chat: one list of twenty-two tips, said two ways — home rotates, a conversation ranks

docs/GUIDE.md

@@ -206,7 +206,7 @@ keeps the last ten cleared drafts; `enter` restores one and `d` lets one go.
 | `/budget` | `what codeaf may spend · every limit on one tab` |
 | `/compact` | `summarize the conversation now` |
 | `/rewind` | `go back to an earlier point · esc esc takes back the last` |
-| `/manual` | `codeaf's own manual · every page, one per line` |
+| `/manual` | `asks the model what codeaf can do, from its own manual` |
 | `/help` | `this list` |
 | `/quit` | `close this conversation` |
 | `/drafts` | `cleared-but-kept drafts · enter restores one, d lets one go` |
@@ -330,7 +330,8 @@ in `config.json`, memory in `graph.db`, and project sessions under `v3/projects/
 The Markdown under `internal/manual/chat/` is compiled into codeaf, and the conversation
 reads it with the `manual` tool to answer questions about its own behaviour. From a
 terminal `codeaf manual` lists every page and `codeaf manual "<question>"` returns the
-sections that answer it; inside the chat it is `/manual`. Build gates require every
+sections that answer it; inside the chat `/manual` puts the question to the model with
+the manual open, and the answer arrives as a turn. Build gates require every
 slash command and alias, every tool name, and more than a hundred questions in ordinary
 language to reach an answering page.
 

docs/changes/unreleased/1389-one-tip-list-two-boxes.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+---
+kind: changed
+title: one list of twenty-two tips, said two ways — home rotates them, a conversation ranks them
+pr: 1389
+surface: [chat, docs]
+invalidates:
+  - "Home never drew an earned tip: the picker refused the page outright. Home now has a tip row directly above the rule over its box, right-aligned, led by a bulb and closed by a cross a pointer can press."
+  - "A hint row named which box it could draw beside, and the conversation's foot ranked its rows by a per-row `priority` number. There is ONE table now and no priority column: the table's own order is the ranking, every row draws on both boxes, and a row filed under home's slot fails the build."
+  - "Copy mode had a tip on the list, `ctrl+b freezes the screen so you can read and copy from it`. It has none. THE FEATURE IS UNTOUCHED — ctrl+b freezes the viewport, v/a/y work in it, /copy opens it, and the mouse copies alongside it through OSC 52 — and only the row teaching it came off. This branch deleted copy mode for one day on 2026-09-22 and put it back on 2026-09-23 at the owner's word, so a memory of it being gone is a memory of that day."
+  - "/image was a command that attached a picture. It is gone from the table, the dispatch, home's gate and the path completion; /attach already told a picture from a file by its name, and typing /image is answered as any unknown word is."
+  - "/folder did two different things depending on the screen it was typed on — gave a conversation a folder, or pinned the folder the next conversation opens in. The pin is /project now, which is home's alone: `/project <path>` takes the path and opens nothing, a bare /project opens the browser, and in a conversation it says which screen it lives on. /folder means one thing everywhere, and never moves the directory codeaf is standing in."
+  - "/attach took a file. It takes a file or a folder — a folder goes through the same seam /folder uses — and a bare /attach on home opens the browser aimed at the next conversation's folder."
+  - "Home's box had no @ completion, and the project sat on home's rule. The @ list works on home now (files and folders, never tasks), and the project moved to the right end of the keys row under the box, in a conversation as well as on home."
+  - "/manual printed the manual's pages as written with no model call. It is a turn now: the question goes to the model, told to answer from the manual tool and name the page. The as-written reading is still `codeaf manual` at the terminal."
+  - "The Workspace tab's row was `ui.hints` meaning shown. The row reads `disable hints`, off by default; the persisted key keeps its bytes and internal/config inverts once on the way in and out."
+  - "A showing was every visible change of hands of a tip row. On home a showing is now a tip that stood twenty seconds where it could be seen; in a conversation it is one session, counted when the slot takes the tip. A ledger written under the old rule is read once with the rows that rule spent forgiven, and the tips a gesture retired stay retired."
+  - "The rewind tip read `/rewind takes back an earlier message`, and for one day `esc esc takes back the last message`. It names both doors — `esc esc or /rewind takes back an earlier message` — because #1388 gave the chord back and a row teaching only the chord leaves nobody a word to type into `/` or ask the manual about. Either door retires it."
+  - "For one day this branch taught esc as the door home, after the surface stopped treating two spaces that way on 2026-09-17. #1388 restored the gesture, so TWO SPACES IN AN EMPTY BOX open home and esc is the interrupt, the layer peel and the arming half of rewind. Every manual passage and every test here says so."
+---
+There is one table of tips and there are two boxes, and the wave ends with the
+two boxes saying them by rules of their own, because a conversation is a screen
+you sit in and home is a screen you pass through.
+
+A CONVERSATION RANKS. The tip is the lowest rung of the keys row at the foot,
+taken from the rest state and outranked by every state with keys of its own.
+The first eligible row in the table's order wins, so a tip that has just become
+true is said at once, and a gap of two turns keeps a busy first session from
+reading as a slideshow. No clock, no cross.
+
+HOME ROTATES. The tip is the row over the rule, and every tip that is true gets
+its turn — moving on with every visit and every two minutes at rest. The cross
+means enough of these for now: the row goes blank and nothing takes its place
+until home itself leaves the frame, and the tip put away is charged nothing.
+
+The list is twenty-two rows, from a survey of forty-eight lines worth saying
+and three reads of the whole thing by the owner. Using a gesture on either box
+retires its tip on both.

