client: a read-only window's plain-group Settings page drops Who answers and Working folder #2528

Implementation: FlyBot (ours) — PR follows within 24h. Do not pick up without a pickup-ok comment on this issue.

Written-by: FlyBot Lead
Claimed-by: FlyBot Lead
Claim-Id: 7714932e4c32497097973e87fb7c3e53
Branch: dev/2-plain-group-readonly-facts
Base: 90a5944
At: 2026-11-05T13:04:16Z

Implementation: FlyBot (ours) — PR follows within 24h. Do not pick up without a pickup-ok comment.

Written-by: FlyBot Lead

What a user sees

In a read-only (locked) window, Settings → a plain group's page keeps the room's name and its Members card, then stops. The two facts the writable page shows about the room itself — Who answers (the mode and what it means) and Working folder — are simply gone, so a person who may not change them also cannot read them.

The writable page draws both for every room (core/src/client/group-settings.js:237-248). The read-only branch draws them only for a face-to-face room: both cards are gated on face (:216-217), while the same branch's own comment says the form "keeps the group's facts as text (#2474)". For a plain group the two facts are the only ones that do not survive the lock.

Reproduction (live main 90a59447)

core/test/settings-readonly-pages.test.js, the harness that already walks the locked Settings pages (#2474), extended with the plain-group page. A locked roster plus a plain room (mode everyone, workDir set):

# tests 8 / # pass 7 / # fail 1
not ok - the page says who answers
    the read-only group page keeps the room's answer mode as text
  expected: true
  actual:   false

The same run is green on the writable side: Who answers and Working folder are drawn there, so the refusal is the lock, not missing data (room.mode/room.workDir are on the record the page already holds).

Expected behaviour

• A read-only window draws the same two facts it draws when writable, as text and with no control: Who answers → the mode label and its one-line meaning, and Working folder → the folder path or Not set; the FolderMenu and the segmented mode picker stay absent.
• A writable window stays byte-identical: same cards, same picker, one press still sends exactly one update-room.
• A face-to-face room keeps today's read-only shape (it already draws both).

Scope

• core/src/client/group-settings.js — the read-only branch only; the writable branch must not change.
• core/test/settings-readonly-pages.test.js — the new assertion above; the existing seven stay as they are.
• Generated set: the only patches that carry these sources are patches/ds-bot/0008-client-bundle.patch (core/client.js) and patches/ds-bot/0012-… (core/src/client/group-settings.js), plus the two files/ mirrors; any other patch changing is a mismatch to report, not to keep.
• One changelog.d/<issue>-…​.fixed.md fragment.

Dedup

Searched open and closed issues on live main before opening: no open issue covers the two facts a plain group's read-only Settings page drops. #2474 turned the room form's writable controls into text in a locked window and left these two cards gated on face — this is that remainder, not a new face. #2521 (overlays hide the sidebar's Reload) and #2524 (the workflows editor repeats the header sentence) are different surfaces.