… (#ws-persist)

When a user has the workspace panel open and refreshes the page after
clicking New Conversation (or on any empty/no-session boot), the panel
was unconditionally closed and the toggle button disabled — leaving them
with no way to reopen it except clicking a past conversation first.

Root cause: three issues in boot.js working together:

1. syncWorkspacePanelState() had a hard rule:
     if(!S.session) → _setWorkspacePanelMode('closed')
   This always closed the panel when there was no active session, ignoring
   whether the user had explicitly opened it.

2. The ephemeral-session guard path (refresh after New Conversation with
   no messages) called syncWorkspacePanelState() without first restoring
   the panel preference from localStorage — so _workspacePanelMode was
   still 'closed' going in, and the rule above left it closed.

3. The no-saved-session path (truly fresh load) had the same omission.

Fixes:

1. syncWorkspacePanelState(): when S.session is null and mode is 'browse',
   call syncWorkspacePanelUI() instead of force-closing. Only 'preview'
   mode (which requires an active session for the file content) is closed.

2. Both the ephemeral guard and no-saved-session paths now read panelPref
   from localStorage and set _workspacePanelMode='browse' before calling
   syncWorkspacePanelState() — matching exactly what the session-restore
   path already does.

3. canBrowse in syncWorkspacePanelUI() now includes S._profileDefaultWorkspace
   so the toggle button stays enabled when a profile workspace is configured
   (allows user to reopen the panel via button click).

4. openWorkspacePanel() guard updated to allow browse mode when
   S._profileDefaultWorkspace is set (same condition as canBrowse).

Affected paths:
  - Reload after clicking New Conversation (no messages sent yet)
  - First-ever page load with workspace pref='open'
  - Any reload where no session is stored in localStorage

Test updated: test_boot_sets_profile_default_workspace_in_settings_block
now searches for the specific assignment expression
(S._profileDefaultWorkspace=s.default_workspace) rather than any use of
the identifier — our new uses of _profileDefaultWorkspace further down
in the file were pushing the first-find far away from the settings block.

Static regression tests asserting the four invariants that prevent the
workspace panel from being silently force-closed on empty-session and
no-session boot paths:

  1. syncWorkspacePanelState force-closes only 'preview' mode without a
     session — 'browse' mode runs through syncWorkspacePanelUI() so the
     panel renders rather than vanishes.
  2. Both the empty-session guard path (#1182) and the no-saved-session
     path read 'hermes-webui-workspace-panel-pref' from localStorage
     before calling syncWorkspacePanelState().
  3. canBrowse in syncWorkspacePanelUI() includes
     S._profileDefaultWorkspace so the toggle button stays enabled when
     a profile workspace is configured.
  4. openWorkspacePanel('browse') early-return guard also includes
     S._profileDefaultWorkspace so the toggle button can actually open
     the panel.

These tests would have caught the original bug introduced when the
empty-session guard was added in #1182 without the corresponding panel
pref restoration.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <[email protected]>

Root cause: In renderMd(), fenced code blocks were rendered to
<pre><code> HTML early (right after the fence stash restore), then
exposed to subsequent markdown passes (lists, headings, tables, etc.).

When a fenced block contained list-like markers (e.g. diff hunks with
- removed lines, + added lines, or bash prompts starting with -), the
list regex would inject <ul><li> tags INSIDE the <pre><code> block,
breaking the </pre> closing tag and corrupting all subsequent message
rendering.

Fix: Split the fence stash into two phases:
- Inline backticks (\x00F): restored before bold/italic (unchanged behavior)
- Fenced blocks (\x00P): rendered to <pre><code> inside the stash
  callback, kept stashed until AFTER all markdown passes, then restored
  just before _pre_stash. This ensures diff/patch/list content inside
  code blocks is never misinterpreted as markdown.

Also preserves compatibility with upstream's rawPreStash (\x00R) which
protects existing <pre> blocks from streaming HTML.

Tests: 14 new tests covering diff blocks, bash prompts, list markers,
inline backticks, and headings after fenced blocks. All 2667 tests pass.

Fixes #1154