Tab the PC detail page, and let a panel say which tab it belongs to

The page had grown to roughly ten cards in one flow, and three more surfaces
were wanted on it: installed software, live metrics, and the service controls.
Stacking those into the same column would have buried what the page is for.

Tabs were mocked and rejected on 2026-08-28, on the grounds that the strip
duplicated the sidebar and cost hero space. That objection is answered by
where the strip sits: the hero and the triage band stay above it and never
move, so "is this machine OK" is still answered without a click, and the strip
partitions the detail underneath rather than navigating anywhere.

WHY A PANEL DECLARES ITS OWN GROUP

Most cards on a detail page are not the page's. They arrive through the
ADR-010 get_asset_panels hook, so a page that sorted panels into tabs by
knowing their ids would defeat the hook it is built on. Panels now carry an
optional group instead, and the page only knows the five group names.

Resolution happens server-side, in the asset-panels route, so that an absent
or misspelled group becomes 'details' before the client ever sees it. The
client renders known groups only; an unrecognised value that survived to it
would be a panel that exists and is displayed nowhere. Contract 0.28.0 ->
0.29.0, additive - every existing plugin keeps working untouched, and the
endpoints status panel is deliberately left ungrouped so the default path is
exercised by a shipped plugin and not only by tests.

A tab is offered only when something fills it. An empty tab reads as broken
rather than as "this site does not collect that", so the strip is built from
the groups that actually returned data, and a tab that disappears on refetch
falls back to Details rather than leaving the page blank.

AssetDetailTabs is core, not a PCDetail component: machines, printers,
network devices and measuring tools all have the same shape, and the shared
asset-detail shell they need starts here.

Scope: product

shopdb/__init__.py

@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ from .plugins import plugin_manager
 # defeated by rotating the header. The helper resolves from remote_addr, which
 # ProxyFix has already filled from the header when TRUSTED_PROXY_COUNT says a
 # proxy is really in front. Additive names on the surface, minor bump.
-__contract_version__ = '0.28.0'
+__contract_version__ = '0.29.0'
 
 # Product release version (see ADR-007). The product version and the
 # plugin-contract version above are distinct series with independent

shopdb/core/api/pluginui.py

@@ -19,6 +19,14 @@ from shopdb.utils.authz import require_permission
 
 pluginui_bp = Blueprint('pluginui', __name__)
 
+# The tabs an asset detail page offers, and so the only values a panel's
+# 'group' may take. Kept here rather than in the frontend because the server
+# resolves the group before the client sees it - see asset_panels below.
+#
+# 'details' is first and is the fallback: it holds what an asset IS, which is
+# what a panel declaring nothing almost always contributes.
+ASSET_PANEL_GROUPS = ('details', 'software', 'metrics', 'actions', 'activity')
+
 
 def _collect(hookname):
     """Aggregate a data-only hook across enabled plugins.
@@ -67,6 +75,12 @@ def asset_panels():
 
     Query param assetid is required. A panel matches when its assettypes list
     contains the asset's type key or the wildcard '*'.
+
+    Every panel comes back carrying a 'group', naming the detail-page tab it
+    belongs to. It is resolved HERE rather than in the client so a plugin that
+    predates tabs, or names a group that does not exist, still lands somewhere a
+    person can see instead of vanishing from a page that only renders known
+    groups. Unknown and absent both mean 'details'.
     """
     assetid = request.args.get('assetid', type=int)
     if not assetid:
@@ -81,6 +95,9 @@ def asset_panels():
     for panel in _collect('get_asset_panels'):
         assettypes = panel.get('assettypes') or []
         if '*' in assettypes or (assettype and assettype in assettypes):
+            panel = dict(panel)
+            group = str(panel.get('group') or '').strip().lower()
+            panel['group'] = group if group in ASSET_PANEL_GROUPS else 'details'
             matched.append(panel)
     matched.sort(key=lambda panel: panel.get('position', 99))
     return success_response(matched)

shopdb/plugins/base.py

@@ -370,8 +370,23 @@ class BasePlugin(ABC):
                                       # ('list' takes a 'map' of title/badge/meta
                                       # keys, rendered generically - see warranty)
             'position':   int,        # order among panels
+            'group':      str,        # OPTIONAL. Which tab on the detail page:
+                                      # 'details' | 'software' | 'metrics'
+                                      # | 'actions' | 'activity'. Omitted means
+                                      # 'details'.
         }
 
+        ON 'group'. The detail pages are tabbed, and a panel says which tab it
+        belongs to rather than the page listing panels by id - a page that knew
+        its plugins' panels by name would defeat the point of the hook.
+
+        Omitting it is the correct answer for most panels and keeps every
+        existing plugin working untouched: an unknown or absent group resolves
+        to 'details', which is the tab that holds what an asset IS. Reach for
+        another group only when the panel is the thing that tab exists for -
+        an inventory listing, live telemetry, controls that act on the machine,
+        or a history feed.
+
         Consumed by GET /api/pluginui/asset-panels?assetid=<id>, which returns
         the panels matching that asset's type. Disabled plugins
         are skipped; a broken plugin is isolated in prod, re-raised in dev/test.