[clubanderson]

Fixes #14958

Root cause

Every reload — including the dashboard's automatic reload on each new hive version — starts a document without user activation, so the AudioContext created for the first automatic zap/buzz is suspended by the browser's autoplay policy; each play was dropped silently while the item was still marked as played and the chip kept showing 🔊. In Safari the gesture path scheduled voices only after resume() resolved and treated a late state flip as "blocked", so even the toggle chime could be silent.

(Live inspection of the hive's own tab also showed the master toggle is currently off there — hive.tracker.sound = '0' — and the detection/poll path is intact; see the issue for the probe log.)

Changes

• index.html: when sound is on but the engine is held back (no user activation at init, or an automatic play skipped) the chip turns amber with a title and a one-time toast offers Enable sounds; priming listens for pointerdown/keydown/click/touchend. stageTrackerPlayOnGesture schedules voices synchronously inside the gesture (WebKit unlock), stageTrackerResumeContext waits for statechange when resume() settles before the state flips, and a refused context is closed and dropped (stageTrackerDiscardContext) rather than leaving voices queued to burst out later.
• stage_tracker_sound_resume_test.go / stage_tracker_merge_sound_test.go: node fixtures cover the held notice (once per load, action clears the chip, listener primes), synchronous gesture scheduling, stale-resume wait, discard-on-refusal, and stageTrackerSoundInit behaviour with/without user activation.
• src/docs/dashboard-sections.md Sounds / Sound settings paragraphs; changelog.d/fixed-dashboard-tracker-sounds-held-by-autoplay.md.

Operator action

Click the 🔇 chip once to turn sounds on in the Chrome tab; after any reload, click or press a key once (or the toast's Enable sounds).

[kubestellar-prow]

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[github-actions]

Open PR overlap check

Base branch: v5

Conflicts are checked with every PR merged onto the current tip of v5, so a PR that only needs a rebase is not reported as conflicting with its siblings.

PR	Title	Relation	Files
#14957	🐛 Activity Monitor: name the PR a blocked issue waits on; keep hive's own unblock live	same files	src/docs/dashboard-sections.md src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html
#14956	🐛 Owner Approve on a parked PR releases the park; 085 chevron hover names its own stage	same files	src/docs/dashboard-sections.md src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html
#14807	✨ dashboard: stream Job pod logs in the terminal pane for sandbox.runtime: job agents	same files	src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html
#14821	🐛 fix: preserve supersession decisions across stage reconciliation	same files	src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html

[hivecommons-hive]

@clubanderson is auto-promoted for contributor-lane merging on this PR: the last 5 merged PRs by this author in this hive's repositories have no revert or sentinel-alert evidence. CI, reviewer verdict, diff fences, soak, holds and branch protection still apply.

[hivecommons-hive]

Read src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html at v5 bcd44e7 around the stage-tracker sound block (16625–17160) and showToast (36996). This looks correct to me; one low-severity note below.

What I verified:

• showToast(msg, type, persistent, autoDismissMs) at index.html:36997-37005 already treats an object third argument as options and renders actionLabel/onAction as a .toast-action button (same call shape resetDashboardLayout uses at :9783), so the Enable sounds action will render and run inside its own click — the gesture the resume needs.
• stageTrackerSoundHeldClear → stageTrackerSoundSyncButton (:17058-17067) rewrites title/aria-label, so the amber title set by stageTrackerSoundHeldNotice does not linger after the engine is released.
• stageTrackerSoundPrime is guarded by _stageTrackerSoundPrimed (:16664), so the extra call from stageTrackerSoundHeldNotice on every blocked play is a no-op while listeners are already armed.
• stageTrackerDiscardContext nulls _stageTrackerAudioCtx before close(), and stageTrackerAudioContext() (:16628) recreates lazily, so a refused gesture play cannot leave a closed context behind for the next zap.
• The statechange listener in stageTrackerResumeContext is removed in finish on every path, including timeout.

Low — chip can stay amber on a browser that actually permits autoplay. stageTrackerHasUserActivation is consulted only at init (diff: stageTrackerSoundInit), and stageTrackerPlayVoices's ctx.state === 'running' branch and its resume-success branch never call stageTrackerSoundHeldClear(). On Chrome with a high media-engagement score for the dashboard origin, or Firefox with the site's autoplay permission set to Allow, the first automatic zap plays fine while the chip reads "held back by the browser" and the 60 s toast says the same, until any click/keydown fires the prime listener. Cosmetic and self-healing on the next gesture; a one-line stageTrackerSoundHeldClear() in the two success paths of stageTrackerPlayVoices would make the chip truthful. Not blocking.

Docs and changelog fragment match the behaviour.

— hive: agent=reviewer-2 backend=copilot model=claude-fable-5.1 copilot=1.0.88

[hivecommons-hive]

Evidence bundle `#1495968e2b90` sha256:815d5b222d14986b510d8964583febbef948fdfd7c30dbcea812ce0a178def8a — download from the dashboard or `hivectl review evidence #14959`.

[hivecommons-hive]

merged by Hive trusted-author auto-merge: author @clubanderson holds role owner and GitHub permission admin on repo; CI green at 68e2b90.

[github-actions]

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