internal/config/settings.go

@@ -2679,14 +2679,26 @@ func (s *Settings) build() []Setting {
 			read:  func() string { return formatBool(DraftPersistAt(dir)) },
 			write: func(raw string) error { return writeBool(dir, KeyDraftPersist, raw) },
 		},
+		// THE ROW READS THE OTHER WAY UP FROM ITS KEY. `ui.hints` persists
+		// whether tips are SHOWN, and keeps doing so — a persisted identifier keeps
+		// its bytes — while the row a person reads is `disable hints`, off by
+		// default (the owner's word for it, 2026-09-22). The inversion lives here,
+		// once, so the chat's settings panel and `codeaf config` cannot disagree.
 		Setting{
 			Key: KeyHints, Category: CategoryInterface, Kind: SettingBool,
-			Label: "hints",
-			Hint: "one-line tips above the message box, each shown until the key or command " +
-				"it names has been used once. Off silences them, and the what's-new line a " +
-				"new build may say with them. A change lands at the end of the next turn.",
-			read:  func() string { return formatBool(HintsAt(dir)) },
-			write: func(raw string) error { return writeBool(dir, KeyHints, raw) },
+			Label: "disable hints",
+			Hint: "on silences the one-line tips — the keys row's in a conversation and the " +
+				"row above the rule on home — and the what's-new line a new build may say " +
+				"with them. Off, the default, shows each tip until the key or command it " +
+				"names has been used once. A change lands at the end of the next turn.",
+			read: func() string { return formatBool(!HintsAt(dir)) },
+			write: func(raw string) error {
+				disabled, err := parseBool(raw)
+				if err != nil {
+					return err
+				}
+				return writeProfileValue(dir, KeyHints, !disabled)
+			},
 		},
 		Setting{
 			Key: KeyAttribution, Category: CategoryInterface, Kind: SettingBool,

internal/manual/chat/asking-from-home.md

@@ -8,9 +8,9 @@ Yes. Type it on the home screen, press `↑` once — which lands on the row spe
 ```
  ? ask here: "remind me at 6 to leave"
  + start a new conversation: "remind me at 6 to leave"
- ─ glm-5.3-flash:auto · ◇ asks ─── project: ~/codeaf
+ ─ glm-5.3-flash:auto · ◇ asks ──────────────────────────────────────────────
  › remind me at 6 to leave
- enter starts a new conversation and sends this · ↑ ask here · ↑↑ pick a match · alt+p project · alt+e effort · alt+a approvals · esc clear
+ enter starts a new conversation and sends this · ↑ ask here · esc clear   project: ~/codeaf
 ```
 
 What you get is **a row in home's conversation list and a pane holding the exchange**. The row

internal/manual/chat/attaching-files.md

@@ -82,9 +82,11 @@ more than one — and `enter` does exactly what it says. Over `--host`, the shee
 machine you are sitting at and selected files travel with the message. "Choosing a folder"
 is the full account of that sheet, its keys and its preview.
 
