feat(blocks): add block visibility gating (preview blocks + AppConfig reveals) by TheodoreSpeaks · Pull Request #5526 · simstudioai/sim

TheodoreSpeaks · 2026-07-09T01:19:18Z

Summary

preview: true on a BlockConfig hides the block from every discovery surface (toolbar, cmd+K, mentions, tool picker, mothership VFS/metadata/tools, Access Control, docs/catalog) in every environment until revealed — fail-closed, including SSR
reveal paths: hosted block-visibility AppConfig document (per-block {enabled, orgIds, userIds, adminEnabled} rules — admins/org allowlists get a (Preview) name suffix, enabled: true = GA) or PREVIEW_BLOCKS env for self-host/dev; enabled: false on a shipped block = discovery kill switch
execution is never gated: getBlock stays pure, gated blocks stay in getAllBlocks() as clones (clone-not-remove), placed instances keep running
new blocks/visibility/ context (client resolver + per-request server ALS, independent of the custom-block overlay), registry projection with a zero-cost fast path when no preview blocks exist
shared AppConfig rule parsing extracted to appconfig-rules.ts (feature-flags refactored onto it)
mothership: VFS static files + exposed integration tools stay ungated process-global caches, filtered per-viewer at stamp/consumer time; tool-schema LRU keyed by visibility signature; visibility memoized per (user, workspace)
generate-docs/check-block-registry skip preview blocks (no public docs/catalog/meta until GA); Access Control hides them from the list while keeping stored allowlists viewer-independent
/gate-block skill documents the lifecycle; infra profile landed in simstudioai/infra#262

Type of Change

New feature

Testing

966 tests across touched suites (new coverage: rule parsing, visibility evaluation, registry projection, hydrate no-op, route, preview-not-exempt), tsc, lint, check:api-validation:strict, react-query + client-boundary audits, check-block-registry — all green. Route-count baseline 919→920 (new contract-bound route).

Checklist

Code follows project style guidelines
Self-reviewed my changes
Tests added/updated and passing
No new warnings introduced
I confirm that I have read and agree to the terms outlined in the Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

The dependency was pinned to a direct tarball on cdn.sheetjs.com, which now returns 403 (Cloudflare bot-challenge) to automated clients, breaking bun install in CI. npm's own xlsx is frozen at 0.18.5, so switch to the @e965/xlsx mirror which republishes the identical 0.20.3 CDN build to the npm registry. No code changes needed — all imports use bare 'xlsx'.

… reveals)

vercel · 2026-07-09T01:19:24Z

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cursor · 2026-07-09T01:19:28Z

PR Summary

Medium Risk
Wide blast radius across registry, copilot VFS/tools, and access-control UI, but execution is explicitly excluded and the change is heavily tested with documented invariants.

Overview
Adds block visibility gating so unreleased blocks can ship in code but stay off discovery surfaces until revealed, and shipped blocks can be kill-switched from discovery without stopping runs.

preview: true on BlockConfig hides a block everywhere (toolbar, search, mentions, copilot/VFS, access-control UI, docs) until block-visibility AppConfig rules or PREVIEW_BLOCKS env reveal it; partial reveals get a " (Preview)" name suffix. getBlock stays pure — execution and placed instances are unchanged; gated types remain in getAllBlocks() as clones with hideFromToolbar: true.

New blocks/visibility/ layer (client hydrate + server AsyncLocalStorage), GET /api/blocks/visibility, and BlockVisibilityLoader drive registry projection and invalidate toolbar/search/matcher caches via the shared overlay version. Copilot filters integration tools and VFS static files per viewer while keeping process-global caches ungated. Shared appconfig-rules parsing is extracted (feature-flags refactored onto it). Docs/registry checks and a /gate-block skill document the lifecycle.

Also switches the xlsx dependency to npm:@e965/xlsx@0.20.3.

