acdream/docs/plans/2026-08-09-chat-parity-campaign.md

Campaign CH — chat & interface-text retail parity

Status: ACTIVE 2026-08-09 — CH1 complete (implementation 172c6f9a + review fixes 34d8a3c0); CH2 CODE-COMPLETE and CLOSED pending the user gate (77c8296e, REJECT-reviewed at docs/research/2026-08-09-ch2-review-findings.md, reworked e0e78883, re-reviewed APPROVE-WITH-FIXES with nits applied this commit) — the sole outstanding item is the in-client user gate (jump-in-air / jump-loaded refusals showing on-screen, not in chat). CH3 (side channels) CODE-COMPLETE, pending the connected user gate — see the CH3 row below and docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-side-channels-vs-ace.md.

Why now: first track of the alpha-release program (chat is the most visible daily surface for the friend-alpha). User-directed 2026-08-09.

Scope

Four deliverables, one campaign:

1. Exact chat colors. The 2026-06-16 cdb session pinned the retail RGBAColor constants (0x81c4a8+), but only 4 of ~13 kinds were mapped with confidence; the type→color lookup table (ChatInterface::BuildChatColorLookupTable @ 0x4f31c0) was never decompiled. This campaign pins the COMPLETE table and conforms ChatWindowController.RetailChatColor to it.
2. Working side channels vs local ACE. Turbine rooms (General / Trade / LFG / Roleplay / Society) and the legacy family (/f /a /m /p /v /cv), inbound and outbound. The 26-day-old "ACE doesn't run a TurbineChat server" claim is under verification — the research lane reads current ACE source rather than trusting it.
3. Retail's on-screen interface text. The transient yellow top-of-viewport messages (jump-while-airborne being the canonical example) that retail does NOT put in the chat window. Routing table (on-screen vs chat vs both), presentation (color/duration/fade as far as acclient-side data allows — the draw itself lives in keystone.dll), and the client-raised local errors.
4. Complete / and @ command registry. Every command the retail client parses, audited against RetailClientCommandCatalog (the 2026-07-13 family port is the baseline, not a restart). Missing commands implemented; non-retail verbs remain ACE server-passthrough per the command ownership rule (2026-07-13).

Out of scope: retail's secondary/floating chat windows and per-window filter masks (post-alpha polish unless a slice lands it for free); chat color user-configurability (we ship retail defaults); TurbineChat server emulation (ACE-side).

Method

Per CLAUDE.md: grep docs/research/named-retail/ first; cdb only where static decomp is insufficient; cross-check ACE + holtburger; conformance tests pin every table (colors, routing, command catalog); divergence register rows land in the same commits; build + full Release suite green per commit.

Model split (user-directed 2026-08-09): research on Opus; planning by the main loop (Fable); implementation slices on Sonnet; every slice gets a dual-lens Opus review — retail faithfulness AND architecture — before its gate.

Research lanes (all Opus, parallel, read-only)

Lane	Output doc	Question
R1 command registry	docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-retail-command-registry.md	Complete retail verb/alias/handler table + acdream audit
R2 interface text	docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-retail-interface-text.md	What draws the yellow text, the routing table, client-raised errors
R3 color table	docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-retail-color-table.md	Full BuildChatColorLookupTable decompile + wire→type→color trace
R4 side channels	docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-side-channels-vs-ace.md	Per-family defect diagnosis vs current ACE source

Slices (provisional — finalized when research lands)

Ordering rationale: colors first (small, immediately visible, zero wire risk), then interface text (new presentation subsystem), then side channels (wire work, needs the connected gate), then command breadth, then closeout. Slices touching shared chat files run serially — one implementer per slice against a pinned contract (per feedback_dont_parallelize_coupled_plan_slices).

• CH1 — exact color table. Conformance test pins every enum entry to its retail RGBA; RetailChatColor corrected; register rows for any kind we cannot yet receive on the wire.
• CH2 — on-screen interface text. New presentation owner (App layer, retained-UI or TextRenderer HUD path per research recommendation); routing per retail's table; client-raised local errors ported at their retail raise sites; keystone-owned presentation unknowns get register rows.
• CH3 — side channels. Fix list from R4; connected two-way gate against local ACE (send + receive per family); self-echo semantics per ChatChannelInfo.IsSelfEchoChannel.
• CH4 — command registry completion. Catalog conformance test pins acdream's table against the retail registry enumeration; missing commands implemented family-by-family.
• CH5 — closeout. Register sweep, ledger flip, ISSUES updates, in-client test script for the user gate.

Gates

• Per slice: dotnet build green, full Release suite green, conformance tests, register rows same-commit, Opus dual review resolved.
• Campaign: user in-client gate — colors side-by-side vs the retail client, each side channel spoken + heard, on-screen text provoked live (jump in air), command spot-checks. Test script delivered at CH5.

