Goal

Decide whether the right-panel Status tab's "Connections" section (servers / MCP / LSP / plugins health) should stay where it is, move into Settings, or split into "config in Settings + ambient health surfaced elsewhere". Whichever way it goes, the user must keep a way to see "an MCP / LSP failed" without manually checking a settings page.

Scope

In scope:

• Audit the current Connections section's two real jobs:
  1. Ambient health monitor — the 10 s useCheckServerHealth poll renders a coloured dot per row so a user working in a session can glance and notice "MCP failed / needs_auth".
  2. Entry to server management — the "Manage servers" button opens DialogSelectServer.
• Decide product position: (a) keep in right panel, (b) move whole section to Settings, (c) split — config goes to Settings, ambient health goes to a different always-visible surface (titlebar status pill, sidebar warning row, etc.).
• If (b) or (c), enumerate the alert channel design at brainstorm level. Do not start building until that brainstorm is done.

Out of scope:

• Swapping the dots for icons inside the current Connections section. Slice 3 (refactor(app): replace right-panel status todo dots with widget marker #861) intentionally skipped this section pending the position decision above. Once the position is settled, the visual-cleanup work for whichever surface ends up hosting Connections is a separate slice.
• Settings page IA changes unrelated to MCP / LSP / Servers.

Relevant files or context

Likely files (current home):

• packages/app/src/components/session/session-status-connections.tsx — 307 LOC, the section's whole body
• packages/app/src/components/session/session-status-panel.tsx — stacks <SessionStatusSummary> + <SessionStatusConnections>
• packages/app/src/components/session/session-status-summary.tsx — what stays in the Status tab if Connections moves out

Related:

• [Task] UI rewrite v2 Area B: right panel modular rollout #602 — Area B right-panel rewrite (parent)
• perf(app): gate right-panel context and files tabs when inactive #854 — Slice 1+2 (right-panel hidden-tab gating, merged)
• refactor(app): replace right-panel status todo dots with widget marker #861 — Slice 3 (Status todo dots → widget marker; intentionally scoped to Summary only)
• docs/research/2026-05-23-area-b-right-panel-audit.md (local-only)

Design constraints:

• AGENTS.md "Product Boundaries": right panel surfaces "progress, branch, or artifact context". Connection health is infrastructure state, not session context. The audit's L201 dot-cleanup separately confirmed Connections is the noisiest DESIGN.md drifter in the Status tab.
• DESIGN.md L632 — right-pane lists are prohibited from dot indicators (independent of where Connections lives).

Verification

• A written decision: which option (a / b / c), with the alert-channel design sketched if (b) or (c).
• If the decision is to move, follow-up implementation issue is filed and linked here, and Slice 3's visual cleanup of the (now relocated) section is queued as its own slice.

Execution mode

Investigate and propose a plan first — the agent must post the plan as an issue comment and wait for an explicit "approved" comment before writing code or opening a PR