# ADR-0040: A per-command completion marker (✓/✗) replaces the `[ok]` summary line

## Status

**Accepted** — 2026-05-30 (issue #9). Amends the output conventions of
ADR-0014 (data operations), ADR-0028 (query plans / `explain`), and
ADR-0019 (failure rendering); builds on ADR-0037's mode-tagged echo
line. **Amended by ADR-0052 (2026-06-13, issue #30):** a `history.log`
*journal*-write failure on a **successful** command is no longer fatal —
journaling moved to the dispatch layer (after the db commit), so it is
best-effort (logged + ignored), consistent with the failure-journal path.
State-write failures (yaml/csv/db) remain fatal.

## Context

Every DSL / data / SQL command renders its outcome in three parts:

```
[<mode>] running: <full input>     ← the echo line (OutputKind::Echo, pushed at submit)
[ok] <verb> <subject>              ← the summary line (note_ok_summary)
<result content>                   ← structure / data table / plan tree / row counts
```

Issue #9 started narrow — `[ok] explain Customers` is uninformatively
terse, and (after ADR-0039 routed SQL through the same path)
`explain select …` even renders `[ok] explain` with an **empty**
subject. Pulling the thread, the question generalised: *what does the
`[ok]` line add at all?*

An audit of the whole command surface (the two things the line
carries, against the rest of the output):

| What `[ok]` carries | Already present? |
|---|---|
| verb + subject | **Yes** — verbatim, and more fully, in the echo line directly above |
| success signal (vs `[error]`) | **No** — its only unique contribution |

By command shape:

- **Content-bearing** (create table, add/drop/change column,
  insert/update/delete, show data/table, explain): the content below
  *is* the proof of success; the verb+subject duplicates the echo.
- **Content-less** (drop table/index/relationship, add index,
  add/drop constraint): `[ok]` is the only line printed — but what
  does the work there is the **success signal**, not the verb+subject.

The failure path is symmetric: `dsl.failed` =
`'"{verb} {subject}" failed: {rendered}'` — the same redundant
verb+subject prefix, plus the genuinely useful rendered reason.

**Conclusion:** the summary line's text is redundant everywhere; its
sole irreplaceable job is the success-vs-error distinction, needed on
every command. So it can be removed entirely once that one signal
moves elsewhere.

## Decision

Replace the `[ok]` / `"…" failed:` **summary lines** with an inline
**completion marker** on the echo line:

- **Success:** the echo line gains a trailing green **✓**; the
  `[ok] <verb> <subject>` line is no longer emitted.
- **Failure:** the echo line gains a trailing red **✗**; the
  redundant `"<verb> <subject>" failed:` prefix is dropped and only
  the rendered reason is shown (still `[error]`-tagged).
- **The "running:" prefix is a pending state.** The echo reads
  `running: <input>` while the worker is in flight and becomes
  `<input> ✓` / `<input> ✗` on completion — the line carries the raw
  input plus an outcome status the renderer decorates.
- **Marker placement: inline**, immediately after the echoed input
  (`[advanced] drop table Orders ✓`). Robust to long inputs that wrap
  and needs no render-time width arithmetic, unlike a right-aligned
  column.
- **Content is unchanged.** Row-count footers, structure renders, data
  tables, plan trees, cascade summaries, auto-fill notes, and the
  ADR-0038 teaching echo all still render — they carry the real
  information.

### Scope

**Executed commands only.** The marker covers commands that reach the
worker: success (✓), runtime failure (✗), a skipped no-op (✓), and
`replay` (✓/✗ on completion). **Parse-time and pre-flight rejections**
(a parse error, the form-B positional pre-flight, the wrong-count DSL
insert) never reach the worker and do *not* use the `[ok]`/`failed:`
summary — they keep their existing rendering unchanged
(`running: <input>` + a `^` caret + a `parse error:`/teaching
message). They are "didn't run," not "ran and failed," and their caret
alignment is pinned to the `running: ` prefix, so they stay as-is.

