# Watching and reviewing evidence Observer shows a study's participants, their recorded screens, and the events that explain those screens. The grid, player and exported HTML use the same current renderer. Screens fit their actual aspect ratio; a portrait capture is never cropped to fill a landscape tile. ## Choose the right entry point `humanish watch ` starts a study and keeps its viewer attached. The process that owns a hosted desktop can offer its live stream while it runs. `--no-open` keeps that attachment without launching a browser. `--json` is the machine-result path and does not keep an interactive stream server attached. `humanish observe --run ` opens an existing study without starting another. The TUI's **Open Observer** action does the same through its session-owned loopback library. These entry points follow saved captures; they cannot recover live desktop credentials owned by another process. Keep the owning CLI or TUI open while using its viewer. Exported HTML is an independent offline recording. ## Read status without guessing The top band separates the run's current status from evidence freshness. A finished study never uses its execution mode (`live`, as opposed to `dry-run`) as a claim that it is still running. When updates fail, the last usable evidence stays visible, the band reports the failure, and **Retry** requests another snapshot. A stale process heartbeat does not prove that the process died. A player's **Live desktop** label identifies what it displays. An iframe loading is not a connection-health signal: the provider owns that connection. **Reload stream** reloads the desktop viewer without restarting a participant. **Latest capture** follows the latest saved screenshot without a desktop stream. **Replay** means the researcher has chosen a recorded moment. Offline exports say so explicitly. Freshness uses recorded activity and capture timestamps, not the time the server reserialized the same data. Browser tabs poll less frequently while hidden and refresh when visible again. Requests are serialized, bounded by a timeout and cancelled when the viewer closes. ## Work through a study Previews share a height and wrap into rows; desktop cards are wider and portrait cards narrower. Complete screens remain contained when the available width is smaller than a preview. Sparse rows keep their chosen size. Open **View and filter participants** in the top right to search, change **Preview size**, or enter **Monitor** for a larger evidence area. **Exit monitor** stays beside the run status. Open a card's **Participant details** to **Pin** it at the beginning. Ordering changes only when the researcher changes it. Large studies have reachable participant pages. At most four desktop previews attach in the grid; allocation prioritizes screens that are actually visible, with the hovered or keyboard-focused participant taking priority. Other cards show their latest saved capture. Each card follows its screen's aspect ratio without a minimum width that adds portrait gutters. Its 44px caption holds the participant name, a short preview source (**Live**, **Capture**, or **Snapshot**) or finished outcome, and a stable **Participant details** button. Labels and controls never cover captured pixels. Details contains labeled **Pin** and **Compare** toggles, the full source and freshness, final messages, recorded notices, duration and dimensions. Historical notices do not turn the details control into a warning; exceptional outcomes remain in the caption. Comparison permits three participants and explains the limit while keeping selected participants removable. Icon buttons use Lucide glyphs, accessible names, hover/focus hints and visible keyboard focus. Touch targets expand to 44px. Popovers have explicit close buttons; Escape dismisses a hint without navigating the player. These conventions follow [Carbon icon usage](https://carbondesignsystem.com/elements/icons/usage/), [ARIA toggle-button semantics](https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/button/), and [WCAG target sizing](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/target-size-minimum.html). The bookmark icon in the top bar opens **Saved moments**; recalling an available moment closes the popover, while an unavailable moment leaves the error visible. Opening a participant provides elapsed-time seeking, the original frame number, playback speed, **Fit**, **Actual size**, zoom/pan and fullscreen. The inspector can be hidden or resized. Click markers use the recorded desktop coordinate system and the image's rendered rectangle, including at zoomed sizes. Arrow keys, mouse controls, same-participant links, browser navigation and reload agree about the selected moment. Seeking leaves live mode. Pausing on the newest frame stays paused when new evidence arrives; **Go live** explicitly resumes following. A missing addressed moment is reported instead of silently replaced. Screenshot playback is sparse evidence, not a video recording. Capture gaps stay visible. **Skip waits** compresses intervals associated with recorded waits and reports the skipped duration. **Next action**, **Next finding**, activity filters and grouped waits make long traces easier to inspect without deleting events. Older unstamped recordings use labeled estimated pacing. Long feeds, filmstrips, terminal output and event lists stay bounded while earlier/later content remains reachable. **Copy moment link** creates a frame address; denied clipboard access exposes a selectable link. **Original frame** opens/downloads the captured raster. **Saved moments** keeps bounded run/participant/frame identifiers in this browser. It does not save credentials, publish annotations or change the evidence bundle. Storage failure leaves the controls usable for the current visit. ## Compare recorded evidence Select participants and open **Compare selected**. Capture-time alignment chooses the latest frame at or before the cursor, never a future frame. Before/after coverage and each frame's age are explicit. Clock differences between desktops remain an uncertainty; matching timestamps alone do not establish causality. Elapsed-time alignment starts each participant at its first capture and compares progress rather than simultaneous events. Missing or descending timestamps cannot be used as a shared clock. Another run can be loaded from the available library as recorded evidence. The address retains the chosen runs, participants, clock and cursor so reopening it restores the comparison. ## Boundaries and checks Only the attached process can grant a desktop iframe its own origin for provider module loading. Stored grants are removed, exports contain no runtime grants, and every local viewer response refuses to be framed. Generic imported embeds retain an opaque sandbox. Artifact and history links cannot introduce arbitrary URL schemes or traverse outside their evidence roots. `pnpm observer:browser:proof` exercises generated synthetic evidence in the production artifact. `pnpm observer:iframe:proof`, after `pnpm build`, checks the actual serving boundary against direct, redirected and scripted iframe attacks. CI retains their screenshots and JSON receipts. These Chromium checks do not claim physical-device or non-Chromium coverage. Actual provider checks and their resource-cleanup receipts are separate acceptance evidence. Interaction references rechecked September 8, 2026: [Base UI popover](https://base-ui.com/react/components/popover), [React state structure](https://react.dev/learn/choosing-the-state-structure), [WAI-ARIA tabs](https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/tabs/), [iframe sandboxing](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/iframe), [Playwright Trace Viewer](https://playwright.dev/docs/trace-viewer), and [PostHog recording controls](https://posthog.com/docs/session-replay/how-to-watch-recordings). ### Moving between review views The library button opens a drawer while reviewing a participant or comparison, including on desktop. Comparison panels use the same participant names as the grid. **Open frame** opens the displayed capture in the player, where it can be saved; **Back to comparison** restores that comparison's selection, alignment and cursor. Browser Back also returns to the addressed comparison. Comparing another run needs a free slot within the three-participant limit. **Reported thinking** is an explicit filter; the Thinking checkbox controls only All evidence. **Warnings & findings** includes a separate Run and setup notices section. These recorded operational notices retain their source timestamps and are not assigned invented screenshot positions or counted as participant findings.