tolaria/docs/adr/0052-renderer-first-shortcut-execution-with-native-menu-dedupe.md

type, id, title, status, date

type	id	title	status	date
ADR	0052	Renderer-first shortcut execution with native-menu dedupe	active	2026-04-11

Context

ADR 0051 gave Laputa a shared shortcut manifest and shared command IDs, but it still treated many shortcuts as native-menu-owned at execution time. In practice that meant useAppKeyboard deferred commands like Cmd+Shift+I, Cmd+Shift+L, and Cmd+\ whenever the app ran under Tauri, and automated QA had to prove those flows by injecting menu-command IDs instead of pressing the real keys.

That is not a strong enough QA story for a keyboard-first app. If a user presses a shortcut while the editor is focused, we need a deterministic way to prove the actual key combo works. At the same time, we still want a native macOS menu bar with working menu items and accelerators.

Decision

Renderer keyboard handling is now the primary execution path for all shortcut-capable app commands, including commands that also have native menu accelerators. Native menu clicks and accelerators still emit the same command IDs, but the shared dispatcher suppresses the duplicate native/renderer echo from a single keypress so the command runs exactly once.

Options considered

• Option A (chosen): Renderer-first shortcut execution plus native-menu dedupe. This keeps shortcuts testable with real key events in a Tauri-like environment while preserving menu-bar parity and clickable native menu items. Downside: the dispatcher has to understand and suppress paired native/renderer echoes.
• Option B: Keep deferring native-owned shortcuts out of the renderer and prove them only through trigger_menu_command. Lower implementation churn, but it still leaves the real keystroke path unproven.
• Option C: Remove native accelerators entirely and keep shortcuts renderer-only. Simplest to reason about, but weaker desktop UX and poorer macOS menu discoverability.

Consequences

• appCommandCatalog.ts remains the single manifest for command IDs and shortcut combos, but keyboard execution no longer depends on a separate owner flag.
• useAppKeyboard handles the actual key event for every shortcut-capable command, even in Tauri mode.
• useMenuEvents still handles menu clicks and test-triggered native command IDs, but shared dispatcher dedupe prevents a focused keypress from firing twice when the native menu accelerator also echoes back into the renderer.
• Deterministic QA now has two complementary proofs:
  • real keyboard events in a Tauri-like environment for the actual shortcut combo
  • trigger_menu_command for the native menu click/accelerator command path
• This ADR supersedes ADR 0051 by replacing “execution ownership lives in the manifest” with “shortcut combos live in the manifest, while execution is renderer-first and native menu dispatch is deduped.”