# BidBrain project status, part 9: Carwow purchases, Didn't win and the first suggested bid, v2.7.x (24 August 2026)

Moved unchanged from CLAUDE.md on 2026-09-18. The standing rules stay in CLAUDE.md, which lists every part of this log.

  - CARWOW WON PURCHASES GAINED EVERYTHING MOTORWAY'S ALREADY HAD, 2026-08-24, same day (Mark: "i want to add carwow won car info into bidbrain like motorway (purchase price, auction fee, delivery, pictures, v5 & service history)"). Real reconnaissance first, against a real logged in Carwow session (already authenticated via the daily automation profile, no need for Mark to be present, purely reading pages the daily run already visits): opened the Won tab, found 3 real purchases, opened one car's own `/dealers/listings/<id>` page and its `/documents` sub page, both never inspected before. Found Carwow's own equivalent of everything Motorway's purchase summary page already gives, in some ways more cleanly structured: a real itemised Payment breakdown (Vehicle price, Carwow Buyer's fee plus VAT, Transport fee plus VAT, Total you pay), a real 19 photo gallery (already read by the existing stock listing gallery function, same host, no new code needed there), and, on `/documents`, a single "Download all" link to a signed S3 zip bundling every uploaded document with genuinely clear, reliable real filenames (`service_record_N_...`, `v5c_logbook_N_...`, `dashboard_photo_...`, `driving_licence_N_...`, `car_keys_photo_...`, `chassis_number_photo_...`), confirmed by actually downloading and unzipping a real bundle rather than guessed.
    - `bidbrain/readers/carwow.py` gained three new functions. `read_purchase_breakdown(page, listing_id)` visits `/documents` and reads the real payment breakdown (its own pure text parsing pulled out as `_parse_purchase_breakdown(text)`, testable without a browser, the same split Motorway's own `_money_after`/`_vat_total_from_lines` already use), returning a dict shaped exactly like `motorway.read_purchase_breakdown`'s own so it can reuse the SAME generic payment columns in `bidbrain/db.py`'s `_PURCHASE_PAYMENT_FIELDS` (`motorway_fee` stands in for Carwow's own Buyer's fee, `protect_fee` always None, Carwow has no equivalent). `read_purchase_gallery(page, listing_id)` visits the plain listing page and reuses `_gallery_photos_from_html` unchanged. `read_purchase_documents(page, listing_id, out_dir)` downloads the zip via the browser's own request context (never urllib, the same certificate store gap already worked around for DealerKit), extracts only files starting with `service_record_` or `v5c_logbook_` (`_WANTED_DOCUMENT_PREFIXES`), and deliberately leaves everything else in the bundle alone, driving licence above all, seller PII never captured anywhere in this project.
    - A genuine design decision, not just a port of Motorway's shape: Motorway's own V5 and service history are stored as PERMANENT imgix URLs (re-fetched fresh by DealerKit at push time), but Carwow's zip download link is a short lived SIGNED url (a real 48 hour expiry seen on it), so storing that link for a later push risks the exact staleness bug already learned the hard way for Motorway ("read fresh, push immediately, in the same tight loop, never store a link for later"). Chosen fix here: download and extract the zip immediately, during the same daily capture pass that reads the breakdown and gallery, to a real persistent local directory (`data/purchase_docs/<reg>/`, newly gitignored, real seller documents, never committed), and store the LOCAL FILE PATHS in a new `document_paths` column (`bidbrain/db.py`, added to `_PURCHASE_OWN_FIELDS`, same fill once never overwrite behaviour as every other field there, JSON encoded list, decoded back in `list_purchases`), sidestepping the staleness question entirely rather than reproducing it.
