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Slate React native IME history boundaries need explicit push metadata

docs/solutions/ui-bugs/2026-05-07-slate-react-native-ime-history-boundaries-need-explicit-push-metadata.md

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Original Source

Slate React native IME history boundaries need explicit push metadata

Problem

Lexical's #2479 history row separates delayed IME/native text commits into distinct undo steps. Slate's browser runtime imported the same native edits as adjacent insert_text operations, and generic Slate history merged adjacent text operations until something structural interrupted them.

Symptoms

  • First proof run of undoes delayed Hiragana IME compositions as separate history steps inserted すし もじあ, but one undo returned the editor to the initial document.
  • Waiting longer than the merge interval in the browser test did not matter, because Slate history only saw adjacent text operations.
  • A broad history change would risk breaking the already-correct immediate row: native a plus immediate IME す should still undo together.

What Didn't Work

  • Relying on the generic slate-history adjacent text merge heuristic. It has no browser input timing context.
  • Treating all IME commits as forced pushes. That would break immediate native text plus IME composition merging.
  • Putting the policy in the test. The runtime needs to label delayed native text input commits before history receives them.

Solution

Track the last browser-native text input time inside slate-react and attach history: { mode: 'push' } only when the next browser-native text commit lands after the merge interval.

The policy lives in .tmp/slate-v2/packages/slate-react/src/editable/input-history.ts:

ts
export const getNativeTextInputHistoryMetadata = (
  editor: Editor,
): EditorUpdateMetadata | undefined => {
  const currentTime = now();
  const previousTime = EDITOR_TO_LAST_NATIVE_TEXT_INPUT_TIME.get(editor);

  EDITOR_TO_LAST_NATIVE_TEXT_INPUT_TIME.set(editor, currentTime);

  if (
    previousTime !== undefined &&
    currentTime - previousTime > NATIVE_TEXT_INPUT_HISTORY_MERGE_INTERVAL_MS
  ) {
    return { history: { mode: "push" } };
  }
};

Apply that metadata when the browser runtime imports native text:

  • Chrome compositionend fallback insertion in composition-state.ts
  • DOM input repair insertion in dom-repair-queue.ts

Keep the composition-predelete path on forced merge, because that path repairs one logical composition commit.

Why This Works

The generic history package should not guess browser pause semantics from operation shape. Browser-native text input is the layer that knows when a real user input commit happened, so it can label delayed commits as new undo units.

Immediate native typing and immediate IME composition still merge because the metadata helper returns no explicit push inside the interval. Delayed input commits push a fresh batch before history's adjacent-text heuristic can merge them.

Prevention

  • When porting Lexical/ProseMirror IME history rows, check whether the reference behavior depends on user timing, not just operation shape.
  • Keep immediate and delayed history rows together; one protects merge behavior, the other protects split behavior.
  • Prefer explicit history metadata at the browser input boundary over global changes to slate-history unless the generic history contract itself is wrong.