feat(themes): executive-slate app launcher becomes the boreal-style icon grid

New themes/executive-slate/launcher.rasi: @import the sibling rofi.rasi
whole-swap, reshape drun into the 4x3 horizontal-flow grid of 56px icons
(mirrors boreal's launcher), cards at the theme's 4px radius so the flat
control-panel identity holds; the selected card keeps the accent-edge
highlight. Text menus are untouched. Picked up automatically by
hasLauncherOverride in rofi.nix.

V2: headless VM capture (before: vertical list; after: grid renders,
filter/arrow/backspace drive it correctly). Boreal grid re-captured, no
regression. Guest rendering caveat per docs/TESTING.md section 5 applies
to polish judgments; layout and highlight behavior are the claims here.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

agent/BACKLOG.md

@@ -33,62 +33,6 @@ flake pin are different root causes even when they show up on the same machine.
 
 ## NEXT
 
-### 143. Rofi keeps the selected *row number* when the search changes, so the highlight lands on an unrelated entry
-
-Bernardo 2026-07-16, and his repro is exact: open the app menu, type `ca`, move
-the selection two items right (onto ChatGPT), press backspace once (query is
-now `c`). The list re-expands — first entry is now Slack — but the highlight
-stays on the **third row**, which is now GHex, an app that has nothing to do
-with what he typed. Enter at that moment launches the wrong thing.
-
-**Cause — upstream rofi (2.0.0, `source/widgets/listview.c`), not our config.**
-A filter change ends in `listview_set_num_elements()`, which does not reset the
-selection; it re-asserts the old one:
-
-```c
-lv->req_elements = rows;
-listview_set_selected(lv, lv->selected);   /* the *previous* index */
-```
-
-and `listview_set_selected()` only clamps it to the new bounds:
-
-```c
-lv->selected = MIN(selected, lv->req_elements - 1);
-```
-
-So what is preserved is the **row number**, not the entry — nothing checks that
-row 2 still holds the thing that was selected, or that it matches the query at
-all. Typing *more* hides this (the list shrinks, the clamp usually drags the
-highlight along); **backspacing exposes it**, because the list grows back
-underneath a stationary index. There is no option for it: `-dump-config` has
-nothing about selection-on-refilter, and `auto-select` is a different feature
-(it fires only when exactly one row survives).
-
-**One correction to the report:** it is not the app menu. `listview` is the
-widget behind **every** rofi surface we ship, so our text menus (Recovery,
-System, Preferences…) do the same. It is merely far more visible in drun, where
-the list is long and — because we set `sort = true` — reorders on every
-keystroke, so a stationary index points somewhere new each time. In a short
-text menu you would probably see it and correct without noticing why.
-
-**Reported upstream 2026-07-16: https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/issues/2317**
-(open, filed as `bemagri`, with the 2.0.0 line numbers and the observation that
-`rofi_view_set_selected_line` already maps a stable id through `line_map` — so
-the fix reuses an existing primitive rather than inventing one). No patch was
-sent: the scoping call is the maintainer's, since keeping the index across a
-*reload* looks deliberate (#1064 asked for exactly that, and got it in 1.7.4).
-No duplicate found before filing.
-
-**Decided 2026-07-16 (Bernardo): wait for upstream. Do not carry a patch.** The
-overlay option was real but priced badly — our derivations are in no binary
-cache, so a patched rofi means **every machine compiles rofi from source**, on
-every lock bump, to fix a highlight. That is a permanent, distro-wide install
-cost for an annoyance with a free workaround (glance before you press Enter).
-**This item is now a watch, not work:** the only thing to do is check
-rofi#2317, and take the fix when a release carries it. If it is still open at
-the next lock bump, that is fine — nothing here rots meanwhile.
-*Last checked 2026-07-17: open, no maintainer response, no linked PR.*
-
 ### 152. Generated waybar polish: bar height vs workspace highlighter, right-edge icon spacing
 
 Bernardo, 2026-07-17. Two visual fixes to the **generated** bar (the one
@@ -353,6 +297,12 @@ decide. **Resolved** entries stay for history; agents treat them as closed.
 
 ### Resolved (2026-07-17)
 
+- **#143 rofi refilter highlight** — the 07-16 "wait for upstream" ruling
+  was priced against carrying a patch; the maintainer's reply on
+  rofi#2317 pointed at the `inputchange {}` config block instead. Adopted
+  same day as pure config (`kb-row-first` on query edits, generated
+  config.rasi) — no patch, no source build, watch closed
+  (ROADMAP § Rofi highlight).
 - **#120 netinstall** — stays deferred in PROPOSED (re-affirmed). When it
   is promoted, a public binary cache (cachix) is the likely first step.
 - **#134 unstable packages** — build it: Nomarchy carries the

agent/JOURNAL.md

@@ -19,6 +19,28 @@ Template:
 
