Context

Slice 09 polished the command palette chrome: 52px ghost header, L32-compliant rows, and fixed 480 height to stop result-count jump. What remains is the content layer: when no filter is applied, the palette only shows about 5 default commands and the lower 60% of the modal sits empty.

What needs work

• Default view: only about 5 commands listed when nothing typed. Lots of empty area below.
• Information architecture: file picker, command palette, and session search are all the same surface today (dialog-select-file.tsx); the result is a flat list with mixed item types and no visual rhythm.
• Missing high-value entries: recent sessions, recent files, recent commands, and suggested actions are absent from the default view.
• No grouping cues until the user starts typing.

Priority triage

P1.

The command palette is an app-wide navigation and recall surface. For everyday users, the empty default state makes high-value actions such as reopening recent sessions, finding recent files, and repeating common commands feel undiscoverable. This is not only visual polish; it affects whether users can move through the product quickly after opening PawWork.

Decisions needed before implementation

• Default-view groups: which categories, such as Recent, Suggested, Commands, Sessions, Files, or Pinned, and how many rows per group.
• Sort and recency rules: last touched, last opened, or frecency.
• Whether to keep one fused entry surface or split palette, file picker, and session jump behavior.
• Optional footer hints. This was considered and rejected once for slice-09; revisit only if the content design needs more affordance.

Out of scope for this issue

• Chrome: header height, divider, item radius, fixed body height. Already shipped in slice-09.
• New keyboard shortcuts beyond Cmd+K.
• Replacing the full sidebar or session list.

Files likely touched

• packages/app/src/components/dialog-select-file.tsx - current single-surface implementation.
• packages/ui/src/components/command-palette.css - chrome lives here; layout and spacing tweaks may follow content decisions.
• packages/app/src/i18n/{en,zh}.ts - new strings for groups and empty states.

Verification

• Add or update user-path E2E coverage for opening the palette with no query and seeing useful grouped default entries.
• Verify keyboard navigation, Enter selection, Escape close, and filtering still work.
• Manually verify the palette in Electron via bun run dev:desktop because this is a visible app flow.