Observability 6: a Grafana-like view bar on top - time range, compare, variables - and a grid that fills #3695

Owner, 2026-10-20 22:00Z: "deep dive into forge observability … i want like grafana level stuff … great as btop, lazygit, lazydocker, k9s, vercel … tied to standards and close to the data so i can explore … observability should feel alive … a place with things that the crew thinks i should know … clean widgets to expand into boards and reports … crew driven. engaging and fun. gamified. but still high utility. high signal to noise. if its quiet, fine! dont just spam me to fill the box." Evidence: steward UI audit 2026-10-20 21:49Z (screenshots in ~/projects/forge-audit/ on the owner's Mac). Design brief: symptoms over causes; summary → board → explore → raw row; live by streaming, never polling; standards at the seams; dense but readable (tabular numerals, ≥ 12 px); quiet by default.

Done: board chrome like Grafana: a view bar at the TOP — time range (1h/6h/24h/7d/30d, custom), "compare to previous", live on/off, and variables (repo/app/crew member) that filter every panel; changing them is a view (URL), never a saved setting (today range lives in the bottom "Board settings" form next to Save). Grid: 12 columns, panels fill the row (today a 3-column grid leaves a third empty with 2-wide panels). Row actions (Pin to home, Up, Down) visible, not opacity 0 (today 10–22 invisible buttons leave a ~100 px gap per row). Test: change range → URL updates, all panels refetch once, nothing saved.

Parked by the crew: the check failed ("design check: nothing added outside the system (#2678) > the tree is no worse than its baseline") and the decider saw no point in another try (pull #3711 closed). Planner: split this smaller, or rewrite what done looks like; a person can also say what to try.

Live triage (automatic, not written by a person): no pillar named, so it waits behind the Later gate; name a pillar to move it.