Seed used to have a Drafts page that listed all local document and comment drafts. We removed access to that page when document drafts moved into the normal document routes. As a result, users now have no single place to find all of their unfinished work.
The first proposal was to restore the page from the account menu and filter it by the currently selected account. That sounds consistent with an account menu, but the current data model cannot support it reliably:
Document drafts do not have a stable, typed owner. The write path receives a signingAccount, but this value is not part of the persisted draft content schema or the list index returned to the UI. It therefore cannot be used as a reliable ownership field.
The existing account-specific draft query filters by locationUid and editUid. These values identify the space or document that contains the work. They do not identify the account that created the draft.
Comment drafts have no owner or signer field. They only identify the document and comment context they target.
The selected account is application state. It can change while a draft exists and must not be treated as persisted ownership.
If we show only drafts inferred to belong to the selected account, users can lose sight of unfinished work without understanding why. Important edge cases include:
A user creates a draft with Account A, selects Account B: The draft might disappears from the page.
A user opens an existing draft after changing accounts. An autosave could make the current signer look like the owner, even though the user never requested a transfer.
Account A can edit a document in a space owned by Account B. when changing between those two accounts, how can we determine draft ownership?
A draft can move to another destination while its ownership should remain unchanged. We must be careful the draft destination is editable by the selected account. It's not clear what's the real user intent after moving: just change the draft location or also change draft ownership?
A comment draft targets a document but contains no data that says which account created it. We need to include this "ownership data" to comment drafts
Legacy drafts predate any ownership field. A strict account filter would need to hide them or guess an owner.
An account can be removed or become unavailable while its local drafts still exist. should we also remove them silently?
If we consider account selection a document change, we can get into the situation that one account that owns a draft might not be allowed to publish to its current destination. Ownership, destination, and publish authorization are separate concepts.
The core product risk is discoverability: changing accounts must not make users believe that a draft was deleted or does not exist
Solution
Restore a single Drafts page from the right account menu, but show all local drafts by default. Treat account ownership as useful metadata and publishing context, not as an access boundary. I also suggest to add a more powerful filtering controls, but that will work for drafts location and not about draft ownership.
Another solution can be to add a new switch control to the Explore, and instead of showing published documents, show Drafts there.
User-facing behavior
Add Drafts to the right account menu and open the restored Drafts page from it.
List both document drafts and comment drafts, sorted by most recent update.
Default the page to All accounts so every unfinished draft remains discoverable.
Keep the existing open and delete actions from the former page.
Do not automatically transfer ownership or switch the selected account when a draft is opened.
Show filter by type (document or comment), and location
User stories
As a user with several accounts, I can open Drafts and see all unfinished work without remembering which account was selected when I created it.
As a user, I can filter Drafts to one site when I need a focused view based on drafts location.
As a user who changes the selected account, I do not lose sight of existing drafts or transfer them by accident.
Acceptance criteria
The right account menu contains a Drafts item that opens the Drafts route.
The page shows all document and comment drafts by default and sorts them by most recent update.
Publishing still checks the chosen signer's real write access to the destination.
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