-Path rules are `/image`'s: `~` is your home directory, a bare name is under the directory
-this conversation is about, and an absolute path is left alone. Tab completes the path as
-you type it. Over `--host`, that completion walks the machine you are sitting at, because
+Path rules: `~` is your home directory, a bare name is under the directory this
+conversation is about, an absolute path is left alone, and a path wrapped in quotes or with
+its spaces backslashed — `/attach '/Users/me/Screenshot 2026-09-18 at 1.35.20 PM.png'`, the
+shape Finder and a terminal drop hand you — is read as the one path it is (until
+2026-09-22 that was answered `no such file`). Tab completes the path as you type it. Over `--host`, that completion walks the machine you are sitting at, because
 those are the bytes `/attach` is about to send.
 
 The file lands on the tray as its own chip — `▤ server.log`, or `+ server.log` on a
@@ -253,7 +255,7 @@ local only when its distro is this WSL distro.
 
 `/mnt` is WSL's default automount root. If `[automount] root` in `/etc/wsl.conf` names
 another root, codeaf uses that instead: `root = /drives` makes `c:/Users/…` read from
-`/drives/c/Users/…`. This applies to a drag, a pasted path, `/attach`, `/image`, `/export`,
+`/drives/c/Users/…`. This applies to a drag, a pasted path, `/attach`, `/export`,
 and a local copy destination chosen in `/files` because all use the same path reading.
 
 ## I copied a screenshot and pasted it — nothing happened
@@ -271,7 +273,7 @@ only in the clipboard, save it as a file first.
 
 ## A drop into a box that already holds a command
 
-**It stays text, and that is on purpose.** Type `/attach ` or `/image ` first and then
+**It stays text, and that is on purpose.** Type `/attach ` first and then
 drop the file: the path is the command's argument, and turning it into `[image #1]` would
 break the one line on this surface whose whole job is to take a path. `enter` then runs
 the command and the file lands on the tray by that road instead.
@@ -337,7 +339,7 @@ swept away while the transcript still refers to it.
 Yes — this is what `/attach` does over `--host`, and it is the point of it.
 
 The path you type is anchored to **this** machine, the one you are sitting at, exactly the
-way `/image` and the `@` completion are. You are naming a file on your own laptop. Its
+way the `@` completion is. You are naming a file on your own laptop. Its
 bytes travel with the message, and the far machine writes them down under that
 conversation's `attachments/` folder before the turn opens.
 
@@ -395,8 +397,8 @@ The numbers come from the wire, not from taste: a whole message travels as one l
 line may weigh 64MB, and bytes inside it cost a third more than the file does. 16MB per
 file leaves room for two large ones, a screenshot and the sentence they came with.
 
-Pictures are counted separately and have their own ceiling of **10MB each** — see the
-`/image` refusals.
+Pictures are counted separately and have their own ceiling of **10MB each** — see *What
+codeaf says when a picture is refused* on the keys page.
 
 ## Every refusal /attach can give you
 
@@ -434,23 +436,26 @@ used to answer
 `<name> is a folder · attach a file`; locally it now goes to the folder door and says
 `folder · ~/code/thing`. Over `--host`, it registers nothing and says
 `choosing a folder is not available over --host yet — the folders here are this machine's, not the ones the conversation is on.`
-On home it pins the next conversation's folder instead and says
-`next conversation opens in ~/code/thing`, because there is no conversation there to attach
-one to. Dropping a folder on the window still refuses with the old
+On home it pins the next conversation's folder instead, because there is no conversation
+there to attach one to: it says nothing, and `project: ~/code/thing` at the right of the keys
+row under the box shows the pin. Dropping a folder on the window still refuses with the old
 `<name> is a folder · attach a file` sentence — see "Choosing a folder".
 
