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PlaceOnce.md

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status in-force
summary A `placeonce` package's picker card, and every FNS family member's, offers Place beside the tick. A placed tool lands and updates in this project like any other, but its install record says remember = 0, so "Set up like last time" never carries it into the next project.
since unreleased 2026-09-24

Place once

The problem. Ticking a tool in the picker makes it part of the project's setup. The toolkit root copies the installed table into the machine's last_install record on every save, and a fresh project offers "Set up like last time" from that record, or applies it unasked when the root's Always Set Up Like Last Time toggle is on. For most tools that is the point. For some it is not: a hardware integration (ParHoverMIDI_VSN1), a tool for one kind of project (TDXMap), an FNS family operator you want dropped into one network. Ticked once, those arrive in every new project. nopick keeps them out of bulk selections, but a tick the user made still counts as setup.

The answer. A package the catalog flags placeonce: true gets a second action on its picker card: place in this project only. The tick keeps its meaning, so a user who does want the tool every time still ticks it.

What each action does

Ticked Placed
Lands in this project yes yes
Updated by the updater yes yes
installed row, remember 1 0
In last_install, so in "Set up like last time" yes no
Card on the next picker open ticked "placed here · undo"

A tool both ticked and placed is simply ticked. Ticking a placed tool promotes it to part of the setup without reloading it. An FNS family member (placement none, which normally installs as a record only) is spawned into the network you are working in when placed, the way the OP Create dialog would drop it.

The data

  • Catalog: placeonce: true or absent, like nopick. Preflight (build_manifest.CatalogProblems) refuses any other value; the manifest carries only true. Set it in the CMS package editor ("Place once").
  • Selection (selection.json, posted by the picker): a place list beside tools. The served picker always writes the key, even empty, so it is the whole placed set: a placed tool left out of it is removed on Apply, the same way an unticked tool is. A selection without the key (Set up like last time, a pasted setup, the site's static picker, any older writer) knows nothing about placed tools, so ResolvePlan keeps them as they are.
  • Install record: the root's installed table gains a fifth column, remember. 1 or empty is part of the setup (every row written before the column existed reads empty and so stays exactly what it was), 0 is placed-only. RecordInstalled grows the column on an older table, and an update pass (which passes no remember) never changes it.
  • Root save (build_installer.CONFIG_CALLBACKS_TEXT): last_install skips remember == "0" rows.
  • Picker feed (GET /manifest.js): FNS_INSTALLED excludes placed-only tools, and FNS_PLACED lists them, so the page never pre-ticks one.

Decided (owner, 2026-09-24)

  1. Place is opt-in per package (the catalog flag), not on every card.
  2. A tick made on another machine is honoured: its last_install still carries the tool, because that tick was deliberate.
  3. A placed FNS family member spawns into the current network.
  4. Every FNS family member gets the Place button without the flag: a family operator is dropped into networks as often as you like, so it should never have to join the setup to be used once. The installer already places any tool the place list names; the page is the only gate (placeable() in the picker).
  5. "Place once" named the action, not the kind of tool. The picker's filter is Placeable: tools dropped into a network as nodes (a family member, a pane or root spawn, or a placeonce package), as opposed to services living in the toolkit container. The catalog key keeps its name; the CMS checkbox reads "Can be placed without joining the setup".

Fixed on the way

Install() ran RemoveTools only when the plan had a child COMP to remove (to_remove). A removal that is only an un-record (an unticked family member or pane component, and now an unplaced tool) was silently skipped and its record stayed, so the picker kept showing it installed. It now runs for to_unrecord too.