Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards-grid in host mode by FadhlanR · Pull Request #3994 · cardstack/boxel

FadhlanR · 2026-02-13T09:28:54Z

The IndexCard acts as a wrapper that conditionally renders interactHome, hostHome, or cardsGrid based on the current mode/submode context. During prerendering, the mode/submode context is not available, so interactHome and hostHome are never rendered — the template always falls through to the cardsGrid fallback. This causes a flash of empty cards-grid content before the app hydrates and resolves the correct home card. With the upcoming routing MVP, this indirection layer becomes unnecessary. Removing IndexCard simplifies the index card to always be a CardsGrid directly, eliminating the flash and the conditional rendering complexity.

Remove IndexCard and make realm index.json files adopt directly from CardsGrid
Drop interactHome and hostHome fields from the index card
Update realm creation to seed index.json as a CardsGrid instance
Add migration script for staging/production environments

github-actions · 2026-02-13T09:47:25Z

Host Test Results

1 files ± 0 1 suites ±0 3h 8m 48s ⏱️ + 1h 34m 16s
1 835 tests + 107 1 822 ✅ + 108 13 💤 ± 0 0 ❌ ±0
3 578 runs +1 836 3 552 ✅ +1 825 26 💤 +13 0 ❌ - 1

Results for commit 780aadf. ± Comparison against base commit fcf29c5.

This pull request removes 3 and adds 110 tests. Note that renamed tests count towards both.

Chrome ‑ Acceptance | index card home resolution > host mode: host mode renders hostHome
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | index card home resolution > operator submodes: host submode uses hostHome and updates after edit
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | index card home resolution > operator submodes: interact submode uses interactHome

Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > multiple realms: can autogenerate new Spec and field instance (no preexisting Spec)
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > multiple realms: can autogenerate new field instance when spec exists but has no examples
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > multiple realms: can create new field instance (has preexisting Spec)
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can autogenerate new Spec and field instance (no preexisting Spec)
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can autogenerate new field instance when spec exists but has no examples
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can create new field instance (has preexisting Spec)
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can not preview non-exports or primitives
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can populate instance chooser dropdown options with containedExamples from Spec
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can preview compound field instance
Chrome ‑ Acceptance | code-submode | field playground > single realm: can request AI assistant to bulk generate samples
…

♻️ This comment has been updated with latest results.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-13T11:10:08Z

scripts/migrate-index-to-cards-grid.js

+  const updated = {
+    data: {
+      type: 'card',
+      meta: {
+        adoptsFrom: {


Preserve index card metadata during migration

This migration rebuilds each matched index.json from a fixed updated object and drops data.attributes entirely, so running in apply mode erases any existing index-card metadata (for example cardInfo.name, cardInfo.summary, or thumbnail values) instead of just removing the obsolete relationship fields. Because CardsGrid still inherits these fields from CardDef, this is destructive data loss for realms that customized their home card metadata.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-13T11:10:08Z

scripts/migrate-index-to-cards-grid.js

+
+  // Only process files that adopt from IndexCard
+  const adoptsFrom = data?.data?.meta?.adoptsFrom;
+  if (!adoptsFrom || adoptsFrom.name !== 'IndexCard') {


Limit migration to the base IndexCard module

The migration selector only checks adoptsFrom.name === 'IndexCard' and ignores the module, so any realm-specific card type also named IndexCard will be rewritten to https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid and have its original shape discarded. For a script intended to scan staging/production trees, this can incorrectly rewrite unrelated custom cards; the predicate should also verify the expected base module before applying changes.

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Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR removes the IndexCard wrapper component to eliminate a flash of empty cards-grid during prerendering. The IndexCard previously conditionally rendered different home cards (interactHome, hostHome, or cardsGrid) based on mode/submode context, but this context is not available during prerendering, causing the template to always fall through to cardsGrid. The PR simplifies the architecture by making index cards directly adopt from CardsGrid.

