Sidebar: bring back the Usage button on the main screen #7096

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1. github-actions commented on Sep 2, 2026

   

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   on Sep 2, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

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   Summary

   This is a UX regression report, not a crash: 1.25.1 removed the Usage entry from the main sidebar rail (PR #6883, "fold Usage into Settings"), so the only ways in are Settings → Usage or the command palette. The reporter wants the rail button back, or an opt-in/pinnable version of it, plus a hotkey that lands on Token usage rather than Machine resources. I checked the code and every factual claim in the report holds: there is no Usage entry in the rail today, Cmd+Shift+U does deliberately go to Machine resources, and Settings is a full-window takeover rather than an overlay.

   Affected code

   The rail itself — apps/desktop/src/renderer/routes/_authenticated/_dashboard/components/DashboardSidebar/components/DashboardSidebarHeader/DashboardSidebarHeader.tsx. It renders two parallel, hand-written lists (no shared item config):

   • collapsed rail: lines 235–528
   • expanded rail: lines 530–744

   Both contain exactly New Workspace, Search, Workspaces (DashboardSidebarHeader.tsx:600), Automations (:619), Tasks (:649), Pull requests (:670), Pages (:693, gated on FEATURE_FLAGS.PAGES), Plugins (:719, gated on FEATURE_FLAGS.PLUGINS). No Usage entry in either branch — matching the report.

   The intended replacement — apps/desktop/src/renderer/commandPalette/modules/resources/commands.tsx:18-36. The doc comment there states the design intent outright: it is "the direct, one-step way in, reopening whichever section … was visited last — same behavior the removed sidebar rail button had." It resolves the target via usageSectionPath(getUsageLastSection()) (settings/usage/utils/usageLastSection/usageLastSection.ts:6-30).

   The hotkey — apps/desktop/src/renderer/hotkeys/registry.ts:973-988 defines CHECK_RESOURCES as meta+shift+u on Mac, and commandPalette/hooks/useCheckResourcesHotkey/useCheckResourcesHotkey.ts:17 hard-codes navigate({ to: "/settings/usage/resources" }).

   Settings as a surface — routes/_authenticated/settings/layout.tsx:175 renders h-screen w-screen, i.e. it replaces the dashboard rather than overlaying it.

   Assessment

   Not a regression in the sense of a broken code path — this is the documented behavior of #6883, recorded in apps/marketing/content/changelog/2026-08-30-seventeen-languages-session-handoff.mdx:56. The report is a request to partially revert a deliberate IA decision. Three things in it are worth separating, because two are arguably defects and one is purely a product call:

   1. Rail entry removed (product call). Working as designed; the palette command is the sanctioned substitute. Whether one-step-via-palette is an acceptable replacement for one-click-always-visible is the maintainers' call.

   2. Cmd+Shift+U lands on Machine resources (defensible, but there is a real gap). The hotkey is named and labeled "Check Resources", so it is doing what it says. The gap is that there is no hotkey for Token usage at all: openUsageCommand (commands.tsx:18) has no hotkeyId, unlike checkResourcesCommand (commands.tsx:51). Anyone who learned Cmd+Shift+U as "the usage shortcut" now has no keyboard route to the token view.

   3. "Loses my current context" (substantiated). The return path is originRoute in renderer/stores/settings-state.ts:51, an in-memory zustand value recorded at routes/_authenticated/layout.tsx:157-161. It stores location.pathname only — no search params — and defaults to /workspace. So Escape/back out of Settings returns to the path but drops route search state, and after a renderer reload while in Settings it drops you on /workspace regardless of where you came from.

   Separate small finding, unrelated to the request but caused by the same PR: the comment at DashboardSidebarHeader.tsx:540-543 still explains that on Mac ZoomStable keeps "the collapse/nav icons and usage badge" at constant physical size. Nothing in that row renders a usage badge anymore — it holds SidebarToggle, NavigationControls, and TopBarPortsDropdown (:556-562). I grepped for UsageBadge/usage-badge/SidebarUsage across apps/desktop/src and found nothing. Stale comment worth deleting whichever way this issue goes.

   Reproduction

   1. Launch the desktop app on any route under the dashboard.
   2. Inspect the sidebar rail (expanded and collapsed): Workspaces, Automations, Tasks, Pull requests, and — if the PostHog flags are on — Pages and Plugins. No Usage.
   3. Press Cmd+Shift+U → lands on /settings/usage/resources (Machine resources pill selected), never /settings/usage.
   4. Open the command palette and type "usage" → openUsageCommand fires and does honor the last-visited section, showing the two paths disagree.

   For a unit-level guard, the section-resolution logic is already pure and testable without a renderer: getUsageLastSection/usageSectionPath in settings/usage/utils/usageLastSection/usageLastSection.ts can be driven directly from bun:test by seeding localStorage, so a fix that routes a new rail button (or hotkey) through usageSectionPath(getUsageLastSection()) can be asserted the same way the palette command behaves.

   Suggested direction

   Rail button. Add a Usage entry to both branches of DashboardSidebarHeader.tsx — the collapsed one near :443 and the expanded one near :719 — mirroring the Plugins block. Navigate with usageSectionPath(getUsageLastSection()) rather than a literal /settings/usage, so the rail and the palette agree. HiOutlineChartBar is already the Usage icon in both commands.tsx:22 and SettingsSidebar/GeneralSettings.tsx:121.

   If it should be opt-in. Worth flagging before someone starts: there is no user-facing preference for rail contents today. Pages and Plugins gate on PostHog feature flags (DashboardSidebarHeader.tsx:163-165, :211), which is a rollout mechanism, not a user toggle. A "pin to sidebar" affordance therefore means new persisted state. A fixed-size singleton in localStorage — the same shape as usage-last-section-v1 — satisfies the persisted-renderer-state policy in apps/desktop/AGENTS.md (bounded, single key, no entity cardinality); anything per-entity would not.

   Hotkey. Add an OPEN_USAGE entry to HOTKEYS_REGISTRY and set hotkeyId on openUsageCommand so the palette displays it. Note both obvious keys are taken on Mac: meta+shift+u by CHECK_RESOURCES (registry.ts:975) and meta+u by CHAT_ADD_ATTACHMENT (registry.ts:896).

   If a spend number on the rail is wanted rather than just a button, be aware useHostUsageQuota is host-scoped and polls every 5 minutes with a host-side cache (useHostUsageQuota.ts:12,31, "faster polling gets the endpoint 429-blacklisted"). The rail spans projects/hosts, so which host's quota to display is an open question — the plain navigation button avoids that entirely and is the smaller change.