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greptile-apps · 2026-07-09T01:22:36Z

Greptile Summary

This PR adds block visibility gating for preview and kill-switched blocks. The main changes are:

New AppConfig and env-based block visibility rules.
Registry projections that hide gated blocks from discovery surfaces.
Workspace client hydration for viewer-specific visibility.
Copilot, VFS, Access Control, docs, and catalog filtering updates.
Shared AppConfig rule parsing reused by feature flags.

Confidence Score: 4/5

This is close, but I would fix the copilot edit bypass before merging.

Most discovery surfaces now use the new visibility state.
The copilot edit path can still place shipped blocks that are hidden by AppConfig.
The fix likely needs visibility state around the edit workflow path without writing display-only projections into persisted workflow data.

apps/sim/lib/copilot/tools/server/router.ts

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
apps/sim/lib/core/config/block-visibility.ts	Adds hosted and env-based visibility evaluation for preview reveals and shipped-block kill switches.
apps/sim/blocks/registry.ts	Projects registry lists through visibility state while keeping direct block lookup unchanged for execution.
apps/sim/lib/copilot/tools/server/router.ts	Scopes selected copilot tools with visibility state, but leaves workflow editing outside that scope.
apps/sim/app/workspace/[workspaceId]/providers/block-visibility-loader.tsx	Hydrates per-workspace visibility state on the client and resets it during workspace switches.

_{Reviews (3): Last reviewed commit: "fix(blocks): reset visibility to fail-cl..." | Re-trigger Greptile}

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TheodoreSpeaks · 2026-07-09T01:26:22Z

@greptile review

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TheodoreSpeaks · 2026-07-09T01:31:50Z

@greptile review

greptile-apps · 2026-07-09T01:33:56Z

+ * (find-by-type over clones, never a discovery listing) and gating it would
+ * only risk leaking display projections into persisted state.
+ */
+const VISIBILITY_GATED_TOOLS = new Set(['get_blocks_metadata', 'get_trigger_blocks'])


Edit path bypasses gating

edit_workflow runs outside withBlockVisibility, so registry reads in that tool see no active visibility state. That still hides unrevealed preview blocks, but it does not apply the disabled set for shipped blocks. When AppConfig kill-switches a shipped block with enabled: false, the filtered copilot discovery tools hide it, but the edit tool can still resolve and place it in a workflow. Existing placed blocks can keep executing, but this path still allows new placements through the agent edit flow.

Deliberate, and documented as the placeable-by-id contract (see the /gate-block skill invariants): gating is discovery-only, and every add-by-explicit-id path behaves identically — workflow JSON import, cross-workspace duplicate, the admin API, and the agent edit flow when the user explicitly names the type. The agent cannot discover a gated block (metadata/VFS/tool listing are all filtered), so this path only fires when a user asks for the block by name — same trust model as import. Wrapping edit_workflow in withBlockVisibility would not change this anyway: its type validation resolves via pure getBlock (never gated) by design, because that same resolution path is what keeps already-placed gated blocks rendering and executing. Blocking placement would require a semantic change to the kill switch (discovery-only → placement enforcement) that we explicitly scoped out.

TheodoreSpeaks added 2 commits July 8, 2026 14:58

feat(blocks): add block visibility gating (preview blocks + AppConfig…

e6ad905

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TheodoreSpeaks requested a review from a team as a code owner July 9, 2026 01:19

greptile-apps Bot reviewed Jul 9, 2026

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Comment thread apps/sim/lib/core/config/block-visibility.ts

cursor Bot reviewed Jul 9, 2026

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Comment thread apps/sim/app/workspace/[workspaceId]/providers/block-visibility-loader.tsx

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fix(blocks): reset visibility to fail-closed empty state on workspace…

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feat(blocks): add block visibility gating (preview blocks + AppConfig reveals)#5526

feat(blocks): add block visibility gating (preview blocks + AppConfig reveals)#5526
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TheodoreSpeaks commented Jul 9, 2026

Summary

Type of Change

Testing

Checklist

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Confidence Score: 4/5

Important Files Changed

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