Changes:

Removed IndexCard component and replaced it with a backward-compatible export alias to CardsGrid
Updated realm creation and setup scripts to seed index.json as CardsGrid instances
Added migration script to convert existing IndexCard instances to CardsGrid in production environments

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 11 out of 11 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
scripts/migrate-index-to-cards-grid.js	New migration script to convert index.json files from IndexCard to CardsGrid adoption
packages/realm-server/server.ts	Updated realm creation to generate index.json directly as CardsGrid, removing cards-grid.json creation
packages/realm-server/scripts/setup-submission-realm.sh	Updated submission realm setup to create index.json as CardsGrid
packages/realm-server/tests/server-endpoints/maintenance-endpoints-test.ts	Updated test expectations for file/instance counts after removing cards-grid.json
packages/host/tests/acceptance/index-home-test.gts	Removed test file as interactHome/hostHome functionality no longer exists
packages/experiments-realm/index.json	Migrated from IndexCard to CardsGrid adoption
packages/base/index.json	Migrated from IndexCard to CardsGrid adoption with relative module path
packages/base/index.gts	Replaced IndexCard implementation with backward-compatible export alias
packages/base/cards-grid.json	Removed redundant cards-grid.json file
packages/base/cards-grid.gts	Simplified query filters to no longer exclude IndexCard
packages/experiments-realm/cards-grid.json	Removed redundant cards-grid.json file

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Copilot · 2026-02-13T20:07:34Z

scripts/migrate-index-to-cards-grid.js

+  // Replace with CardsGrid adoption, strip relationships and attributes
+  const updated = {
+    data: {
+      type: 'card',
+      meta: {
+        adoptsFrom: {
+          module: 'https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid',


The migration script always uses the absolute module URL 'https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid', but the manually migrated packages/base/index.json uses the relative path './cards-grid'. This inconsistency means that if this migration script is run on the base realm's index.json, it would change the relative path to an absolute URL. Consider making the script preserve relative paths when the original adoptsFrom uses a relative path (e.g., './index'), or ensure that all migrated files use the same convention (all absolute or all relative based on their context).

Suggested change

// Replace with CardsGrid adoption, strip relationships and attributes

const updated = {

data: {

type: 'card',

meta: {

adoptsFrom: {

module: 'https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid',

// Determine appropriate module path for CardsGrid:

// - preserve relative paths (e.g. "./index" -> "./cards-grid")

// - otherwise use the absolute base URL

const originalModule = adoptsFrom.module;

const cardsGridModule =

typeof originalModule === 'string' && originalModule.startsWith('.')

? './cards-grid'

: 'https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid';

// Replace with CardsGrid adoption, strip relationships and attributes

const updated = {

data: {

type: 'card',

meta: {

adoptsFrom: {

module: cardsGridModule,

I think this only applies to the base index card which will never have this script executed on it, IIUC

You're right, this script will never be executed on base realm.

backspace

I confess to not being totally sure what the right way through this normalisation is as we move toward host mode routing

backspace · 2026-02-13T23:26:13Z

scripts/migrate-index-to-cards-grid.js

+  // Replace with CardsGrid adoption, strip relationships and attributes
+  const updated = {
+    data: {
+      type: 'card',
+      meta: {
+        adoptsFrom: {
+          module: 'https://cardstack.com/base/cards-grid',


I think this only applies to the base index card which will never have this script executed on it, IIUC

Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards in host mode

378a874

Fix test

780aadf

FadhlanR marked this pull request as ready for review February 13, 2026 11:05

FadhlanR requested a review from a team February 13, 2026 11:05

chatgpt-codex-connector bot reviewed Feb 13, 2026

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FadhlanR changed the title ~~Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards in host mode~~ Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards-grid in host mode Feb 13, 2026

habdelra requested a review from Copilot February 13, 2026 20:00

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backspace approved these changes Feb 13, 2026

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Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards-grid in host mode#3994

Remove index card to avoid flash of empty cards-grid in host mode#3994
FadhlanR wants to merge 2 commits intomainfrom
cs-10175-remove-index-card

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FadhlanR commented Feb 13, 2026 •

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