Janus — AI Surface Patterns

Pattern A · Top contextual panel

Click "Ask Janus" in the top bar to slide a contextual panel down. Conversation lives only inside the panel. Dismiss → it's gone. Try opening it on Proposals, dismissing, navigating to the Journal screen, and opening it again — note the conversation does not persist.

Pros

Doesn't take horizontal canvas
Modal-feel keeps focus
Cheapest to ship

Cons

Conversations are ephemeral
"Bolted-on AI" smell — common pattern, no wedge
Cannot reference earlier conversation
Provenance is awkward — proposals have no traceable origin chat

Why was the AP tolerance for MSP vendors raised to 5%?

Janus · Explain Agent

On 2026-04-22, John approved a proposal to raise ap.matching.tolerance_pct from 2% to 5% for vendors tagged category=msp, citing recurring 3-4% variance on consumable line items. See decision_log#2841 and ai_proposal#118.

Pattern B · Persistent right rail

The rail is always present. Conversations persist. A flat thread list lets you switch between past chats. The hard question — should an open conversation persist or scope to the screen — is unsolved here. Switch screens; note the rail stays the same regardless of context.

Pros

AI is genuinely always there
Conversation survives navigation
History browsable like Slack DMs
Maps to LE's stack cleanly

Cons

Burns 320–360px of canvas
"Chat-heavy" feel — fights records-app posture
Persist-vs-scope question unsolved
Multi-conversation gets messy fast

AP tolerance · MSP vendors

Q1 close validators

Vendor dedup — Microsoft

Project hierarchy reorg

Why was the AP tolerance for MSP vendors raised to 5%?

Janus · Explain Agent

On 2026-04-22, John approved a proposal to raise ap.matching.tolerance_pct from 2% to 5% for vendors tagged category=msp. See decision_log#2841.

What other tolerance changes have we made this year?

Janus · Explain Agent

Three tolerance-related config changes in 2026: MSP raise (Apr 22), capital-equipment vendor exception (Feb 14), default reduction from 3% to 2% (Jan 8). All trace to decision_log.

Pattern C · Conversations as first-class objects ⭐ recommended

Same surface as B, but each conversation has a scope. Switch screens in the top control bar — note how the conversation list filters to conversations relevant to the current screen, plus globals. Click a conversation to load it. The rail header shows the active conversation's scope as a chip. Conversations persist server-side; the UI just shows what's relevant where you are.

Pros

Solves persist-vs-scope — scope is a property of data, not UI
Provenance native — proposals link to their originating conversation
"Show me everything Janus knows about this vendor" works
Same model as decision_log + ai_proposal — consistent with Janus design philosophy
Ships simple now (one conversation visible), grows into history browsing without rearchitecting

Cons

More upfront engineering — real conversation table, scope unions
Power users may prefer top-panel speed for quick questions (V1 can add it as a surface mode)
Privacy/sharing model needs explicit design (private by default proposed)

Conversations on this screen

Why was the AP tolerance for MSP vendors raised to 5%?

Janus · Explain Agent

On 2026-04-22, John approved a proposal staged in this conversation to raise ap.matching.tolerance_pct from 2% to 5% for category=msp. See decision_log#2841 · ai_proposal#118.

What other tolerance changes followed from this thread?

Janus · Explain Agent

None — this conversation produced exactly one proposal. The capital-equipment exception (Feb 14) came from a separate conversation, conversation#1782.