    - `purchases_run.py`'s `read_all()` gained a Carwow block mirroring Motorway's own payment breakdown block exactly in shape (one continuous Carwow session for every genuine, non voided purchase with a `vehicle_ref`, each read wrapped so one car's failure never stops the batch). `bidbrain/dealerkit_write.py` gained `upload_local_documents(page, vehicle_id, file_paths)` (the plural sibling of the existing `upload_local_document`, built for the Delivery Report PDF) and `push_purchase` now also uploads a purchase's own `document_paths` alongside the existing url based `service_history_photos`/`v5_photos`, added to the same running document count. `purchases_run.push_dealerkit`'s own printed summary line was corrected, it used to say "V5 not uploaded, not sourced anywhere in BidBrain yet" unconditionally, now only for a platform that genuinely has neither sourced (Auction4Cars, Dealer Auction, DealerWay, none of which feed this table at all today).
    - Verified live end to end against all 3 real current Carwow purchases, not just the unit tests: GU68XPP got a full breakdown (£10,322 winning bid, £369 fee, £123 transport, £97 VAT), 19 real photos and 7 real documents (4 service records, 3 V5C pages); OY19KHD got its own full breakdown, 18 photos and 3 V5C pages with genuinely unusual real filenames (a seller's own WhatsApp screenshot exports, `v5c_logbook_1_WhatsApp Image ....jpeg`), proving the prefix based filter is not fragile to Motorway-shaped naming assumptions; BT16TYV correctly returned an empty breakdown and no documents (still mid document review on Carwow's own side) while its photo gallery still read fine independently, proving the three reads fail independently rather than one blocking the others. All real downloaded documents confirmed genuinely gitignored (`git check-ignore -v`), never at risk of being committed. 10 new tests (`_parse_purchase_breakdown` against synthetic lines matching the real page structure, including the no-breakdown-yet case; the document filename filter checked against all 9 real filenames seen in the real bundle, confirming exactly the 4 wanted ones are kept and driving licence specifically is never among them). 388 tests pass.
    - Not yet done, deliberately left for a later session: an actual DealerKit push of a Carwow purchase through this new pipeline has not been tried live yet, only the capture side (`purchases_run.py` populating the database) has been proven end to end; `push_purchase`'s own new `upload_local_documents` call is code reviewed and unit tested but not yet watched running for real, matching Mark's own original "test one, watch it, then automatic" plan for the Motorway push before it was ever trusted.
  - CARWOW'S OWN WON LISTINGS SCREEN WAS ONLY EVER SHOWING 3 CARDS, THREE SEPARATE REAL BUGS FOUND AND FIXED, 2026-08-24, same day, right after the feature above shipped (Mark: "im only showing 3 records for cars won in carwow"). Investigated live rather than guessed, and found the real total was 32, not 3, confirmed against the page's own stats turbo-frame (`/dealers/listings/filtered/won/stats`, "32 deals... Total: £226,603.60"). Three separate, genuine causes, not one:
    1. Each won card is its own lazy loaded `<turbo-frame>` (32 on the page, one per car), only the ones inside the initial viewport actually fetch their real content when the page first loads (3, matching what was being read); the other 29 sit as empty shells until scrolled into view. `read_won` now scrolls every frame's own element into view (triggering Turbo's own real client side fetch, the same thing a human scrolling the page would cause, rather than reimplementing turbo-frame fetching by hand) and polls (up to 20s) until every frame has genuinely swapped in real content, rather than reading the page as it first rendered.
    2. `parse_won`'s own per card text was truncated to the first 30000 characters, a limit that turned out to be too short for some real cards (one with an extra action menu modal in its own markup had its real "Sold for" price line sitting at character 33219, past the cutoff), silently losing the price and dropping the whole row (a real purchase with no readable price never passes `parse_won`'s own gate check). No truncation any more.
    3. One further reg genuinely never matched at all: `VMO 325Y`, an old suffix style plate (3 letters, 3 digits, 1 letter, most likely a private plate carried onto an otherwise modern car), one character longer in its second half than the reg detection regex allowed (`[A-Z0-9]{1,3}`, widened to `{1,4}`).
    - Also widened the "Date Won" window read to the page's own maximum, 90 days (`won_date=90`, a real `<select>` on the page, confirmed live: the default was actually 30 days, not the 7 first suspected, "12 deals" at 30 days versus "32 deals" at 90), baked into a new `WON_URL_WIDE` constant `read_won` now navigates to directly rather than the plain unfiltered `WON_URL`.
