.

• Codex decoded thread snapshot: 115.6 KiB
• Claude decoded thread snapshot: 116.3 KiB

Updated in place by a trusted workflow. PR artifacts are strictly validated and never executed.

[rynfar]

Browser verification evidence, captured against isolated task-owned state at 34b4552. Notification preferences persist across reload. A real provider completion produces an in-app toast while Settings is open; clicking Open thread navigates to the completed conversation. Native OS presentation was not manually exercised.

Before

After

Completion delivery

23-second recording of completion delivery and click-through:

delivery.mp4