A dashboard widget's OWN `filter` keys and `options.sortBy` are not resolved at author time — validate/build exit 0, widget renders empty

[os-warren]

Measured on @objectstack/cli / @objectstack/spec 17.2.0 while building a manager dashboard in the duly app (objectstack-ai/duly#10). Each mutation was applied to a real, shipping dashboard, confirmed on disk, and both gates re-run.

The interesting part is how narrow the remaining gap is: almost everything on this surface is already checked, including the sibling of one of the two misses.

What IS caught (no action needed — recorded so the gap below is precise)

mutated reference	validate	build	rule
widgets[].dataset → duly_stagnatoin	1	1	widget-dataset-unknown (+ "did you mean")
widgets[].dimensions[] → business_unitt	1	1	widget-dimension-unknown
widgets[].values[] → untouched_over_14	1	1	widget-measure-unknown
{token} inside widgets[].filter → {14_days_hence}	1	1	filter-token-unknown, path-precise at dashboards[0].widgets[4].filter.due_date.$lte
dashboard-level dateRange.field → nonexistent_column	1	1	dashboard-filter-field-unknown (#3365 / #3382)
nav dashboardName → duly_ghost	1	2	defineStack cross-reference validation

A — widgets[].filter keys are not resolved

// widget bound to dataset `duly_workload`, base object `duly_task`
filter: { due_daet: { $gte: '{today}', $lte: '{14_days_from_now}' } },
//        ^^^^^^^^ no such column on duly_task

validate → 0. build → 0. The condition reaches the engine, matches nothing, and the widget renders empty.

Two things make this sharper than a generic missing check:

1. On the same node, the TOKEN is checked and the COLUMN is not. filter-token-unknown fires with the exact path …widgets[4].filter.due_date.$lte, so the traversal already walks into the filter tree and already knows the widget's dataset. Only the key resolution is missing.

2. The identical resolution already exists one key over. dashboard-filter-field-unknown (Validate dashboard filter field-existence at build time (extend ADR-0021) #3365, shipped in feat(lint): validate dashboard filter field-existence at build time (#3365) #3382) resolves a dashboard-level filter's field against each widget's dataset base object, and its message even prints that object's field list:

   dashboard "duly_duty_health" › widget "not_moving_14d": inherits dashboard filter dateRange(nonexistent_column), but object duly_task (dataset "duly_stagnation") has no field nonexistent_column. … Object fields: subject, duty, owner, business_unit, …

   So dataset → base object → field set is already computed per widget at that point. widgets[].filter is the same field-existence invariant on the filter an author is more likely to write by hand, and it was simply not fed through the same rule.

B — options.sortBy is not checked against what the widget selects

dimensions: ['business_unit'],
values: ['untouched_over_14d'],
options: { sortBy: 'not_selected', sortOrder: 'asc' },

validate → 0. build → 0. The spec states the contract in its own words — "Order rows by this dimension or measure name — must be one this widget actually selects" (DashboardWidgetOptionsSchema.sortBy) — and DashboardWidgetOptions is one of the four keys deliberately declared because they reach the analytics query (framework#3588). The runtime falls back to ordering by the selected dimensions, so the authored order silently does not happen.

Why it matters beyond tidiness: for us the authored order is a product rule. A per-unit chart must be ordered by the unit dimension and never by the count, because ordering units by a count turns a workload chart into a league table. Today nothing but a hand-written repo test keeps that from silently degrading into "whatever the runtime picked".

Why silent-empty is the expensive failure here

The dashboard this came from leads with a "not moving" tile — open work untouched >14 days. An empty tile is indistinguishable from a healthy team: a missing number reads as zero, and zero is the answer the manager is hoping for. Every other class of authoring mistake on this surface already fails loudly at build; these two are the ones that ship.

Suggested fix

Both are one pass at the same site that already emits widget-dataset-unknown / widget-dimension-unknown / dashboard-filter-field-unknown:

• A — for each widget with a filter, walk the condition's field KEYS (descending $and / $or / $not, skipping $-prefixed operator keys) and resolve each against the widget's dataset base object plus the platform system columns. Suggested rule id widget-filter-field-unknown, message shaped like dashboard-filter-field-unknown so the two read alike. A dotted path through a declared include should resolve or be explicitly out of scope, not silently pass.
• B — error unless options.sortBy is in dimensions[] ∪ values[] for that widget. Suggested widget-sortby-unselected, listing what the widget does select.