    - Verified live end to end against the real account, iterating the fix twice as each layer was found: `read_won` went from 3 rows to 31 (frame loading fixed) to 32 (truncation and old plate format both fixed too), exactly matching the real "32 deals" stat with no further gap. Of the 32, 23 are genuine purchases and 9 are voided (cancelled) sales, correctly still captured (never skipped) so `_is_cancelled` can route them to `walked_away` and suppress them for good, matching Mark's own separate note the same conversation, "dont add 'Sale Cancelled'": a voided/cancelled Carwow sale was never at risk of being treated as a real purchase (`_is_cancelled` already matches "void" inside Carwow's own `data-listing-state="voided"`, confirmed still correct), the bug was only ever that most of these 9 (and the 23 real purchases) were not being READ at all before today.
    - 2 new tests (the old suffix plate format, and a real card with padding well past the old 30000 character cutoff still correctly finding its price). 390 tests pass. Not re verified at this larger scale through the full `purchases_run.py` pipeline (payment breakdown, gallery and document bundle for all 23 real purchases, which would mean a real multi minute run downloading real documents for every one of them just to prove a count), the fix lives entirely in `read_won`/`parse_won`, already proven directly and repeatedly against the real account; `purchases_run.py`'s own downstream logic is unchanged and was already proven correct on 3 real cars earlier the same day.
    - Released as v2.7.1 (Mark: "make sure not to push a v2.8 release until i say only update to v2.7.1 then v2.7.2 with these changes until i say new stable verison"), a patch on v2.7 rather than a new numbered release, the same discipline as v2.6.1/v2.6.2 on v2.6.
  - PURCHASES PAGE THUMBNAILS MISSING FOR THE 3 REAL CARWOW PURCHASES, 2026-08-24, same day, right after the Carwow won purchase details feature shipped (Mark: "also 3 pictures arent showing in the purchase section of bidbrain"). Real live check against the actual purchases page confirmed it: all 3 real Carwow rows read "No photo" despite genuinely having a full 14 to 19 photo gallery each, already correctly stored (proven by opening the gallery modal, which worked fine). Root cause found in `render.py`'s own purchases page JS: the row thumbnail `<img>` was only ever built when `r.photo_url` (a single field) was set, never falling back to `r.photo_urls` (the full gallery) the way the click-through gallery modal right next to it already does. Motorway's own purchases always set both fields (`read_purchase_photo` for the single one, `read_purchase_gallery` for the full list), so this gap was invisible until Carwow's own purchases arrived, which only ever populate the gallery.
    - Fixed at the render layer, not by making Carwow's own capture redundantly set a second field: `const thumbSrc = r.photo_url || (gallery.length ? gallery[0] : null);`, the thumbnail now built from `thumbSrc` instead of `r.photo_url` directly, so a purchase that only ever has a gallery (any platform, not just Carwow) gets a real thumbnail too, not just a working click-through.
    - Verified live end to end in a real browser against the real running purchases page: all 3 Carwow rows (GU68XPP, BT16TYV, OY19KHD) now show a genuine `<img class="thumb">` sourced from their own gallery's first photo, confirmed by reading the actual rendered DOM, not just the generated HTML string. 2 new tests (the fallback expression and the img build both present in the generated page). 392 tests pass.
    - Released as v2.7.2, another patch on v2.7, same discipline as above.
  - CARWOW'S OWN PAYMENT BREAKDOWN COLLAPSES TWICE MORE AS A PURCHASE AGES, TWO MORE REAL SHAPES FOUND AND FIXED, 2026-08-24, same day (Mark, once the fixed reader was actually run for real: "yes but it still only has 3 cars i want all the cars from the last 90 days added"). The read_won fix above only fixed the LIST, the database itself still only held the original 3 rows from before the fix, so a real capture was needed: `python3 purchases_run.py --baseline --carwow` (baseline, not a normal run, since these are 20 genuinely historical purchases being captured for the first time, not new buys from today, so nothing was emailed to accounts about them). That first real run stored all 23 real purchases correctly, but only got a payment breakdown for 4 of them, surfacing two more real page shapes never seen during the original build (which only ever tested against 3 very recent purchases):
    1. Once a sale reaches "collected" (fully paid), Carwow's own `/documents` page relabels "Vehicle price" to "**Final vehicle price**", adds a real payment date, and "Proof of purchase"/"Invoice" download links. `_purchase_money` gained the ability to try several labels in turn (kept the wait_for_selector unchanged, Playwright's own `text=` already does substring matching so it was already finding "Final vehicle price" fine, only the exact list lookup in `_parse_purchase_breakdown` needed widening). Fixed 11 more cars, 4 to 15 of 23.
