bug(web): chat-message file link to ~/subdir/file.md drops path segment, ENOENT + spurious git-diff error #2059

Summary

Clicking a ~/-prefixed file link in a session chat message produces a backend file-read error, and the directory component of the path is silently dropped — not just a dead SPA link (the #1452 symptom), but an actual (wrong) stat attempt on the backend.

What version of HAPI is running?

• HAPI: 0.30.7
• Platform: macOS

What issue are you seeing?

A chat message (sent via ping_peer) referenced a file as plain prose: ~/hapi-team/ORG-STRUCTURE.md. The session's cwd is /Users/clawdbot (the bare home directory, not a project checkout, and not a git repository).

Clicking the rendered link in the Hub web UI produces two errors:

Failed to read file: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat '/Users/clawdbot/ORG-STRUCTURE.md'
Diff unavailable: Not a git repository

Two distinct problems in one symptom:

1. The hapi-team/ path segment is dropped entirely. The real file is at /Users/clawdbot/hapi-team/ORG-STRUCTURE.md (i.e. ~ resolved correctly to the home directory, but only the basename ORG-STRUCTURE.md was kept — the intermediate directory component disappeared). This is not what #1452's table describes for ~/coding/…/foo.md (which predicted a dead SPA nav, not a backend stat on a mangled path) — this looks like a different, possibly newer code path that does attempt backend resolution for ~/-prefixed links, but resolves the path incorrectly.
2. "Diff unavailable: Not a git repository" fires unconditionally as a second error, even though the file link was a plain file reference with no diff/git context implied. The session's cwd (/Users/clawdbot) happens not to be a git repo, which suggests the file-link handler always attempts a git-relative diff lookup regardless of whether the user asked for one.

Steps to reproduce

1. Start (or use) a session whose cwd is not a git repository (e.g. a bare home directory session).
2. Have the agent send a chat message containing a bare-prose or markdown-link reference to a file under a subdirectory of $HOME, e.g. ~/some-subdir/file.md, where some-subdir is not the session's cwd.
3. Open the session in the Hub web UI and click the rendered file link.
4. Observe: Failed to read file: ENOENT: ... stat '$HOME/file.md' (the subdirectory segment is missing) and Diff unavailable: Not a git repository.

Expected behavior

• A ~/-prefixed path should resolve against the full path given (home directory + all intermediate segments), not just home directory + basename.
• The diff lookup should not be attempted (or should fail silently/not display an error) for a plain file-link click that never requested a diff view, especially when the session cwd is known not to be a git repository.

Related

• web: relative markdown hrefs still paint clickable SPA dead-ends (fail-open after #1142) #1452 (closed, PR fix(web): fail-closed scheme-less markdown file links #1519) — documented ~/coding/…/foo.md as a rejected/dead-link case for the chat message renderer specifically; this report shows a different failure mode (backend ENOENT on a mangled path) for the same class of href, suggesting either a partial regression or a previously-unhandled sub-case.
• fix(web): resolve relative Markdown assets and support HTTPS images in file preview #1870 / fix(web): resolve relative Markdown assets and support HTTPS images in file preview (follow-up to #1870) #1917 (open) — same general "relative/home-relative path resolution in file preview" problem family, but scoped to the standalone Markdown file-preview renderer rather than the chat message renderer; fix(web): resolve relative Markdown assets and support HTTPS images in file preview (follow-up to #1870) #1917's own text notes "the chat message renderer has separate support for some file links" — this report is specifically about that separate chat-message code path.

AI disclosure: this report was prepared by an AI agent (Claude, via HAPI) investigating an internally-reported UI bug, cross-checked against the existing issue tracker before filing per the operator's own process standard (check community/docs before assuming something is novel).