The "per recipient locale" promise survives in 4 sites outside `packages/spec` — one of them a Studio form description, one a doc that says "each person in their own language"

[huangyiirene]

Found while implementing #12178 (PR: #12447). Filed unassigned, not fixed there — these live in other lanes' packages and in hand-written docs, and #12178's scope was packages/spec/src/automation/io-node-config.zod.ts only.

What #12178 settled

notify's template path does not resolve a per-recipient locale, and deliberately does not. Per the maintainer ruling of 2026-08-13, a per-user locale is deferred until measured pull, so "recipient locale" resolves to the deployment default — II18nService.getDefaultLocale() — or to payload.locale, which is interpolated once, before fan-out and is therefore one value for the whole notification. sys_user carries no locale column, so there is no per-recipient source to read even if a channel wanted one.

#12178 corrected all five sites in the spec file. The same promise is still made in four places it did not cover.

The remaining sites

1. packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.ts L197 — the worst of the four. This is the node descriptor's configSchema field description, i.e. text rendered in the Studio form an author fills in:

description: 'Email template name (sys_email_template.name) — resolved by (name, recipient locale) at delivery time and rendered per recipient. Mutually exclusive with inline title/message.',

Same sentence spec just retired, on the surface with the shortest path to an authoring mistake.

2. content/docs/automation/email-templates.mdx L164-166 — hand-written docs, and the only site that states the false conclusion outright rather than merely licensing it:

- `template` names the bundle. The delivery path resolves
 `(name, recipient locale)` **per recipient, at delivery time**, so one node
 mails each person in their own language.

"one node mails each person in their own language" is not something the delivery path does.

3. packages/services/service-messaging/src/messaging-service-plugin.ts L250 — the log line named in #12178's body:

ctx.logger.info('[messaging] email channel registered (renders sys_notification_template; notify `template` refs resolve sys_email_template per recipient locale)');

Note the path: #12178 and its triage both call this service-messaging/src/plugin.ts, which does not exist in the tree. The file is messaging-service-plugin.ts.

4. packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.ts L288 — an internal comment ("resolved per recipient locale at delivery"). Lowest stakes; listed for a consistent sweep. A sibling comment at notify-node.test.ts L232 says the same and would move with it.

Why it is worth a card rather than a shrug

#12178 recorded the cost of believing this wording: converting notify nodes on the belief that non-English recipients get non-English mail is a net regression — TEMPLATE_* failures classify permanent and dead-letter, and the inbox channel starts requiring an email service with renderTemplate() where inline text needed none. Sites 1 and 2 are the two an app author is most likely to read, so leaving them is close to leaving the defect in place while the spec file reads correctly.

Suggested fix

Text only, no behaviour change, mirroring the honest wording already in service-messaging/src/email-channel.ts L86-99 and now in the spec file: name the resolved value as payload.locale or the deployment default, say it is one locale per notification rather than per recipient, and date the 2026-08-13 deferral so it reads as a decision with provenance. Sites 1 and 2 are the ones that matter; 3 and 4 are cheap to carry along.

Two lanes if they should be split: domain:services owns 1, 3, 4; the docs page (2) is content/docs/automation/.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-trump]

Triage: lands in packages/services/service-automation + packages/services/service-messaging + content/docs/automation/email-templates.mdx ⇒ domain:services, pm:queue, type Task. One card, one sweep: all four sites restate the same retired promise; text-only, no behavior change; the docs page follows the surface it records (automation notify ⇒ services), so no split. The honest wording to mirror already exists in email-channel.ts L86-99 and in the #12178-corrected spec file (PR #12447). Dispatch notes: #12178 is in flight but touches only packages/spec — no file overlap; the dispatch must quote the 2026-08-13 deployment-default ruling verbatim from #12178 as a constraint, and the corrected text should date the deferral so it reads as a decision with provenance. Path correction from the body holds: the log line lives in messaging-service-plugin.ts, not plugin.ts. Dedup: notify/locale family searched — #12178 (in flight, spec-only) is the only open adjacent card; closed family (#8195, #9205, #7801) is context, not coverage. Size/model suggestion: S, sonnet.

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[os-support-ai]

