Chat: Auto Page Context Design#

Date: 2026-02-28

Problem#

The chat currently has a user-facing dropdown letting visitors choose between “page” and “general” context when sending a message. This is unnecessary UI complexity. The right behavior is to silently attach the current page path to every message automatically.

Design#

Context shape#

Simplify MessageContext to just a path:

interface MessageContext {
  path: string; // e.g. "/", "/projects", "/projects/post/my-project"
}

Client (chat-client.ts)#

• Remove: contextEl, contextSelect, currentContext, readPageContext, updatePlaceholder, astro:after-swap listener
• sendMessage() always attaches { context: { path: window.location.pathname } }
• window.location.pathname already excludes query params and hash
• appendMessage(): context link href and text both use msg.context.path

Server (chat-room.ts)#

• On message receipt, validate context.path against ^\/[a-z0-9\-._/]*$
• If invalid: drop context silently (store/broadcast message without it)
• If valid: store and broadcast as-is

UI (Chat.astro)#

• Remove the <span id="js-chat-context"> block (select dropdown + label)
• No other UI changes — placeholder stays “Type a message…”

Layout (BaseLayout.astro)#

• Remove the <meta name="page-context"> tag (no longer needed)

Files Changed#