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--- a/docs/superpowers/plans/2026-08-03-post-0.1.0-usability-closed.md
+++ b/docs/superpowers/plans/2026-08-03-post-0.1.0-usability-closed.md
@@ -9570,3 +9570,103 @@ still worked, so the symptom would have been "the channel narrowing never
happens" with nothing failing. One second of slack matches the precision the
format actually carries, and cannot readmit a genuinely stale file when cron
runs ten minutes apart.
+
+## 125. A skipped sync leaves the spinner running for ever
+
+**Done 2026-08-29**, unreleased.
+
+**Observed (user, 2026-08-20):** during the item 124 index migration, a Delete
+appeared to do nothing: the view did not refresh, the message did not move, and
+restarting the application showed it exactly where it had been. The user then
+reported "I see a spinner in the bottom right, is going indefinitely. maybe
+that's what stopped the move?" That observation is what identified the cause.
+
+**Cause (verified from `/proc` and the sync log).** The migration procedure held
+`/tmp/mbsync.lock` to keep cron out of the way. qtmaildir auto-syncs a couple of
+seconds after a tag action (item 71), so Delete queued its edit and started a
+sync; `mailsync.sh` found the lock held and exited **75**, by design:
+
+```
+2026-08-20T10:00:01+02:00 === SKIPPED: previous run still in progress ===
+2026-08-20T10:10:01+02:00 === SKIPPED: previous run still in progress ===
+```
+
+75 is `EX_TEMPFAIL`, chosen deliberately so a click landing during a cron run is
+not reported as a failure (`assets/mailsync.sh`, the comment at the `flock -n`
+guard). The application appears to treat it as neither success nor failure: the
+sync indicator never cleared, and because an edit made during a sync is HELD
+until the sync ends, the delete sat in that queue waiting for a completion that
+could never arrive. `notmuch count tag:deleted` on the account confirmed the
+write had not reached the database.
+
+**Nothing was lost**, and that is worth recording separately: held edits are
+written to disk (item 106), so the delete survived and applied as soon as a real
+sync ran. The defect is that the user cannot tell.
+
+**Approach.** Handle exit 75 explicitly wherever `MailSync` reports a finish.
+It is a third outcome, not a variant of the other two: the work did not happen,
+nothing is wrong, and it should be retried rather than reported. Clearing the
+indicator is the minimum; re-arming the auto-sync timer is probably right too,
+and item 89 already made a skipped auto-sync re-arm rather than give up, so
+there is a precedent to follow rather than a policy to invent.
+
+**Constraints.**
+
+- **Do not turn 75 into an error.** The exit code exists precisely so an
+ overlapping click is not reported as a failed sync, and item 89 settled that a
+ skip is routine. Showing the log pane here would be a regression.
+- **The held-edit queue must still flush.** Whatever clears the indicator has to
+ leave the queue in a state where the next successful sync sends it, which is
+ what happened by luck here rather than by design.
+- **A stuck indicator is worse than a wrong one**, because it also blocks the
+ quit prompt's "unsynced changes" story (items 18, 19, 28, 54). This is the
+ same class of indicator dishonesty those four items each fixed once.
+
+**Reproducing it.** Hold the lock in one terminal and act in the application:
+
+```bash
+flock /tmp/mbsync.lock -c 'sleep 300'
+```
+
+Then Delete a message. Verified by hand on 2026-08-20; this is how it was found.
+
+**Size: S.**
+
+### What was actually missing, which was not what this entry assumed
+
+**Most of it was already built.** The `exitCode == kSyncSkippedExitCode` branch
+in `onSyncFinished()` predates this session and does what the Approach above
+asks: it clears the spinner through `setSyncBusy(false)` at the top of the
+handler, reports the skip as neither success nor failure, does not set
+`m_lastSyncFailed`, does not raise the log pane, hands the lock latch back to
+the external monitor, and covers the sync-on-exit case with its own dialog.
+`aSkippedLocalSyncStillReportsTheOtherRunFinishing()` covers it. The row was
+stale rather than open, which is worth recording: reading the row would have led
+to rebuilding what exists.
+
+**Item 174 closed the external half** on the same day: a skipped run now writes
+`state: skipped` to the status file, so a run the application did not start is
+visible as having happened and carried nothing.
+
+**The genuine gap was the RE-ARM, and it is the reported symptom.**
+`runAutoSync()` re-arms when it declines to START, which is item 89 and covers a
+sync skipped before launching. A run that LAUNCHES, finds the lock held and
+exits 75 reaches `onSyncFinished()` instead, and that branch armed nothing at
+all. The edit stayed pending with nothing scheduled to carry it, waiting for a
+manual sync or the next cron tick, which is exactly "a held edit waits for a
+completion that never comes".
+
+One line, `scheduleAutoSync()` in the skip branch. It re-checks the delay, the
+command and the pending count on the way in, so it cannot arm a sync for
+nothing, and against a long external run it re-arms once per debounce interval
+until the lock clears.
+
+**This is the half the status file could not reach**, and the distinction is
+the useful part: the file says what a run DID, while this is what the
+application does NEXT. Two different questions, which is why one fix could not
+serve both.
+
+The test drives `onSyncFinished()` with the skip code after recording a real
+pending edit, since `runAutoSync()` correctly declines when there is nothing to
+carry and a fixture without one would arm nothing for a legitimate reason.
+Mutation-checked by removing the call.