📊 Project Pulse

[SimonHeybrock]

📊 Project Pulse — 2026-02-26

Last updated: 2026-02-26T13:00Z. Run /pulse to refresh.

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🔴 Act now

1. Un-draft and merge PR Fix broken unit in DREAM I(d) workflow #705 (fix DREAM I(d) unit) — trivial 1-line fix, CI green, 14 days old. Unblocks [DREAM] Also compute I(TOF) in powder workflows #704. No reason for this to still be a draft.
2. Un-draft PR Support multi-pulse ev44 messages #728 (multi-pulse ev44) — CI green, addresses production-critical Support multi-pulse ev44 messages #708. If validated against DREAM data, get it reviewed and merged urgently.
3. Rebase PR Customise auth landing pages and add logout button #731 (auth landing pages + logout) — Simon approved, CI green, but has merge conflicts from Add basic password auth for dashboard #730 merge. Mridul needs to rebase, then it's ready to merge.
4. Review PR Show authenticated username in session status widget #733 (show username in session status) — CI green, clean 7-file change. Natural completion of the authentication feature set.

🧩 Recommended sequence

1. PR Fix broken unit in DREAM I(d) workflow #705 — Fix DREAM I(d) unit — un-draft and merge. 1-line deletion, CI green. Unblocks [DREAM] Also compute I(TOF) in powder workflows #704 (I(TOF) output). Zero risk.
2. PR Fix TOARange unit mismatch with histogram coordinate #724 — Fix TOARange unit mismatch — review and merge. 5 files, 71 additions. Fixes bug HistogramSlice unit mismatch with histogram coordinate #715. CI green.
3. PR Support multi-pulse ev44 messages #728 — Multi-pulse ev44 support — un-draft, review, merge. 4 files, 251 additions. Production-critical for DREAM commissioning (Support multi-pulse ev44 messages #708). CI green.
4. PR Customise auth landing pages and add logout button #731 — Auth landing pages + logout — rebase (conflicts), then merge. Already approved by Simon. Completes auth story with Add basic password auth for dashboard #730.
5. PR Show authenticated username in session status widget #733 — Show username in session status — review and merge. Clean follow-up to auth work.
6. PR Add rate normalization option (counts/s) to plot display #725 — Rate normalization — review and merge. 5 files, 380 additions. New feature (Add rate normalization option (counts per second) to plot display #721), lower priority but ready.
7. PR Add v1 of concept inventory, to be curated and extended. #692 — Concept inventory docs — fix the docs build failure. 15 days stale. Probably a small formatting issue.
8. Surface out-of-range event diagnostics to users #716 — Surface out-of-range event diagnostics — needs a PR. UX improvement for DREAM operators to diagnose missing data.
9. Orphaned jobs and job ownership #714 — Handle orphaned jobs — now unblocked by Multi session support #673 merge. Needs design and implementation.
10. Explore further dashboard performance optimizations #718 — Further dashboard performance optimizations — research and planning phase. Lower urgency now that Reduce dashboard update cycle cost #690 fixed the biggest bottleneck.

🔍 Deep analysis

Massive unblocking event on Feb 24. The previous pulse's top two blockers — PR #673 (multi-session, 38 files, open since Jan 23) and PR #690 (hidden-tab optimization) — both merged on the same day, along with PR #685 (session status display) which was blocked by #673. This single day resolved 5 open issues and unblocked downstream work. The project's throughput in the Feb 23-26 window (15 merges in 3 days) is the highest observed rate.

Authentication is a new workstream. Three days ago auth didn't exist; now basic password protection (#730) is merged, custom landing pages (#731) are approved, and username display (#733) is ready. This cluster appeared out of production deployment needs and is moving fast. The main risk is that #731 has merge conflicts that need resolving before the context goes stale.

DREAM production correctness remains the critical path. Despite closing #709 and #710, the underlying multi-pulse ev44 issue (#708) still needs PR #728 merged. PR #705 (I(d) unit fix) has been a trivial 1-line draft for two weeks — this should have been merged days ago. Together these two DREAM fixes are the highest-impact items in the backlog.

Growing UX debt. Open issue count grew from 41 to 49 despite closing 10 issues. The dashboard UX/polish cluster now has ~10 open issues (styling, help text, toolbar layout, config bugs, axis ranges, plot saving). None are individually critical, but they accumulate into a polish gap that will matter as instruments move into commissioning. A focused "UX sweep" sprint would efficiently knock out several of these in one pass.

🟢 Ready to merge

1. PR Fix broken unit in DREAM I(d) workflow #705 — Fix DREAM I(d) unit (draft — just needs un-drafting). 1 file, 1 deletion.
2. PR Fix TOARange unit mismatch with histogram coordinate #724 — Fix TOARange unit mismatch. 5 files, 71 additions. CI green.

🟡 Needs review

1. PR Support multi-pulse ev44 messages #728 — Multi-pulse ev44 support (draft, CI green). 4 files, 251 additions. Production-critical for DREAM. (Simon, 1 day old)
2. PR Add rate normalization option (counts/s) to plot display #725 — Rate normalization. 5 files, 380 additions. CI green. (Simon, 2 days old)
3. PR Show authenticated username in session status widget #733 — Show username in session status. 7 files, 104 additions. CI green. (Simon, <1 day old)
4. PR Customise auth landing pages and add logout button #731 — Auth landing pages + logout. Approved but has merge conflicts. (Mridul, 1 day old)
5. PR Add v1 of concept inventory, to be curated and extended. #692 — Concept inventory docs. Docs build failing. (Simon, 15 days old)

🧹 Suggested cleanup

• Close PR Debug image display delay #491 — debug branch, 147 days old, explicitly marked "not intended for merging." (Repeated from last pulse — still open.)
• Close Remove/update the performance test. #449 — "remove/update performance test" has had no activity since 2024. Superseded by the profiling work in Explore further dashboard performance optimizations #718 and the .scratch/profiles infrastructure.
• Close Error message on startup #406 — rdkafka startup warning is cosmetic and hasn't been prioritized in 10+ months.
• Consider closing Does job reset drop commands if sent in quick succession? #548 — job reset race condition, not reproducible. If it reappears, reopen with a repro.

📈 Trends

Improving: Project velocity is at an all-time high. The Feb 23 pulse identified 5 "act now" items; 3 of 5 were fully resolved within 24 hours. The multi-session bottleneck that dominated the last pulse is gone. Mridul's contributions are diversifying into authentication, which is healthy for the bus factor.

Steady: Bus factor of 1 for core dashboard and workflow code remains unchanged. Simon authored 12 of 15 merges since last pulse. This isn't necessarily a problem yet (active solo development phase), but remains the project's biggest structural risk.

Watch: Open issue count is growing (41 → 49) despite high merge velocity. New features and production findings are generating follow-up issues faster than the backlog shrinks. The UX polish cluster is the main source of growth and could use a dedicated sweep. The 4 cleanup items suggested last pulse were not acted on — either low priority (acceptable) or forgotten (flag again).

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[SimonHeybrock]

Not using this experiment currelty.