    2. Old enough purchases (a real example: "Won 2 months ago") lose the itemised breakdown from `/documents` ENTIRELY, replaced by just a collapsed, empty "Bank details" section, no vehicle price or fees shown anywhere on that page any more. The plain listing page still carries a real, if less detailed, headline: "Sale agreed for £4,760.00". `read_purchase_breakdown` now falls back to it when `/documents` has nothing, filling only `winning_bid`, leaving the fee fields honestly `None` rather than guessing a breakdown that no longer exists anywhere. Fixed the remaining 7 (one more, BT16TYV, is genuinely still mid document review on Carwow's own side, correctly still empty, not a bug).
    - Verified live end to end, twice more (running the real capture again after each fix to prove the improvement, not just the isolated function): 4 of 23 to 15 of 23 to 23 of 23, every real Carwow purchase in the database now has a real price, confirmed directly against the database afterward each time, not just the run's own printed count.
    - 4 new tests (a completed sale's "Final vehicle price" reading the same as "Vehicle price", plus every other figure alongside it; the "Sale agreed for £X" regex finding a real figure and correctly matching nothing on an unrelated page). 396 tests pass.
    - Released as v2.7.3, another patch on v2.7, same discipline as above.
  - CARWOW PURCHASES GAINED MILEAGE, A CAZANA BASED RETAIL ESTIMATE, AND A SEPARATE V5 COLUMN, 2026-08-24, same day (Mark: "you need to pull in the mileage and add the cazana 115% value so you can apply the same logic to the Retail estimate, also add a colume for V5 and pull that in ready to push to DK when we map that"). Motorway's own purchases already get a Cazana based retail estimate when BidBrain's own recent run cache has no assessment to fall back on (`dealer_retail_price`, Cazana retail times 1.15 plus £500, see the earlier entry), keyed off a mileage `motorway.read_purchase_breakdown` reads off the same page. Carwow's own list card carries the same figure too, confirmed live ("2018 / 78,368 / Diesel", the bare number sitting between the year and the fuel type), just never extracted before.
    - `carwow.parse_won` gained a `mileage` field, detected by that exact 3 line shape (year, then a comma grouped number, then a known fuel type straight after), never guessed elsewhere on the card. `purchases_run.py`'s existing `need_cazana` block (built for Motorway alone) widened from `platform == "Motorway"` to `platform in ("Motorway", "Carwow")`, otherwise unchanged, the mileage is already there in memory from `parse_won` by the time this block runs so no extra page visit is needed for Carwow either.
    - V5 was already being downloaded as part of the same document bundle as service records (`document_paths`, built earlier the same day), just never separated out. Split at the point they are already being sorted by their own real filename prefix (`purchases_run.py`, no reader change needed): `service_record_` stays in `document_paths`, `v5c_logbook_` now goes to a new `v5_local_paths` column (`bidbrain/db.py`, same local file path, fill once never overwrite shape as `document_paths`). `dealerkit_write.push_purchase` now uploads both together. The purchases page gained a real V5 column (a page count, or "–"), separate from Service history, unifying Motorway's own url based `v5_photos` and Carwow's local path based `v5_local_paths` into one column since both are just "how many V5 pages are on file" from the reader's point of view, matching Mark's own framing, "ready to push to DK when we map that" (the actual DealerKit document type mapping, so an uploaded V5 page lands labelled "V5C" rather than "Other Document Type", stays on the roadmap, unbuilt).