This applies to the **DSL / data / SQL command family** — the
commands that push an `OutputKind::Echo` line and route success
through `note_ok_summary`. App-command successes
(`[ok] rebuild — …`, `[ok] export — wrote …`, `[ok] now editing: …`)
are **out of scope and unchanged**: they have no echo line to mark,
do not go through `note_ok_summary`, and their `[ok]` text carries a
real payload (path, summary, project name) rather than a redundant
verb+subject. A small residual inconsistency (app commands keep an
`[ok]` line; DSL commands use a marker) is accepted as the lesser
evil — converting payload-bearing lines to a bare marker would *lose*
information, the opposite of this change's intent.

## Example

Before:
```
[advanced] running: explain show data Customers
[ok] explain Customers
SELECT "id", "Name", "Age" FROM "Customers"
└─ SCAN Customers
```

After:
```
[advanced] explain show data Customers ✓
SELECT "id", "Name", "Age" FROM "Customers"
└─ SCAN Customers
```

Failure, after:
```
[advanced] insert into Customers values (1, 'x') ✗
  error: NOT NULL constraint failed: Customers.Age
```

## Consequences

- **Saves one row per command** on a space-constrained TUI, and the
  surviving signal (✓/✗) is sharper than a prose `[ok]` line.
- **The echo line gains a lifecycle** (pending → ok/err). The status
  is set on completion by locating the line — the existing
  `rfind(|l| l.kind == OutputKind::Echo)` already does this lookup.
- **Snapshot churn:** every test that captures command output is
  re-baselined. The marker is part of the captured frame, so the
  diffs are mechanical but broad.
- **i18n:** `ok.summary` is retired; `dsl.failed` is reduced to the
  rendered reason. The marker glyphs are not translatable strings
  (they are symbols), consistent with the existing tree connectors.

## Implementation notes (from the design `/runda`)

- **Echo line carries an outcome status** — `Pending` / `Ok` / `Err` —
  on the `OutputKind::Echo` line. The renderer decorates: `Pending` →
  `running: <input>`; `Ok` → `<input> ✓` (green); `Err` → `<input> ✗`
  (red). The raw input is stored; "running:" and the marker are
  render-time decoration keyed on status.
- **Attribution: mark the *oldest* still-`Pending` echo** when a
  result event arrives — not merely the last echo line. `spawn_dsl_
  dispatch` is fire-and-forget and input is not gated, so two commands
  *can* be in flight; results arrive in submission order (the db
  worker is FIFO), so the oldest-pending echo is the correct target
  and a finished command can never leave an earlier one stuck on
  `running:`. In practice execution is sub-millisecond and a human
  cannot interleave submissions, so there is effectively one command
  in flight; the oldest-pending rule is the cheap, order-correct
  formalisation of that. (A fully order-independent echo-id round-trip
  was considered and rejected as disproportionate plumbing.)
- **Synchronous error paths set `Err` at push time.** Parse errors,
  the form-B positional pre-flight, and the wrong-count DSL-insert
  pre-flight (`dispatch_dsl`) push their echo already-`Err` (the
  outcome is known immediately, no worker round-trip), then render the
  reason — so they never dangle on `Pending`.
- **Skipped no-ops set `Ok`.** `CREATE/DROP IF [NOT] EXISTS` that
  no-op (`DslCreateSkipped` / `DslDropSkipped` /
  `DslDropIndexSkipped` / `DslCreateIndexSkipped`) mark their echo ✓
  (the command succeeded as a no-op) and keep their explanatory skip
  note beneath.
- **`note_ok_summary` stops emitting the `[ok]` line** but stays as
  the success hook: it sets the echo status to `Ok` and still consumes
  the ADR-0038 `pending_echo` teaching lines.
- **i18n:** `ok.summary` is retired; `dsl.failed` becomes just the
  rendered reason (no `"{verb} {subject}" failed:` prefix). The
  `replay.completed`, `rebuild_ok`, `export_ok`, `switched_ok` `[ok]`
  templates are payload-bearing and untouched.

## Out of scope

- App-command `[ok]` lines (see Scope).
- The `[WRN]` validity indicator (typing-time; ADR-0027) and the
  `[error]`/`[system]` **tag colours** (issue #10) — orthogonal.

## See also

- ADR-0014 — data operations, auto-show, the summary/row-count footers.
- ADR-0028 — `explain` output (SQL echo + plan tree) this sits above.
- ADR-0037 — the mode-tagged echo line the marker attaches to.
- ADR-0019 — the friendly-error rendering the failure reason flows through.
- Issue #9 — the report and the audit that generalised it.