 ## Attaching a file from home — /attach on the home screen, before there is a conversation
 
 **Home has a tray of its own and `/attach <path>` fills it.** No conversation is opened for
 it: the chip appears above home's box, home says
 `attached · server.log · rides with the next conversation`, and the file is attached to the
-first message of whatever conversation you start next. `/image <path>` is the same for a
-picture, and a drop or a paste onto home does it with no command at all.
+first message of whatever conversation you start next. A picture goes the same way, and a
+drop or a paste onto home does it with no command at all.
 
-**A bare `/attach` there asks for the path** — `type the path after /attach · or drop the file
-here` — rather than opening the browser. `/folder` is the browser on local home, and it is
-aimed at which folder the next conversation opens in (see "Choosing a folder"). Over
-`--host`, `/folder` says why this machine's folder cannot be that far conversation's folder.
+**A bare `/attach` there opens the browser**, the same sheet a bare `/project` opens, aimed
+at the folder the next conversation opens in; a file chosen on it lands on home's tray and a
+folder chosen on it becomes that folder. (Until 2026-09-22 it answered `type the path after
+/attach · or drop the file here` — rather than opening the browser.) `/project` is the
+browser on local home, and it is aimed at which folder the next conversation opens in (see
+"Choosing a folder"); `/folder` on home opens a conversation first and browses there. Over
+`--host`, both say why this machine's folder cannot be that far conversation's folder.
 
 **The tray survives the walk.** Attach a file on home, go into a conversation, come back: it
 is still there. Home's tray row cannot be clicked; a chip comes off on a conversation's own
@@ -464,23 +469,14 @@ engine: an attached file arrived with no name
 engine: "../../etc/passwd" is a path and not a name — an attachment names itself and the engine chooses where it goes
 ```
 
-## Attaching a picture is a different thing
+## Attaching a picture is a different thing — is there an /image command
 
-`/image <path>` is the door for a picture, and a picture travels **as content** so it can
-actually be looked at.
-
-You do not have to remember which word is which. **A picture handed to `/attach` is still
-treated as a picture** — it goes on the tray as `▣ #1 shot.png`, gets its `[image #1]`
-token in your sentence, and is looked at rather than read. png, jpeg, webp and gif are the
-five codeaf accepts.
-
-The reverse is not true: `/image` refuses anything that is not one of those five, with
-
-```
-<name> is not a picture · png, jpeg, webp and gif are
-```
-
-so `/attach` is the general word and `/image` is the specific one.
+There is one word, `/attach`, and it tells a picture from a file by the name: **a picture
+handed to `/attach` is treated as a picture** — it goes on the tray as `▣ #1 shot.png`, gets
+its `[image #1]` token in your sentence, and travels **as content** so it can actually be
+looked at rather than read. png, jpeg, webp and gif are the five codeaf accepts; anything
+else is a file. There is no `/image` command: until 2026-09-22 it was a second word that
+took only pictures and refused the rest, and it is gone.
 
 On the tray the two are told apart by their own glyph — `▣ #1 shot.png` for a picture,
 `▤ server.log` for a file — and by the number, which only a picture carries. In the
@@ -499,7 +495,7 @@ left in the box as text; it is not any more, because over `--host` a path in a s
 names a file the far machine has never seen, and a chip is what makes the bytes travel.
 
 To keep a dropped path as *text* — to talk about a path rather than send the file — type
-`/attach ` or `/image ` first and drop onto that line, or write the path yourself after
+`/attach ` first and drop onto that line, or write the path yourself after
 some words. A box that already begins with `/` keeps the path as the command's argument.
 
 Over `--host` the difference matters more than it looks. A path left as plain text is a