Harden the offline document mirror: claim persistent storage, and surface a write failure #197

Goal

Harden the offline document mirror in two small ways. Nothing is broken today. Both items make an existing feature fail loudly instead of quietly.

apps/webapp/src/hooks/useYdocAndProvider.ts creates the mirror:

const persistence =
  typeof window.indexedDB !== 'undefined'
    ? new IndexeddbPersistence(documentId, ydocRef.current)
    : null

That keeps a copy of the document in the browser's own storage. It is why the pad paints before the server answers, and why an open tab survives a network drop.

The two gaps

1. Nothing asks the browser to keep it. Browser storage is best-effort by default, so a device under storage pressure may delete it with no warning and no signal. grep -rn "navigator.storage" apps/webapp/src returns nothing.

Fix: call navigator.storage.persist() once beside the mirror, behind a feature check. WebKit grants this by heuristic and favours apps added to the Home Screen (WebKit, "Updates to Storage Policy", webkit.org/blog/14403). About five lines.

2. Nothing notices when the mirror stops writing. Once the origin hits its quota, IndexedDB writes fail. grep -n "QuotaExceeded" apps/webapp/src/hooks/useYdocAndProvider.ts returns nothing, so the mirror silently stops recording while the reader believes they have an offline copy.

Fix: attach a rejection handler to the IndexeddbPersistence instance and surface QuotaExceededError through the existing status pill. Do not invent a new surface.

How urgent this is

Not very, and that is the honest answer. Both were rated "should fix", not "must fix", in the 2026-08-24 iOS and Android readiness audit. Two reasons:

1. The server is the source of truth. The mirror is a convenience, not the record.
2. Losing it costs a user something only when they were offline and held unsynced edits.

Constraints

• apps/webapp/CLAUDE.md §Slug Page Entry And Skeletons owns the pre-sync gates. Do not clear providerSyncing on the IndexedDB synced event — that breaks the documented split between pre-sync and post-sync states.
• The mirror is created and destroyed inside the ydoc-owning effect, with persistence teardown before the provider. Keep that order.
• Do not add a new status state. ProviderStatus is a closed set in types/collab.ts.

Definition of done

navigator.storage.persist() is called once per origin, behind a feature check. A quota failure reaches the status pill instead of being swallowed. Verified on a real device with storage deliberately filled, because a desktop browser will not reproduce eviction.