Plan — Show the Runner Name on the Task Details Page

Goal

Make it visible, on the task details page, which runner has picked up the task. Today the UI shows the template, commit, trigger, timing and parameters, but nothing about where the task is actually executing. In setups with more than one runner this is a recurring blind spot.

Scope

In scope:

• Display the runner's name on the task details page for tasks that are currently assigned to a runner (typically queued or running).
• Surface this through the existing task-list API response so the front-end doesn't need an extra request.

Out of scope:

• Showing runner information for finished tasks. The system today clears a task's runner assignment when the task completes, so historical tasks have no runner to display. Preserving that link would require separate work and is tracked as a follow-up below.
• Exposing the runner's internal ID or token in the API.
• Any change to how tasks are routed to runners.

Why a Name (not an ID)

A numeric ID would be technically simpler but unhelpful to the operator looking at the page. The runner name is what users see everywhere else (runner list, tags, settings), so reusing it keeps the UI consistent and immediately actionable — no second lookup required.

Design Summary

1. Backend enriches the task record returned for the task list / task details with the runner's name. The internal runner identifier remains server-side only.
2. Front-end adds a single new row to the Running info card on the task details page, shown only when a runner name is present. When no runner is assigned, the page looks exactly as it does today.

Steps

1. Backend — include runner name in task responses

• Extend the "task with template" record (used by the task list and task details endpoints) with an optional runner_name field.
• Populate it by looking up the runner that the task is currently assigned to. If the runner has been removed, or the task is not assigned to any runner, the field is simply omitted.
• Apply this consistently to both supported storage backends (SQL and BoltDB) so the behaviour is identical regardless of deployment.

2. Front-end — show the runner in Running info

• Add a Runner row to the Running info card on the task details page, underneath the existing duration row.
• Render the row only when the new runner_name field is present in the task payload, so existing tasks without a runner assignment are unchanged.
• No new request, no new component — this reuses the same task object the page already loads.

3. Verification

• Open a freshly started task and confirm the Runner row appears with the expected name.
• Open a finished task and confirm the Runner row is absent (current behaviour preserved).
• Run with both SQL and Bolt backends and confirm parity.
• Delete a runner that owns an in-flight task and confirm the page degrades cleanly (row hidden) rather than showing an empty value or error.

Rollout

• No database migration is required.
• Backend and frontend ship together. An older frontend talking to the updated backend simply ignores the extra field; an updated frontend talking to an older backend never receives the field and hides the row.

Risks & Notes

Risk	Mitigation
Runner name leaking sensitive info	Runner names are already visible to project members in the runner list; no new exposure.
Performance impact of the extra lookup on the task list	Done as a left join / cached lookup per page of tasks — negligible cost.
Front-end clutter	Row is hidden when there's no runner, so the existing layout is preserved for the common "already finished" case.

Follow-ups (not part of this plan)

• Show runner for finished tasks. Decide whether to preserve the runner assignment after a task ends — either by keeping runner_id populated, or by storing the runner name on the task row at assignment time. This is a separate decision because it affects data model and historical records.
• App-aware task parameters block (Terraform/Tofu/Terragrunt parameters, Ansible tags/skip tags) — orthogonal improvement to the same page.
• Build / source task link for deploy tasks that reference a build task.