ADR-003: Admin Dashboard Modularization

Status: Completed Date: 2026-05-20 Deciders: Project team

Context

micboard/admin/dashboard.py was 2,431 lines — the single largest file in the project. It contained approximately 50+ HTMX-powered views, inline formsets, JSON endpoints, tabular displays, and chart rendering for the custom Django admin dashboard. The file handled chassis management, wireless unit CRUD, charger display, manufacturer configuration, discovery queue approval, settings diff, monitoring, and gap analysis — all mixed together.

Decision

Extract each major functional area into its own admin module under micboard/admin/. The extraction used the existing domain-based module pattern rather than creating a separate views/ subdirectory.

Result

The original dashboard.py views were distributed to per-domain modules:

Concern	Destination	Notes
Dashboard overview	Removed	Retained views were never registered and exposed global data
Chassis management	receivers.py	WirelessChassisAdmin
Wireless unit CRUD	channels.py	RFChannelAdmin, WirelessUnitAdmin
Discovery queue	discovery_admin.py	DiscoveryQueueAdmin
Charger display	chargers.py	ChargerAdmin
Manufacturer config	configuration.py	ManufacturerConfigurationAdmin
Monitoring/alerts	monitoring.py	DiscoveredDeviceAdmin, etc.
Settings	settings.py	SettingDefinitionAdmin
Gap analysis	Removed	The admin class and standalone view were never registered

No backward-compat shims were introduced (per AGENTS.md policy).

Consequences

• Positive: Each module independently navigable and testable. Merge conflicts reduced.
• Positive: Each admin module is registered against one domain and routes only to that domain’s models.
• Known: configuration.py (~240 lines), receivers.py (~432 lines) remain slightly over or near the 400-line target.
• Cleanup (2026-07-14): Removed the unreachable dashboard and gap-analysis modules, their template, DTOs, and tests. Neither module was imported, registered, or routed; retaining them would have preserved global unscoped data views as latent security hazards.
• Cleanup (2026-09-22): Splitting the file by domain did not make every admin module a thin presentation layer. receivers.py still owned the full bulk-deletion sequence — locking, grouped cleanup, hook suppression, and their ordering — with the authorization check running last. That work moved to ChassisBulkDeleteService, leaving the admin action three lines. The earlier claim that the reachable admin surface was “entirely domain-owned” described the registration layout, not where the logic lived.