    - Verified live end to end against the real 23 Carwow purchases, not just the unit tests: re ran the real capture (`purchases_run.py --baseline --carwow`) after building this, mileage read for every one of them, and the Cazana lookup correctly ran only for whichever cars had no BidBrain assessment to fall back on already, matching the exact same conditional Motorway's own retail estimate has always used, never guessed. Verified the new V5 column shows a real count against the real live purchases page in a browser (not just the generated HTML).
    - 2 new tests (mileage reads correctly from the real 3 line shape; a card with no readable mileage anywhere is correctly `None`, never guessed). 398 tests pass.
  - A "SYNC NOW" BUTTON ON THE PURCHASES PAGE, AND A REAL 3:45PM DAILY SCHEDULE, 2026-08-24, same day (Mark: "add a sync button to manually check if any purchases were made today or update status's, also check motorway and carwow at 3:45 for daily won auctions and add in to our purchases section"). `purchases_run.py` had NEVER been scheduled on Mark's own Mac at all (the "still to do" note at the top of this file was honest about it, only `com.bidbrain.serve` and the two daily car reading slots were ever actually set up), despite the script's own docstring describing a 3:50pm design intent from the very start. New `com.bidbrain.purchases.plist`, `~/Library/LaunchAgents`, fires at 15:45 (a few minutes earlier than the script's own documented 3:50pm target, both platforms' own sales close at 3:30pm and the win screens populate about 15 minutes later per the script's own docstring, Mark's own explicit time), running the exact same `python3 purchases_run.py` a person would type by hand: reads both platforms' own purchases screens, updates every existing row's status and payment breakdown, and emails accounts about anything genuinely new.
    - `serve.py` gained `_purchases_proc`, folded into the existing `_any_proc_busy()` set (purchases_run.py opens the same shared Motorway/Carwow browser profile as everything else) and the `/api/stop-run` kill list, a new `POST /api/run-purchases` (headless, no headed window needed, unlike Glass's or DealerKit, since nothing here needs Mark to log in interactively) and `purchases_running` on `GET /api/run-status`.
    - `render_purchases()` gained a "Sync now" button in its own top bar, running the identical real command the 3:45pm schedule does (so a genuinely new purchase found mid session still emails accounts, exactly as the real scheduled run would), polling run status every 3s and reloading the table once done; also picks up and reflects a sync already in progress (started from another tab, or the daily schedule itself) on page load, rather than only ever finding out after clicking the button.
    - Verified live: the new plist passes `plutil -lint`, loads cleanly, and `launchctl print` confirms the real registered `calendarinterval` (Hour 15, Minute 45) and the correct `purchases_run.py` command with no arguments (the normal daily invocation, real email included, not `--baseline` or `--dry-run`, since Mark's own words describe this as the same real daily check, not a one off backfill). The button itself and the new V5 column were both confirmed live in a real browser against the real running purchases page. Not yet proven by an actual real 15:45 firing, worth checking `data/logs/purchases.log` the day after this ships.
  - PURCHASES PAGE RETAIL ESTIMATE INCONSISTENCY FOUND AND FIXED, PLUS THE PAGE'S OWN NAV BAR AND RESPONSIVENESS BROUGHT IN LINE WITH THE COCKPIT, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.5 (Mark: "OY19KHD & BT16TYV dont have cazana figures and so the retail est is blank or wrong, also i think the same nav bar design as the main page should be used it frees up more space having the toggles up there and keeps UI the same, also make the rest of the page resposive", then separately "the page should have a filter for search by reg, make, model etc, also date"). Checked the two real cars directly rather than guessed: both had a `retail_estimate` on file but no `cazana_115`, and neither figure ended in a real dealer price ending (`,995`/`,495`/`,295`/`,795`), the tell that `_retail_map()` in `purchases_run.py` had silently sourced `retail_estimate` from the `assessments` table's own `governing_value` instead of the intended `dealer_retail_price(cazana_retail)` formula (Cazana retail times 1.15 plus £500, Mark's own confirmed resale pricing rule, see the 2026-08-21 entry). `governing_value` answers a different question, the most BidBrain would BID, using whichever of Glass's or Cazana governed plus the buying brain's own capping rules, not a resale price, and since it was set BEFORE the `need_cazana` filter ran (which only tries a Cazana lookup when `retail_estimate is None`), any purchase BidBrain had recently assessed for buying purposes silently skipped the real Cazana lookup this report needed. Checked the `assessments` table's own schema to see if a raw Cazana figure could be reverse derived instead of a fresh lookup: it cannot, only `governing_value` and `governing_source` are stored, no separate raw retail figure.
