[charleslpan]

This is part of making Luke as realtime as possible on Neon Realtime and removing hand-rolled freshness logic. It is stacked on #3232 (which is stacked on #3217), and its base is set to #3232's branch.

The desktop-side PRs move the desktop off the held long-polls. This one is the service side. The held routes that released desktops still poll, and the service's own waits on a row, now wait on Realtime instead of re-reading the store every 500 ms or 250 ms.

What changes

• live/live-wake.ts: LiveWake.
  • It's a Context.Reference with no polling default: unprovided, every watch dies. The web runtime provides liveWakeFromEnvironment, using the same NEON_REALTIME_URL / NEON_REALTIME_SECRET as LiveSealing; missing config is logged as an error and every watch fails loudly. Tests provide a scripted wake (testing/live-wake.ts).
  • Each function instance holds one Realtime direct server, following Neon's "Subscribe in trusted backend code" guide, and closes it with the runtime.
  • A wait subscribes to its statements as raw updates for its length and unsubscribes after. Any update wakes it; a missed update costs a look on the safety beat.
  • Realtime only signals; every answer is still read by the service's own statement.
• http/held-read.ts:
  • lookedUntil(look, hold, live) looks, then waits for the next change of the watched statements or a 5 s safety beat. It takes no poll.
  • heldUntilMoved is built on it.
• Callers:
  • The account, plan, and agent inbox held reads (inbox-page.ts) watch the live statements from feat(service,host): the account inbox is followed over Neon Realtime #3217 and feat(service,features,host): a plan's inbox and an agent's are read through the central live layer #3232.
  • Plan comments (plan-comments-app.ts), look_at_board (board-look.ts), and run_on_mac's wait for a result (mac-command.ts awaitedResult) watch small statements of their own. These carry no words, image, or command output: planCommentStampsLiveStatement, boardImageLiveStatement, macCommandSettledLiveStatement.

Transcripts, the planning conversation, and the Mac's own held read are left to their own stacks, which other agents are working on.

Tests

• live-wake.test.ts checks four things:
  • with no wake provided, a wait fails rather than looking on a clock;
  • when watched, it looks again on a change and on the safety beat;
  • the wake over a scripted direct server subscribes per statement, wakes on updates (keeping one that no wait took yet), unsubscribes when the scope closes, and leaves a wait on its safety beat when a subscription is refused.
• PGlite tests for each new statement:
  • the comment statement equals planCommentStamps for a member, a teammate, and an outsider;
  • the board statement moves on a drawing and on a scene save, carries no image, and is empty for a stranger;
  • the command statement says settled once the command settles, and reads nothing of another account's.
• pnpm check:affected: typecheck, lint, knip, and discarded-effect pass, and all tests pass except apps/desktop/src/main/app-menu.test.ts, which can't load Electron in the sandbox. The web bundle tests pass.

Realtime is on in production and its variables are in Vercel, so the service's waits follow over Realtime alone, with no polling fallback.

Made with Luke

---

Summary by cubic

The service's held reads and waits on a row are now woken by Neon Realtime instead of re-reading the store on a poll, so waits like the inbox, plan comments, look_at_board, and run_on_mac's result arrive when the rows change rather than on a clock. Deployments without Realtime, and any watch that breaks or is refused, keep polling as before.

• Adds LiveWake, a runtime-provided context that subscribes each wait's statements over Neon Realtime's direct server for the length of the wait; every update wakes it and an error hands it back to its poll.
• Adds lookedUntil in held-read.ts, which looks, then waits on the watched statements or a 5-second safety beat; heldUntilMoved is built on it.
• Adds small live statements (planCommentStampsLiveStatement, boardImageLiveStatement, macCommandSettledLiveStatement) that carry no words, image, or command output, so only freshness signals travel through Realtime and every answer is still read by the service's own statement.

^{Written for commit 6c9622d. Summary will update on new commits.}

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated
luke-web	Ready	Preview	Oct 20, 2026 2:37am UTC

[luke-agent]

Closing for now: the developer moved every area onto the central live layer with Neon Realtime off (LUKE_REALTIME, #4267; held polls, #4272), and this change only does something with Realtime on. The branch is kept, so the PR can be reopened and rebased when LUKE_REALTIME goes back on.