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Bounded LiveView Catalog Reads

Large lists in the web UI now stay fast however big the fleet gets, because the database does the searching, sorting, and paging, and pages only ever load what they show. The original plan is in the design record.

  • Device picker: searches only devices you can access, always in the same order, and shows at most 50 at a time. Devices you have already selected stay selected across searches. Script tests, deployments, and retries all share the 250-device limit, and an old run's device count is checked before its devices are loaded.
  • Alert rules: managed at /alerts/rules, with filtering, sorting, counts, and 50-row pages done in the database. /alerts shows active alerts.
  • Reports: the list is filtered, sorted, and paged 50 at a time in the database, keeps its state in the URL, and shows short summaries with at most 25 field labels.
  • Command policy previews: load only the selected entries, read only the columns they need, and refuse a selection that resolves to more than 2,500 commands or 10,000 source rows before building the policy.

What changed for users​

  • Device search waits for you to stop typing, and keeps your selections and their labels as the results change.
  • A device selection that is forged, malformed, outside your access, or out of date is refused, and nothing is queued.
  • Rule and report filters, sorting, and page numbers live in the URL, so you can bookmark or share them. An invalid page number takes you to a valid page.
  • A command policy selection that is too large is refused as a whole, with a message telling you to narrow it, instead of quietly dropping commands.
  • Permissions, schema validation, retries, queueing, editing and deleting reports, and dialog accessibility all work as before.

How it fits in​

Following the design, permission checks, search, filtering, sorting, counting, limits, and column selection all happen before any rows reach the page. The existing join, foreign-key, array and JSONB GIN, and telemetry indexes already cover the policy and catalog lookups. A named migration adds only the ordering indexes the new device picker, alert rule, and report queries actually use.

Running it​

There are no new settings. Apply the new migration as part of a normal server upgrade.

The focused tests measure query counts and payload sizes, through [:nixstasis, :repo, :query] telemetry and term sizes. If you hit a result or resolution limit, narrow your search or policy selection.

Differences from the design​

  • /alerts/rules is the only place to manage rules; the duplicate page was removed.
  • The query evidence is kept as a lasting record, because accepting the feature required measured query counts, row counts, payload sizes, and query plans.
  • Alert rules are ordered by (product_name, id), which matches the default sort.

Not included​

  • No list is ever silently cut short: policy resolutions, device selections, report rows, and alert rules are all either complete or refused.
  • No speculative indexes were added for policies or the catalog.
  • There is no shared pagination framework, and no group or bulk targeting for scripts.

Tests​

  • packages/server/test/nixstasis/bounded_catalog_query_evidence_test.exs: the ordering indexes exist, device and report reads take one query, policy previews are bounded, and oversized selections are refused before a policy is built.
  • packages/server/test/nixstasis_web/bounded_catalog_live_evidence_test.exs: row and payload limits on the real /alerts/rules page.
  • packages/server/test/nixstasis_web/live/script_live_test.exs: device picker search, the 50-row limit, kept selections, and refused selections.
  • packages/server/test/nixstasis_web/live/alerts_live_test.exs: the /alerts/rules route, filtering, and paging.
  • packages/server/test/nixstasis/reporting/custom_report_list_test.exs and packages/server/test/nixstasis_web/live/reports_live_test.exs: report paging, sorting, and summaries.
  • packages/server/test/nixstasis/command_allowlists/policy_resolver_test.exs and packages/server/test/nixstasis_web/live/command_policy_live_test.exs: policy preview scope and limits.
  • mix compile --no-optional-deps --warnings-as-errors and mix ash.codegen --check.