    - Fixed in `purchases_run.py`: `_retail_map()`'s `governing_value` map is no longer used to set `retail_estimate` at all (its photo fallback map is untouched, unrelated), so every purchase without one yet now genuinely goes through the same live Cazana lookup and `dealer_retail_price()` formula, matching every other row's own basis. `retail_estimate` and `cazana_115` still fill in once and never change after (`db._PURCHASE_OWN_FIELDS`, unchanged), so a purchase already correctly priced this way on an earlier run is skipped, not re looked up. The two already wrong rows had their locked `retail_estimate` cleared directly in the database (a targeted, explicit correction, not a blanket wipe) so the next sync recomputed them properly.
    - Caught a real, separate hang while verifying this live: a re run of `purchases_run.py --dry-run` sat for over 14 minutes with zero output and near zero CPU, matching this project's own documented "genuinely unresponsive headless Chromium" category. Found the real cause this time rather than just Stopping and retrying: a stale Chrome `LOCK` file (plus `SingletonLock`/`SingletonCookie`/`SingletonSocket`) sitting in `data/browser_profile/Default/`, left behind by an earlier killed process with no live process actually holding it (confirmed via `ps`, no chromium process running at all), silently blocking Motorway's own persistent profile browser launch forever. Removed the stale lock files and re ran; the process then showed genuine climbing CPU and real Chrome renderer/network/gpu subprocesses within seconds, and completed in a few minutes with the expected real output (`Motorway: 25 purchases`, `Carwow: 32 purchases`, `Looking up Cazana retail for 44 purchases with no recent BidBrain valuation`, `48 purchases stored`). Worth remembering for a future case of this same "stuck with zero output" pattern: check for a stale profile lock with no real process behind it before assuming the browser itself is hung. Verified in the database directly afterward: OY19KHD now reads retail_estimate £11,795 / cazana_115 £11,324.05, BT16TYV £12,495 / £11,941.60, both real, both consistent with every other Carwow purchase's own basis.
    - The purchases page's own top bar (a dark `.topbar` plus a separate `.tabs` chip row plus a separate `.summary` row, all stacked) is replaced with a single sticky `.controls` bar copying the cockpit's own shape and class names (`.brand`, `.tabs`/`.tab`, `.settingslink`), so the two pages read as one product: the BidBrain wordmark, the All/Motorway/Carwow tabs, a new filter row (search box plus a bought date range, Mark's second ask, `render()` now filters `ALL` by a case insensitive reg-or-name substring match and an inclusive `bought_date` string range before slicing by platform tab, since `bought_date` is already a plain `YYYY-MM-DD` string on every row from both readers, a `resetFilters()` clears all three), then Sync now and Back to the cockpit pushed right via the same `margin-left:auto` pattern the cockpit's own Run now button already uses. A small `.daterange` wrapper keeps the two date inputs and their "to" label together as one flex item, added after a first version let them split apart awkwardly on a narrow width.
    - Responsiveness: this page had NO media query at all before this (confirmed by inspection), unlike the cockpit's own 860px sidebar breakpoint. New 760px breakpoint reflows the control bar's own filters and actions to full width, and trims table cell padding, thumbnail size and the photo gallery's nav button size so a phone has more room; the table itself already scrolled sideways within its own `.tablewrap` rather than the whole page, confirmed still true at 375px (`document.body.scrollWidth` equals the viewport width, no page level horizontal scroll).
