# ChatWidget

> Collapsible AI assistant with first-interaction transparency, session-only history and streaming replies.

- Status: beta
- Group: overlay
- Page: https://www.digitaltableteur.com/design-system/components/chat-widget
- Contract: https://www.digitaltableteur.com/contracts/v1/ChatWidget.contract.json

## When to use

The site's collapsible assistant widget: streaming chat with Donny, grapheme-safe burst smoothing for the active reply, tool-action buttons, localized UI, and mobile sheet behavior. One instance per page, mounted by the app shell.

## When not to use

- Do not gate the widget behind user authentication. The widget is for anonymous visitors; auth-gated chat is a different pattern.
- Do not store chat history in cookies or persistent localStorage. The current storage is sessionStorage.
- Do not tamper with the email-workflow reducer state from outside. The reducer has invariants (e.g. "review can only follow compose") that direct mutation breaks.

## Look-alikes

The contract names no look-alike with a deciding condition.

## Props

| Prop | Type | Default | Description | Required |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `title` | `string` | none | No description in the contract. | No |
| `description` | `string` | none | No description in the contract. | No |
| `endpoint` | `string` | none | Optional override for the API endpoint. Defaults to VITE_DONNY_CHAT_ENDPOINT, otherwise falls back to the secure proxy or /api/chat. | No |

## Variants

No variant dimensions and no props with a fixed set of values.

## Invalid combinations

The contract records no invalid combinations.

## Keyboard

| Key | Behaviour |
| --- | --- |
| Tab | Moves focus to the control and on to the next focusable element. (standard) |
| Enter | Activates the focused control. (standard) |
| Escape | Closes or dismisses the open layer. (standard) |

Rows marked (standard) name a key the contract lists without a description; the behaviour shown is the usual one for that key.

## Rules

Every item under When not to use is a MUST NOT. MUST and SHOULD follow RFC 2119.

| Level | Rule | How it is checked |
| --- | --- | --- |
| MUST | ARIA: Launcher button labeled. | Not yet verified: no evidence record. WCAG 4.1.2. |
| MUST | ARIA: Chat region when open. | Not yet verified: no evidence record. WCAG 4.1.2. |
| MUST | Required stories produce no axe violations at the configured severity. | Automated by `npm run test:stories:matrix:ci`. WCAG 2.5.8. |
| MUST | The accessibility tree (role, name, state) matches the committed snapshot for every required story. | Automated by `npm run test:stories:matrix:ci`. WCAG 1.3.1, 4.1.2. |
| MUST | The component remains legible and operable under a real browser forced-colors: active pass. | Automated by `npm run test:stories:hc`. |
| MUST | Every documented keyboard interaction works as specified. | Not yet verified: no evidence record. WCAG 2.1.1, 2.1.2. |
| MUST | A human completed an end-to-end accessibility review of this component. | Manual review, last on 2026-07-14. |
| MUST | A request with no first token after the acknowledge-delay threshold shows a polite status saying it is taking longer than usual, next to the Stop control; the notice clears as soon as the reply starts or the request ends. | Automated by `ChatWidget.temporal.test.tsx`. |

## Install and import

- In-repo only. ChatWidget is not exported from `@digitaltableteur/react`, so there is no public import path.

## Links

- Machine-readable contract (Design System Contract 1.0): https://www.digitaltableteur.com/contracts/v1/ChatWidget.contract.json
- Markdown version of this page: https://www.digitaltableteur.com/design-system/components/chat-widget.md
- Component index as JSON: https://www.digitaltableteur.com/design-system/components.json
- All components: https://www.digitaltableteur.com/design-system/components
- Source: The implementation lives in a private repository. This page, its Markdown twin and the contract are generated from it at build time and are the public source of truth.