[eneskirca]

Addresses #1305: on macOS, nodeterm can show twice in the Dock. The pinned tile has no running dot, and a second tile in the "recent apps" section is the instance that is actually running. Clicking the pinned tile looks like it opens a new instance.

What changed

assertRegularDockPresence (added in v0.2.25 so the focusable:false Notch HUD panel cannot cost the app its Dock tile) called setActivationPolicy('regular') and app.dock.show() unconditionally. It ran on every main-window show, on HUD creation and on HUD load, and its comment called this idempotent. It is not: Electron's dock.show() calls TransformProcessType every time, and transforming an app that is already a foreground app is a known way to get a duplicate Dock tile.

The decision moved to the Electron-free src/main/dock-presence.ts. It now acts only when app.dock.isVisible() (the current activation policy is Regular) says the tile is really gone, or when that read fails. The case the HUD fix exists for is unchanged.

How it was checked

• On an affected machine (macOS 27.0, nodeterm 0.4.5): one running process, but the Dock plist holds nodeterm in both persistent-apps and recent-apps, both pointing at the same /Applications/nodeterm.app and com.nodeterm.app, with bookmarks that resolve and are not stale. So the Dock fails to match the running app to its pinned tile; it is not a second instance and not a path mismatch.
• New unit tests (dock-presence.test.ts): already visible means no calls; dropped means restore; a failed read means restore; no dock API; non-macOS is a no-op.
• window-raise.guard.test.ts: the dock.show() allowlist entry moved from notch-hud.ts to dock-presence.ts with the same reason.
• npm run typecheck, plus the notch-hud and raise-guard suites.

Not verified

• The cause is a strong hypothesis, not proven. I did not reproduce the duplicate tile on demand: that needs a pinned Dock tile, and I did not change the Dock of the machine I measured on. This code dates from July, while the reports say "a few updates ago", so a macOS change (27.0 here) may be what made it visible.
• Device check after install: quit fully, open from the pinned tile, then (1) close the window and bring it back from the Dock, and (2) let the Notch HUD open and close. The recent-apps duplicate must not come back, and the HUD must still not drop the Dock icon.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_013CkS8j5hok95yvLSB16R3f