Ledger

Slice	Commit	Suite	Review	User gate
R1–R4 research	see docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-retail-*	—	—	—
CH1 colors	172c6f9a	11,835 passed / 4 skipped / 0 failed	APPROVE-WITH-FIXES; fixed 34d8a3c0	pending
CH2 interface text	77c8296e, reworked e0e78883	11,916 passed / 4 skipped / 0 failed	REJECT → reworked e0e78883 → re-review APPROVE-WITH-FIXES → nits 233c30d1	pending
CH3 side channels	614a1e05	11,957 passed / 4 skipped / 0 failed	not yet reviewed	pending (connected gate — see handoff below)
CH4 commands	—	—	—	—
CH5 closeout	—	—	—	—

CH3 closeout handoff (2026-08-09)

All nine steps of the research doc's §6 fix list landed:

1. The false "ACE doesn't run a TurbineChat server" claim retracted in docs/ISSUES.md (#19) and docs/plans/2026-04-11-roadmap.md (I.6, ×2).
2. TurbineChatMembershipGate (new, AcDream.Runtime.Gameplay) ports retail's SendTurbineChat @0x0057db10 local pre-send gate — Turbine off/room-0 → "Turbine chat is not available."; Hear-option off → 0x0551 YouAreNotListeningTo_Channel — both raised through RuntimeCommunicationState.AddText. Wired into BOTH LiveSessionCommandRouter (graphical) and DirectGameRuntimeCommandAdapter (headless) so the two hosts can't diverge. RuntimeCharacterState.IsOlthoiPlayer added (heritage-gated, not an option) for the Olthoi room.
3. SetSingleCharacterOption (0x0005) implemented end to end (codec, WorldSession.SendSetSingleCharacterOption, IRuntimeCharacterCommands. SetSingleOption, both adapters, LiveSessionCommandRouter registration) and wired to the 5 Settings Chat toggles via RuntimeSettingsController. SaveChat (publishes only the CHANGED bits) through a hoisted LiveSessionCommandSurface now shared with RuntimeSettingsTargets. No 6th (Allegiance) toggle was added — ChatSettings has never had one and retail's own Settings UI was not confirmed to have one either; flagged for the user rather than guessed.
4. ChatSettings seeded from server truth — RuntimeSettingsController. SyncChatFromServerOptions reseeds both the persisted snapshot and any live unsaved draft from CharacterOptions2 whenever a fresh PlayerDescription lands (LiveCharacterSessionBindings. OnCharacterOptionsChanged, new optional hook).
5. Self-echo double-print fixed — LiveSessionCommandRouter. RouteLegacyChannel now consults ChatChannelInfo.Legacy(...). IsSelfEchoChannel(); Fellow/Vassals/Patron/Monarch/CoVassals skip the local echo (server resends with "" sender), AllegianceBroadcast/Say/Tell keep it. Existing TellAndLegacyChannel_PreserveOutboundAndEchoPolicy test corrected to the fixed (single-print) expectation.
6. TurbineChat ack HResult surfaced — LiveSessionEventRouter. RouteTurbineChat now switches on Payload.Response{HResult}; nonzero surfaces as a system chat line, zero (the common case) stays silent matching retail.
7. /a routes to Turbine unconditionally — ChatChannelKind.Allegiance is exhaustively dispatched to the Turbine pipeline (never falls through to legacy); a new ChatChannelKind.AllegianceBroadcast + /ab verb owns the legacy 0x02000000 path retail's own @ab verb uses. /allegiancebroadcast was deliberately NOT added — the retail command registry (docs/research/2026-08-09-chat-retail-command-registry.md) only has ab, not that long form.
8. Malformed builders resolved — SocialActions.BuildSetCharacterOptions (0x01A1, no caller), BuildAddChannel/BuildRemoveChannel (0x0145/0x0146, wrong payload type, no caller) DELETED along with their entire call chain (WorldSession.SendSetCharacterOptions, IRuntimeCharacterCommands. SetOptions1, SetCharacterOptionsRuntimeCmd) — replaced by SetSingleCharacterOption, the message step 3 actually needed.
9. Register + memory — AP-181 (no client-side chat spam throttle) and UN-9 (an incidentally-discovered, unexplained one-byte CharacterOptions1.Default mismatch vs ACE's own literal — not investigated further, flagged for a future pass) filed in docs/architecture/retail-divergence-register.md. claude-memory/project_chat_pipeline.md line ~111 corrected.

Deviations from the literal ordered list: none structural; the two notes above (no 6th Allegiance toggle, no /allegiancebroadcast verb) are scope-narrowing decisions made against the retail command registry and the existing ChatSettings shape, not skipped work.

What the connected gate must verify (not run this session — build+test only per the CH3 task's hard constraint): General/Trade/LFG round-trip send+receive; Roleplay is now silent-but-correctly-refused until the user turns it on via Settings (then works); /a with and without an allegiance; /ab; the legacy family no longer double-prints; the TurbineChat ack HResult line never appears on an ordinary successful send.