[Desperado]

Follow-up to #195, which made light↔dark switching look broken.

Problem

After /theme switches between light and dark themes, the UI showed gray/black cutout blocks: the picker surface kept one polarity while row styles flipped to the other, and stale cells from the previous theme lingered on screen.

Root cause

1. fix(tui): enforce backgrounds on light themes to prevent invisible text #195 added opaque SurfaceDark backgrounds to nested containers (pickerBox, inputBoxStyle). Nested styled spans emit ANSI reset sequences that interrupt the inherited parent background, so the terminal's native background punches through around every styled label — visible as cutout blocks on any polarity mismatch.
2. On theme transitions, Bubble Tea only repaints the cells its frame covers; cells painted by the previous polarity stayed on screen.

Fix

• Structural containers (pickerBox, inputBoxStyle) are transparent again; only leaf surfaces (statusBarStyle, statusMetricsStyle) keep solid backgrounds — they have no nested styled children, so resets cannot cut holes in them.
• Theme picker previews force tea.ClearScreen on every navigation step and on Escape-cancel, so the whole visible frame is repainted in the new polarity instead of leaving stale cells.

Known limitation

Text already printed into scrollback keeps the colors it was printed with — ANSI cannot restyle scrolled-out history; only the visible frame is repainted. This is inherent to terminals, not fixable in-app.

Tests

• TestApplyTheme_BackgroundOwnership — containers transparent, leaf surfaces solid, across all 10 themes
• TestThemePicker_PolarityTransitionsRequestFullRepaint — dark→light→dark preview transitions must emit a full-repaint command
• Updated TestThemePalette_SelectionContrastsSurface rationale

Verification

go test ./internal/tui, go test -race ./internal/tui, go vet ./..., release-style build, and git diff --check all pass.

[qualitymaxapp]

QualityMax Review

Verdict: COMMENT · Confidence: evidence-backed scan

Files eligible: 4 · Files reviewed: 4 · Files with findings: 0 · Findings: 0 · Inline cards: 0

Priority findings

priority	location	finding
—	—	No blocking findings

Review gates

gate	status
AI diff review	completed · eligible 4, reviewed 4 · LLM · served gemini-3.1-flash-lite
SAST	completed · eligible 4, reviewed 4 · hybrid · served qwen3.7-plus
Overall review evidence	clean
Inline evidence	not needed

Important files

file	risk	note	next step
—	—	No findings	—

Change diagram — Flow

graph TD
    Input[User Input: Up/Down/Esc] --> Check{Polarity Changed?}
    Check -- Yes --> Clear[Return tea.ClearScreen]
    Check -- No --> Update[ApplyTheme Only]
    Clear --> Render[Repaint Screen]
    Update --> Render

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Review lifecycle

Use the inline cards to inspect evidence and suggested remediation. Re-run the QualityMax review after pushing a fix; unchanged cards are identified by their stable finding marker. Dismiss with a reason through the existing QualityMax/GitHub review feedback flow. 0 prior card(s) are stale/resolved on this head. @qmax Q&A is tracked separately.

Proof legend: VERIFIED independently judged patch · REPRODUCED verified finding · GROUNDED deterministic evidence · MODEL-ONLY model judgment.

QualityMax project results are available in the configured project.

_{Receipt · commit f805c7cf2e1f7be78abd27649c2799604026d1f3 · run 2026-09-12T11:47:24+00:00 · model served qwen3.7-plus, gemini-3.1-flash-lite · model requested qwen3.7-plus, gemini-3.1-flash-lite · model review recorded — 1043 model output tokens · model source repository ai_review_preferences.preferred_model · re-review 2 · proof counts {}}

[qualitymaxapp]

QualityMax Review — canonical overview updated; inline findings are attached to this review.

[qualitymaxapp]

⚠️ QualityMax Pipeline

Gate	Result
🔍 AI diff review	✅ Clean · gemini-3.1-flash-lite · completed · 4 eligible / 4 reviewed · gemini-3.1-flash-lite
🔍 SAST	completed · 4 eligible / 4 reviewed · qwen3.7-plus
🔍 Canonical PR review delivery	completed · 0 eligible / 0 reviewed · exact-head review #5186325719 and overview #5645483524 confirmed
🧪 Repo Tests	✅ 802/802 passed (go)

_{Powered by QualityMax — AI-Powered Test Automation}

[Desperado]

Addressed the adversarial review:

1. Invisible-chrome regression (blocker) — fg-only picker chrome (labels, headers, footers, dividers, hints) now follows the terminal's detected background polarity instead of the previewed theme's. Previewing a light theme on a dark terminal keeps labels readable; values are identical to same-polarity themes so matched setups render exactly as before. Styles that carry an explicit background (selected row, status bars, badges) still use the theme — fg/bg pairs stay internally consistent.
2. Transcript erasure — tea.ClearScreen is now gated on actual polarity flips. Same-polarity arrow moves (the majority) no longer erase the visible screenful; cancel only clears when the restore flips polarity.
3. Renderer rebuild elided when polarity is unchanged.

New tests cover all three; tui suite + race + vet + release build green.

[qualitymaxapp]

QualityMax Review — canonical overview updated; inline findings are attached to this review.