spec(ui): dashboard `gap` help text says "Tailwind units" to an app author

[hotlong]

Found while localizing the Studio dashboard property panel (objectui#7254, PR objectstack-ai/objectui#7366).

packages/spec/src/ui/dashboard.form.ts gives the gap field this help text:

{ field: 'gap', type: 'number', colSpan: 1, helpText: 'Grid gap (Tailwind units)' }

That string is rendered verbatim in the customer-facing dashboard property panel — the Studio panel is spec-driven, feeding dashboardForm straight into the renderer's generic form. "Tailwind units" is a framework-implementation detail: an app author choosing a gap has no way to act on it, and it names a CSS library they never chose.

The renderer side cannot fix this — the string is the producer's. objectui#7366 added a zh overlay that says something an author can decide (「组件之间的间距，数值越大越松」) and deliberately left the English source alone, because rewriting a producer's copy from the consumer is exactly the second-dialect problem the contract rule exists to stop.

Suggested: say what the author decides, not what the renderer consumes — e.g. "Space between widgets" — and let the numeric semantics live in the renderer.

While there: columns's Grid columns (default 12) is fine (12 is an author-visible fact); this is only about the unit vocabulary.

[huangyiirene]

Triage — graded p3, documentation, pm:queue, routed domain:spec. Applied and read back first.

Confirmed at origin/main c616c2c

packages/spec/src/ui/dashboard.form.ts:24 { field: 'columns', …, helpText: 'Grid columns (default 12)' },
packages/spec/src/ui/dashboard.form.ts:25 { field: 'gap', …, helpText: 'Grid gap (Tailwind units)' },

Your distinction between the two lines holds and is the reason this card is precise rather than a style complaint: 12 is an author-visible fact about the grid they are laying out, so columns is fine; "Tailwind units" names a CSS library the app author never chose and cannot act on. ⛔ Leave :24 alone.

Why p3 and why it is a real defect

The string is rendered verbatim in the customer-facing Studio property panel — the panel is spec-driven, feeding dashboardForm into the generic form renderer — so this is published product copy, not an internal note. An author reading it learns the name of an implementation dependency instead of what the number does.

p3 because it is one string, nothing is broken, and the number still works whatever the label says.

⭐ The part worth preserving: you fixed the consumer and refused to fix the producer

objectui#7366 added a zh overlay saying something an author can decide (「组件之间的间距,数值越大越松」) and deliberately left the English source alone, because rewriting a producer's copy from the consumer is the second-dialect problem the contract rule exists to stop.

That restraint is what makes this card necessary and correct. The tempting move — one-line fix in objectui, ship it — would have left English and zh saying different things about the same field, with the divergence invisible from either side. Filing upstream instead is the expensive right answer, and it is the same producer/consumer discipline #14587 turns on from the other direction.

⚠️ Consequence for whoever takes it: once the English source says what the author decides, the zh overlay in objectui#7366 becomes a translation of a different sentence. Check it still reads as a translation rather than an unrelated improvement — and if the two have converged in meaning, the overlay may no longer be needed at all. ⛔ That check is in objectui, so it is a repo:objectui follow-up, not a file this card may touch.

Scope

One helpText string. Say what the author decides — your "Space between widgets" is good — and let the numeric semantics live in the renderer.

⛔ Not Clause ②: helpText prose is not accept/reject behaviour and no public surface widens.

⛔ Do not sweep dashboard.form.ts for other framework-vocabulary leaks in this card. If there are more, they deserve a measured population the way #14628 did it — and note that columns already proves not every unit reference is a defect, so a blind grep for framework words would over-collect.

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