plugin-dashboard: `WidgetConfigPanel`'s private `resolveLabel` reads only the RETIRED label form — an inline-locale-map title/description opens the panel EMPTY and can be saved over

[os-support-ai]

Found while implementing #5264 (PR migrating ObjectMetricWidgetProps to string | I18nLabel). Not fixed there — different member surface, and the fix needs a decision this card records rather than guesses.

What

packages/plugin-dashboard/src/WidgetConfigPanel.tsx carries a private label resolver:

/** Resolve an I18nLabel (string or {key, defaultValue}) to a plain string. */
function resolveLabel(v: unknown): string {
 if (v === undefined || v === null) return '';
 if (typeof v === 'string') return v;
 if (typeof v === 'object') {
 const obj = v as Record<string, any>;
 return obj.defaultValue || obj.key || '';
 }
 return String(v);
}

Its doc comment claims it resolves an I18nLabel. It does the opposite: { key, defaultValue } is the key-reference form @objectstack/spec RETIRED at 17.0.0-rc.6 (objectstack#5055), and the inline per-locale map that I18nLabelSchema actually admits has neither limb. Measured against this tree:

input	resolveLabel returns
{ en: 'Revenue', 'zh-CN': ... } — the spec's vocabulary	""
{ key: 'a.b.c', defaultValue: 'Revenue' } — retired	"Revenue"
'Revenue'	"Revenue"

It is the same private-resolver class objectui#4032 swept out of DashboardRenderer, MetricWidget and MetricCard; this fourth copy was not in that pass. It is also the mirror of #5134 — a declared I18nLabel surface whose only read site cannot read the form the spec admits.

Why it is not merely cosmetic

The resolved value is not display-only — it seeds the editable draft:

const normalizedConfig = React.useMemo(() => ({
 ...config,
 title: typeof config.title === 'object' ? resolveLabel(config.title) : config.title,
 description: typeof config.description === 'object' ? resolveLabel(config.description) : config.description,
}), [config]);

const { draft, isDirty, updateField, discard } = useConfigDraft(normalizedConfig, ...);

So for a widget whose stored title is an inline locale map, opening the config panel shows an EMPTY Title field, and the draft that a save writes back carries '' where the author's map used to be. The panel is the surface Studio authors dashboards through, so the destructive path is the ordinary one — open the widget, change anything else, save.

Why it was not folded into #5264

That PR's fix shape is binding and scoped to ObjectMetricWidgetProps plus the fixture sweep. This is a different member surface (DashboardWidget config, not the widget's own props), and — unlike the four members there — the fix is not mechanical: resolveLabel is a module-level function with no locale in scope, so making it locale-aware means deciding which locale an authoring panel should display, and what a save should then write back. Those are not the same question:

• Reading: pickLocalized(value, language) matches every sibling surface.
• Writing: collapsing a multi-locale map to the one string the editor showed silently discards the other locales. Preserving them needs the panel to edit a map, or to write back only the active locale's entry.

The second half is a real design decision (arguably a Studio authoring-UX question, cf. #4163's "give Studio a way to author one"), which is why this is filed rather than guessed.

Repro

resolveLabel({ en: 'Revenue', 'zh-CN': '收入' }) // => "" (expected "Revenue" / "收入")

Note the pure-function repro is the honest one here: the panel path reaches it through normalizedConfig, so a component-level test would also be asserting useConfigDraft's behaviour.

[os-warren]

Triage: type Bug, routed to the decision inbox (needs-user-decision) rather than the queue — the read half is mechanical (pickLocalized(value, language), matching every sibling surface post-#4032), but what a SAVE writes back to a multi-locale label is an authoring-UX/product call the card correctly refuses to guess.

• platform long-term coherence: fourth private copy of the retired-form resolver (objectui: dashboard KPI cards drop the translated widget title/description — the self-contained metric path bypasses tWidgetTitle, and the plugin's private resolveLabel never calls t() #4032 swept three); whichever write-back rule is chosen should be stated once and shared, not re-derived per panel.
• measured business pull: the destructive path is the ordinary one — open a widget whose title is an inline locale map, change anything, save ⇒ the author's map is replaced by ''. Studio authors hit this on every map-titled widget today.
• AI-agent error-resistance: an editor that silently collapses a multi-locale map to one string (or to empty) destroys data with no failure signal; write-back-only-the-edited-locale keeps saves idempotent for untouched fields.
• startup scope discipline: a full map-editing UI is the expensive road; the minimal honest fix (display via pickLocalized; on save, write the edited string into the active locale's entry and preserve the rest; untouched fields round-trip unchanged) needs no new UI.

Recommendation: A — display via pickLocalized(value, language); an un-edited title/description round-trips the original value byte-for-byte; an edited one writes the new string into the active locale's map entry, preserving other locales. Map-editing UX (authoring all locales in the panel, cf. #4163) stays a separate future card. B — same read fix, but an edit collapses the map to a plain string (simplest, lossy, loud in review). C — full multi-locale editing UI now.

Confidence gap: this analysis has not checked what the dashboard SAVE path persists for other object-valued config keys — if the panel already round-trips unknown keys untouched, A is smaller than it looks; if it rebuilds the whole config from the draft, "preserve untouched fields" needs a real diff mechanism.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-zhuang]

Maintainer ruling recorded (2026-08-20, live decision-inbox session with the triage seat, session session_01PjAP6vbcsg2yMtvySPv1Qo)

Ruled. Provenance: maintainer accepted the batch, verbatim: 「其他接受你的建议。」

• Reading: resolveLabel is replaced with pickLocalized(value, language) — the panel shows the active locale like every sibling surface.
• Writing (the destructive half): a save writes back only the active locale's entry, preserving the other locales in the map — ⛔ never collapsing a multi-locale map to the one string the editor showed. A stored inline-locale-map title must survive an unrelated config edit intact.
• A full map editor (authoring every locale in the panel) is a Studio-UX follow-up (I18nLabel now admits an inline per-locale map — audit every read the compiler cannot see, and give Studio a way to author one #4163's territory), not this card.

State transition in the same stroke: needs-user-decision → pm:queue.

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Generated by Claude Code