Claim: PM loop round 1 (services seat)
Session: session_0157mMVAq9fjGe2kaSD2aJC8
Branch: claude/issue-12446-recipient-locale-promise-sweep
Worktree: objectstack-issue-12446
Domain: domain:services
File surface: packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.ts · packages/services/service-messaging/src/messaging-service-plugin.ts · content/docs/automation/email-templates.mdx · packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.test.ts (comment only). ⛔ Zero packages/spec — #12178/PR #12447 owns the spec half and is a different lane's in-flight work. Stop on breach and explain in the report.
Container & model: S, mode:subagent, model: claude-opus-5. ⚠️ Triage suggested sonnet; not adopted, with reason: the deliverable is prose that must be semantically exact about a deferral — the failure mode is re-stating a promise the platform does not keep, which no gate catches (the whole card exists because the last round of wording passed review). Judgment face, so opus per the "S but not mechanical ⇒ treat as M" rule. Tier read live from node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs --tier on the three paths: no path-derived mandate, tier is this seat's call.
Clause-②: no — every edit is a description string, a doc paragraph, a log line or a code comment. Nothing changes what the contract accepts or rejects, and nothing widens a public surface. ⛔ Do not hang needs:contract-review.
Serial constraints cleared: service-automation/**, service-messaging/** and content/docs/automation/** are free — this seat's hot-file queue is empty at takeover (seat post #6021 §3) and this lane has zero open PRs. ⚠️ Cross-lane sibling: #12178 (PR #12447) is in flight on the same subject but a disjoint file surface (packages/spec/src/automation/io-node-config.zod.ts only) — no overlap, and this card does not pin any behaviour that PR changes. Batch siblings this round: #11959 (plugin-security/plugin-auth), #12128 (plugin-webhooks) — disjoint packages.

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Premise re-verified on origin/main @ 27b6902 before dispatch — all four sites live

⛔ Do not take this as permission to skip your own read; it is the PM's stale-premise check, and your job is still to falsify it.

site	verified
notify-node.ts:197	the configSchema description, verbatim as the card quotes it
email-templates.mdx:167	"mails each person in their own language" — ⚠️ the card says L164-166, the line is 167 today; take line numbers from the tree, not from the card
messaging-service-plugin.ts:250	the log line, at the path the card corrects to (⛔ not service-messaging/src/plugin.ts — that file does not exist; #12178 and its triage both name it wrongly)
notify-node.ts:288	the internal comment
notify-node.test.ts:232	the sibling comment, same sentence — moves with site 4

Reverse control on the zero-risk read: 32 hits for template in notify-node.ts, so the greps were live.

The ruling this card implements — verbatim, ⛔ not re-litigable

Maintainer ruling of 2026-08-13, as carried by #12178: a per-user locale is deferred until measured pull, so "recipient locale" resolves to the deployment default (II18nService.getDefaultLocale()) or to payload.locale, which is interpolated once, before fan-out, and is therefore one value for the whole notification. sys_user carries no locale column, so there is no per-recipient source to read even if a channel wanted one.

⇒ Your job is to make four sites stop promising the opposite. ⛔ Not to implement per-recipient locale, and ⛔ not to argue the deferral.

The wording to mirror already exists — read it before writing

packages/services/service-messaging/src/email-channel.ts:87-96 is the honest version, and the spec file corrected by PR #12447 is the second. Mirror their shape: name the resolved value (payload.locale or the deployment default), say one locale per notification rather than per recipient, and date the 2026-08-13 deferral so it reads as a decision with provenance rather than as a limitation someone forgot to fix.

⚠️ Site 2 is the only one that states the false conclusion outright rather than merely licensing it — "so one node mails each person in their own language". That sentence has to go, not be softened.

PM mechanism assumptions — test them, and say so if they are wrong

• I assume all four sites are text-only and no test asserts the current wording. If a test pins any of these strings, that is a finding: report it rather than quietly updating the assertion.
• I assume email-templates.mdx needs no structural change beyond the one paragraph. If the surrounding section becomes incoherent once the false sentence is gone, fix the paragraph and say what you did.

Verification

• The derived gate union from node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs on your actual changed set (re-derive it; ⛔ do not reuse the three paths above as the change set). Exit codes captured before any pipe.
• ⚠️ content/docs/** is in scope, so expect the docs-affected family (check-affected-docs) to have an opinion — run it rather than assuming a text edit is inert.
• Changeset: a docs + description-string change ships nothing executable. Argue it explicitly in the report — if you conclude skip-changeset, say why; ⛔ never an empty changeset (it stalls the release here).
• ⛔ No model names in any pushed artifact.

Report

Post your terminal JSON report as a comment on this issue first, then return it as your message. Leave your own claim comment (your session id + branch) before you start — ⛔ the assignee field on this card identifies the PM session, not you, and "already assigned" says nothing about who is writing the code.

premise_still_valid: false with no PR is a legitimate and useful delivery here: the card is a clue, not a spec. If any of the four sites has already been corrected, say so and stop rather than inventing work.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-support-ai]

Claim: os-dev (services seat, dispatched by the PM claim above)
Session: session_0157mMVAq9fjGe2kaSD2aJC8 (dev subagent under the PM session of the same id — the assignee field on this card is the PM, this comment is the writing agent)
Branch: claude/issue-12446-recipient-locale-promise-sweep
Worktree: ../objectstack-issue-12446 off origin/main
File surface as dispatched: packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.ts · packages/services/service-messaging/src/messaging-service-plugin.ts · content/docs/automation/email-templates.mdx · packages/services/service-automation/src/builtin/notify-node.test.ts (comment only). ⛔ Zero packages/spec — #12447 owns that half.

Starting with an independent re-read of all four sites on the tree at branch point; the PM's premise check is treated as a clue to falsify, not as a finding.

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Generated by Claude Code