Acceptance: both fail validate and build naming dashboard, widget, key and object; fixture coverage for the failing and the clean shape.

Happy to take either one if useful — the shape is mechanical and mirrors #3382.

Repo-local stopgap meanwhile: test/dashboard.test.ts in objectstack-ai/duly resolves both against the datasets barrel, and is written to be deleted when this lands.

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[os-justin]

Triage → domain:devx · p2 · Bug. Fifth of the author-time-validation family (#14105 · #14106 · #14107 · #14108).

Anchoring — measured on origin/main (66ecc50a). The card names dashboard-filter-field-unknown as the resolution that already exists one key over; that rule lives in packages/lint/src/validate-widget-bindings.ts, together with widget-dataset-unknown / widget-dimension-unknown. Both proposed rules land at that same site. ⇒ packages/lint ⇒ domain:devx.

Type = Bug. Limb B is the clearer of the two: DashboardWidgetOptionsSchema.sortBy states its own contract in prose — "Order rows by this dimension or measure name — must be one this widget actually selects" — and nothing enforces it. Declared ≠ enforced, textbook. Limb A is the same ADR-0078 silently-inert-metadata invariant as its four siblings. Both narrow the accept set ⇒ ⛔ not a Feature.

Grade p2.

⭐ This card makes the family's best harm argument and it deserves to be quoted forward, not paraphrased: the dashboard leads with a "not moving" tile — open work untouched >14 days — and "an empty tile is indistinguishable from a healthy team: a missing number reads as zero, and zero is the answer the manager is hoping for." ⇒ the failure is not merely silent, it is silent in the direction the reader wants to believe. That is the strongest single sentence in the five-card family for why author-time resolution is worth gating rather than documenting.

⛔ Still not p1: authoring-time, no security boundary, no data corruption, and the remedy is mechanical.

⭐ The shared root — this card is one of three faces of ONE missing mechanism

The card's §A observes that on the very same node, the TOKEN is checked and the COLUMN is not — filter-token-unknown fires path-precise at …widgets[4].filter.due_date.$lte, so the traversal already walks the filter tree and already knows the widget's dataset.

#14105 §4 records the identical observation for datasets. And dashboard-filter-field-unknown already implements exactly this resolution — dataset → base object → field set — for dashboard-level filters, printing the object's field list in its message.

⇒ Filter field-key resolution exists in one of the three places it is needed (dashboard-level ✅ · widget-level ❌ · dataset-level ❌). Whoever takes this group should generalise the one working implementation, ⛔ not write three parallel rules. Flagged for the lane's fold-or-serial call — four of the five siblings share packages/lint/src, and these two share a single file.

Two things this card gets right that should not be lost in implementation:

1. ⭐ Its "what IS caught" table is a six-row positive control establishing that the surface is genuinely in the validation path — so the two zeros are readings, ⛔ not "the file was never walked". That is the control discipline this repo keeps paying for elsewhere; it is already done here.
2. Its acceptance criterion already names the right shape (fail both validate and build, naming dashboard/widget/key/object, with fixtures for failing and clean). ⛔ Do not accept a validate-only fix — build is the publish gate and is where these currently ship.

Open sub-question the implementer must answer explicitly, ⛔ not silently: the card flags that a dotted path through a declared include "should resolve or be explicitly out of scope, not silently pass." ⇒ whichever is chosen, it must be stated in the PR; a third silent pass-through would reproduce this very card.

Stopgap to retire: test/dashboard.test.ts in objectstack-ai/duly resolves both, written to be deleted when this lands — the PR should say whether that deletion is in scope downstream or a follow-up there.

Offer on the card: the reporter volunteers to take either limb. ⛔ Not triage's call to accept — routing only; the domain:devx seat owns dispatch and claiming.

Dedup: #3365/#3382 shipped dashboard-filter-field-unknown — that is the precedent and the reusable implementation, ⛔ not a duplicate (different node: dashboard-level vs widget-level filter). ⛔ No duplicate.

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