BR-TEXT-4: chat, session and conversation, 42 user-visible strings and two names for a new chat

[Broccolito]

Split out of the BR-TEXT-2 copy sweep (#83), which closed its other four categories but left this one deliberately untouched. It is the largest item in that issue and the only one that cannot be done as a sweep, so it gets its own thread with its own measurement.

The distinction

Chat is the user-facing word for a conversation with the agent. Session is the technical name for the same object where it is a stored, addressable record: a row in the store, a path segment in the HTTP API, a subcommand in the CLI, a schema name in OpenAPI. Both are correct. The defect is that the two are used interchangeably in copy, so the same object is announced under two names on adjacent surfaces, and a third word, conversation, appears as well.

The sharpest example is inside one file. ui/desktop/src/components/BaseChat.tsx:1877 names a new chat 'New chat'; :2346 names the same thing 'New Session'. Across the UI there are two default names for a new chat, at seven sites:

default	sites
'New Session'	utils/sessionNameSync.ts:31 (DEFAULT_SESSION_NAME), components/chatGroups/chatGroupsReducer.ts:77 (DEFAULT_TAB_TITLE), components/BaseChat.tsx:2346, hooks/chatStreamStore.tsx:604
'New chat'	App.tsx:388, components/BaseChat.tsx:1877, components/BioRouterSidebar/AppSidebar.tsx:84

Measured scope

Measured for this issue rather than carried over. Method: strip comments (line, block and JSX), then match chat / session / conversation as whole words inside string literals and JSX text only, with a boundary that rejects sessionId, session_id, session-id and chatState. Tests, __mocks__ and the generated ui/desktop/src/api/ client are excluded.

ui/desktop/src, 445 whole-word occurrences in 107 files:

term	occurrences
chat	306
session	128
conversation	11

Those 445 are not all copy. Sorted by what they are: 258 in 83 files sit in multi-word user-visible strings (chat 226, session 30, conversation 2), 25 are developer diagnostics on console.* lines, 59 are expression fragments the JSX-text matcher picked up, and 103 are bare tokens, route strings and object keys.

crates/biorouter-cli/src, same method: 462 occurrences in 21 files (session 348, chat 82, conversation 32). Most of that 348 is the session subcommand surface and its help text, which stays.

The actionable set is 42 distinct user-visible strings across 21 files that say session or conversation where the object being named is the user's chat. That is the list to work, not the 445. A representative sample:

• components/sessions/SessionListView.tsx 406, 522, 535, 550, 593, 999, 1099: row action labels plus Try a different name, folder, or session ID.
• components/schedule/ScheduleDetailView.tsx 111, 178, 346, 474 and SchedulesView.tsx:425: New session: ${id}, Session: ${id}, Current session ID:
• utils/sessionNameSync.ts:138 Session name cannot be empty
• hooks/useDiverge.ts:90 Diverge did not return a new session id
• components/McpApps/McpAppRenderer.tsx:113 Session not initialized for MCP request
• renderer.tsx:385 No terminal session. and terminalSessionRegistry.ts:141 (terminal sessions are a different object; likely correct as-is)
• types/message.ts:8 biorouter is compacting the conversation...
• components/settings/privacy/PrivacyPanel.tsx:243 for every conversation

Several of those name a session ID, which is the case #83 recorded as legitimately session. Each needs a read, which is the point of the issue.

Surfaces where session is the name and must not move

surface	scope	evidence
store	the sessions table in the SQLite session store, plus messages, checkpoints, classification_audit and token_events keyed off it	crates/biorouter/src/session/
HTTP routes	25 distinct path literals under /sessions* and {session_id}	crates/biorouter-server/src/routes/
OpenAPI	21 schema names, 19 paths, 18 operationIds containing session	ui/desktop/openapi.json
generated TS client	110 distinct exported symbols containing Session, hand-editing forbidden	ui/desktop/src/api/
CLI	11 biorouter session <verb> subcommands (attach, cancel, declassify, diagnostics, diverge, export, list, remove, rename, send, watch) plus --session-id and --no-session	crates/biorouter-cli/src/cli.rs
deep links	the biorouter://sessions/ URL scheme	ui/desktop/src/sessionLinks.ts:18

Warning

A find-and-replace across the tree breaks the product. Renaming session to chat in any of the six rows above changes an API path, an operationId, a CLI subcommand, a column name or a URL scheme, and every one of those is a compatibility surface with clients outside this repo. The biorouter://sessions/ scheme is already installed on user machines. The CLI's session list is in the docs and in muscle memory.

Do this file by file, deciding per occurrence, with the rule: chat in prose the user reads; session where the session ID or the stored record is the visible object, and everywhere it is an identifier, a path, a column, a flag or a type name.

If anything under routes/ is renamed

Regenerate the client, or the TS side silently drifts from the server:

just generate-openapi && cd ui/desktop && npm run generate-api

Also re-run scripts/check-version-consistency.sh if openapi.json is rewritten, since the version is embedded in it.

Reproducing the counts

The scanner used here was a throwaway. Anyone repeating the measurement should strip comments first: a raw grep -c session over ui/desktop/src counts imports, types and identifiers and lands far above the 128 that are words in copy.

Out of scope

Terminal sessions (renderer.tsx, terminalSessionRegistry.ts) are a different object and probably keep the word. The 11 spellings under conversation should be settled at the same time so a third word does not survive the pass.

[Broccolito]

Fixed on main — merged as 16f00763, e21dd02c (commits e4499c64, b0a91eca, 82e50171).

What changed

• New chat is the canonical user-facing default. Legacy automatic New Session, numbered forms and CLI Session normalize only when user_set_name == false, so a chat a user deliberately named "New Session" keeps it (session_manager.rs::canonical_session_name).
• SessionSummary.user_set_name propagated through SQL / OpenAPI / generated TypeScript, #[serde(default)] so older stored and API payloads still deserialize.
• "Session" retained wherever it names a stored record, session id, CLI subcommand, API route, schema type, deep link, terminal session or MCP concept. Legacy recognition patterns (/^New Session$/i, the Rust legacy matcher) deliberately still match the old strings.

Two gaps found and fixed during verification

1. Six e2e assertions still expected the old wording — context-management.spec.ts:102,255 and enhanced-context-management.spec.ts:143,404,436,461 asserted "biorouter is compacting the conversation...", which the backend no longer emits. They would have failed against the built app. Root cause of the miss: ui/desktop/tsconfig.json has "include": ["src"] and lint:check's eslint is scoped to src/**, so tests/e2e/ is covered by no gate at all.
2. Eleven further user-facing strings were inconsistent — the /compact and /clear slash-command descriptions served to the GUI popover (execute_commands.rs:22,26), the Compaction skipped: notice (:152), the /clear confirmation (:234), the CLI system prompt (prompt.rs:11), a reset-panel toast (reset.rs:257), plus the two slash-command reference tables in docs/cli/command-reference.md and landing/docs.html.

Verification

Gate	Result
cargo test --workspace (merged tree)	5320 passed, 0 failed, 25 ignored, 112 binaries
cargo test -p biorouter-cli	350 passed, 0 failed
npm run test:run	2698 passed / 277 files
npm run lint:check	exit 0, 330 contrast assertions
cargo fmt --all --check, clippy-lint.sh (strict + baseline)	clean

Deliberately left alone: message.test.ts:24, a negative assertion that the legacy copy is rejected — a guard for this change, not a leftover.