fix stale conversation id for activity timeline

[shagun-singh-inkeep]

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Latest commit: 785390d

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
agents-api	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jan 30, 2026 2:30pm
agents-manage-ui	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jan 30, 2026 2:30pm

1 Skipped Deployment

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
agents-docs	Skipped		Jan 30, 2026 2:30pm

[claude]

Claude finished @shagun-singh-inkeep's task —— View job

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Code Review Analysis

Conducting comprehensive TypeScript Staff Engineer review of this stale conversation ID fix.

Review Tasks:

• Understand the existing conversation ID and activity polling architecture
• Analyze the specific changes made in both files
• Review for engineering best practices and potential issues
• Check consistency with existing patterns and codebase conventions
• Evaluate customer impact and edge cases
• Provide actionable feedback and recommendations

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✅ Overall Assessment: LGTM with Minor Observations

This is a well-engineered fix addressing race conditions in conversation polling. The changes are focused, effective, and follow good React patterns.

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🎯 What This Fixes

The PR addresses a race condition bug where stale polling requests could overwrite newer conversation data in the activity timeline. This happened when:

1. User switches to a new conversation (conversation ID changes)
2. Old polling request completes after the switch
3. Stale data overwrites the new conversation's activities

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🔍 Technical Review

Excellent Design Decisions:

✅ React Key Pattern (playground.tsx:161)

• Adding key={conversationId} to TimelineWrapper is a best practice for forcing component remount
• Consistent with existing codebase patterns (found 3 other similar usages)
• Ensures clean state reset when conversation changes

✅ Race Condition Prevention (use-chat-activities-polling.ts:36-83)

• currentConversationIdRef pattern is architecturally sound
• Comparing requestConversationId === currentConversationIdRef.current prevents stale updates
• Proper separation of request capture vs. response validation

✅ State Management Hygiene

• Lines 177-198: Proper cleanup when conversation changes
• Maintains referential integrity with existing polling/abort logic

Code Quality:

• Naming: Clear, semantic variable names (requestConversationId, currentConversationIdRef)
• Comments: Well-documented race condition logic
• Error Handling: Preserves existing error boundaries
• Performance: Minimal overhead (single ref + effect)

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🏗️ Architectural Considerations

Patterns & Consistency:

• ✅ Follows existing React ref patterns in codebase
• ✅ Maintains API contract compatibility
• ✅ Consistent with component lifecycle management

Edge Cases Handled:

• ✅ Component unmounting during request
• ✅ Multiple rapid conversation switches
• ✅ Abort controller cleanup
• ✅ Error states preserved

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🚀 Customer Impact

Positive Impact:

• Eliminates confusing UI behavior where old conversation data would briefly appear
• Improves perceived performance by preventing visual flickers
• Maintains data integrity in multi-conversation workflows

Risk Assessment:

• Low risk - Changes are defensive and non-breaking
• No API changes - purely internal state management
• Backwards compatible - existing functionality preserved

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💡 Minor Considerations

Changeset Requirement:

The bot correctly identified this needs a changeset since it's a user-facing bug fix in agents-manage-ui. Consider:

pnpm bump patch --pkg agents-manage-ui "Fix stale conversation ID in activity timeline"

Testing Opportunity:

While not required for this focused fix, the race condition scenario could be valuable to test:

• Rapid conversation switching
• Network latency simulation
• Component unmount during polling

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📋 Conclusion

This PR demonstrates excellent engineering practices:

• Identifies root cause (closure-based stale data)
• Implements minimal, targeted fix
• Uses established React patterns
• Maintains backwards compatibility
• Addresses real user experience issues

Recommendation: Approve ✅

The fix is technically sound, follows best practices, and solves the stated problem effectively. The combination of React key forcing remount + ref-based race condition prevention is a robust solution.