 ---
 
+## 2026-07-17 — #143 closed via upstream's own knob; executive-slate gets the icon grid (f899b19 + this)
+- **Task:** Bernardo live: rofi#2317 got a maintainer reply → adopt; plus
+  "make executive-slate's app menu the boreal-style icon grid".
+- **Did:** DaveDavenport pointed at the `inputchange {}` config block the
+  #143 survey had missed — shipped `action: "kb-row-first"` in the
+  generated config.rasi (rofi.nix extraConfig; HM renders nested
+  sections). Zero build cost, watch closed. New
+  `themes/executive-slate/launcher.rasi`: boreal's 4×3 drun grid, 4px
+  cards to keep the flat control-panel identity.
+- **Verified:** V2. Scratch theme-shot variant (launcher-shot.nix) drives
+  QMP keystrokes: HEAD repro shows the stationary-index bug; patched run
+  snaps to row 0 after backspace — in the exec-slate grid, boreal's grid
+  (no regression), and the layout dmenu. Contrast check 24/24. Gotchas
+  found: hyprctl `exec` needs the multi-arg command quoted, and the
+  per-device keyboard watcher's layout pickers (one per virtio/AT
+  keyboard) hold the single rofi instance — drain with pkill before
+  driving the launcher.
+- **Pending:** nothing; grid polish on real hardware is the standing
+  guest-rendering caveat (TESTING §5), not a queue entry.
+- **Next suggestion:** #152 (generated waybar polish) is the topmost
+  actionable NEXT item.
+
 ## 2026-07-17 — Wallpapers split shipped: 94 MB out of the flake source
 - **Task:** LATER "Wallpapers artifact split" (promoted by Bernardo live —
   he created the Nomarchy-Wallpapers repo mid-session). Also filed #151

docs/ROADMAP.md

@@ -589,6 +589,25 @@ Design/decision records and a running log of shipped work (items marked
   hardened against — a clean install cannot reach that state. V2:
   `checks.doctor` grew a linger sub-case (warn fires, exit stays 0, clears
   after `disable-linger`). The Waybar exec-once loose thread became #149.
+- ✓ **Rofi highlight lands on an unrelated entry after backspace (#143,
+  2026-07-17):** upstream keeps the selected row *index* across a refilter
+  (rofi#2317), so backspacing grew the list back under a stationary
+  highlight — Enter then launched the wrong app. Bernardo's 07-16 ruling
+  ("wait for upstream, no source-built rofi distro-wide") was priced
+  against a patch; the maintainer's reply pointed at a knob the item's
+  `-dump-config` survey had missed: the `inputchange {}` configuration
+  block. Shipped as config, zero build cost: `inputchange { action:
+  "kb-row-first"; }` in the generated `config.rasi` (rofi.nix
+  extraConfig — home-manager renders nested sections), so every edit of
+  the query resets the highlight to row 0, dmenu/launcher/text-menus
+  alike — the same "reset on filter change" dmenu and fuzzel ship.
+  Trade-off accepted: arrow-down-then-refine no longer holds position,
+  but that is precisely the interaction that was broken. V2 headless VM
+  (scratch theme-shot variant driving QMP keystrokes): on HEAD the
+  repro's highlight stayed on row 3 ("kitty" → "Bulk Rename"); patched,
+  backspace snaps it to the first entry — shown in the drun grid
+  (executive-slate), boreal's whole-swap grid, and the keyboard-layout
+  dmenu picker.
 - ✓ **Dock mode survives a rebuild (#142, 2026-07-16):** Bernardo: every rebuild
   while docked re-lit the laptop panel and threw a workspace onto it, and he
   re-picked Dock mode by hand. It was not forgetfulness — **a rebuild performed

modules/home/rofi.nix

@@ -1827,6 +1827,13 @@ in
         case-smart = false;
         sort = true;
         sorting-method = "normal";
+        # Selection follows the row *index* across a refilter, not the
+        # entry — with sort=true a backspace can leave the highlight on an
+        # unrelated app (rofi#2317; maintainer pointed at this knob).
+        # Reset to row 0 on every query edit, like dmenu/fuzzel.
+        inputchange = {
+          action = "kb-row-first";
+        };
       };
 
       # Whole-swap themes bring their own rofi.rasi; otherwise the theme

themes/executive-slate/launcher.rasi

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+/**
+ * Executive Slate — app-launcher override (themes/<slug>/launcher.rasi).
+ * Installed to ~/.local/share/rofi/themes/launcher.rasi and used only by
+ * `rofi -show drun` (the SUPER+Space / SUPER+D launcher). It inherits the
+ * flat slate panel from the sibling rofi.rasi (this whole-swap theme,
+ * which HM deploys under its source basename — rofi.rasi — not custom.rasi),
+ * then reshapes the list into a 4×3 grid of large application icons.
+ * Text menus keep the list — they don't use this theme. Cards stay at the
+ * theme's 4px radius (sharp "control panel" identity), and the selected
+ * card keeps the one-accent-edge highlight from rofi.rasi.
+ */
+
+@import "rofi.rasi"
+
+window { width: 780px; }
+
+listview {
+    columns: 4;
+    lines: 3;
+    fixed-columns: true;
+    spacing: 10px;
+    padding: 6px 0px 0px 0px;
+    /* Fill row-by-row so Down at a column's foot pages to the next screen
+       instead of jumping to the top of the next column (rofi's default
+       Vertical flow). Mirrors the theme-picker grid in rofi.nix. */
+    flow: horizontal;
+}
+
+element {
+    orientation: vertical;
+    padding: 16px 8px;
+    spacing: 10px;
+    border-radius: 4px;
+}
+
+element-icon {
+    size: 56px;
+    horizontal-align: 0.5;
+}
+
+element-text {
+    horizontal-align: 0.5;
+    vertical-align: 0.5;
+}