    - Verified live end to end in a real browser (desktop and the 375px mobile preset) against the real running server (restarted `com.bidbrain.serve`): the new control bar renders correctly, searching "peugeot" correctly narrowed 107 purchases to the 11 real Peugeot 3008s, setting the date range's own "on or after" field to 2026-08-20 correctly narrowed to the 5 real cars bought on or since then, Reset restored the full list, and the mobile layout stacks cleanly with the date range staying grouped. 398 tests pass (no regressions; this round's fix and layout changes had no dedicated new tests, `render_purchases()` and `purchases_run.py`'s own retail estimate logic have never had unit test coverage, verified live only, matching this project's own established pattern for anything requiring a real platform read).
  - TABLE STILL SCROLLED ON A WIDE MONITOR EVEN AFTER THE NAV BAR WORK ABOVE, FIXED, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.6 (Mark: "you still have to scroll to see all columes use all the monitors width if size size allows so no scrolling"). Checked properly with a real 1920px viewport rather than guessed: `.wrap`'s own `max-width:1560px` cap from v2.7.5 was well under a normal wide monitor's real available width, so widened it to `3560px` (matching the cockpit's own ultrawide cap) so a real monitor gets to use its own space, the same reasoning already applied to the cockpit's card grid on 2026-08-20. That alone was not enough: even at the full available 1863px the real table content measured 1997px, a 134px genuine overflow, traced to the "Service history" column growing without any limit at all (`.history-thumbs`, one 30px thumbnail plus a 4px gap per photo on file, up to 360px wide on a car with a long history) rather than to the width cap. Capped `.history-thumbs` to `max-width:140px` with its own `overflow-x:auto`, so a row with more photos than fit scrolls sideways within its own small cell instead of stretching the whole table; also gave the Vehicle column a `max-width` with ellipsis and a hover title (a long derivative name was the next largest contributor) and trimmed cell padding slightly. `.tablewrap`'s own `overflow-x:auto` stays as the fallback for whatever genuinely still does not fit on a narrower window, unchanged from v2.7.5.
    - Verified live at a real 1920px viewport (not just eyeballed): before the fix, `wrap.scrollWidth` (1997px) exceeded `wrap.clientWidth` (1863px), a real 134px overflow producing a scrollbar and clipping the V5 column off screen; after, both read 1863px exactly, `hasHorizontalScroll` false, all 16 columns including V5 visible with no scrollbar, confirmed both by the DOM measurement and a screenshot. Re checked at a genuinely narrow 1280px width (a real laptop size) to prove the fallback still works as intended: `.tablewrap` itself scrolled (1689 vs 1223px) while the page's own body stayed within the viewport (1265 of 1280px, no whole page scroll), exactly the same graceful degradation as before, just no longer needed on a screen with real room to spare. 398 tests pass (render only, no gate or pricing logic touched).
  - CARWOW SERVICE HISTORY WAS CAPTURED BUT NEVER SHOWN, PLUS STALE MIXED UP DATA CLEANED, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.7 (Mark: "you havent pulled the service history in from carwow purchases"). Checked the real database first rather than assumed the capture itself was broken: Carwow's own service records were genuinely there (`document_paths`, real local files under `data/purchase_docs/<reg>/`, downloaded and extracted at capture time back on 2026-08-24 earlier the same day, see the CARWOW WON PURCHASES entry). The real bug was in `render.py`'s own Service history column, which only ever read `r.service_history_photos` (Motorway's own url based field) and never once looked at `r.document_paths` (Carwow's local file based one), so every Carwow purchase's real, already downloaded service history simply never rendered.
    - The fix needed a real path to a browser loadable url, not just reading the field: checked live whether `data/purchase_docs/...` is actually reachable over HTTP from the running server, and it is, `serve.py`'s `CockpitHandler` falls through to the stock `http.server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler.do_GET()` for anything it does not handle itself, which serves the whole project root as static files, no extra route needed, proven with a direct `curl` returning a real 200 and the file's own byte size. New `localDocUrl(absPath)` in the page's own JS turns an absolute local path into the relative, percent encoded url this page can load (splits on `/` and encodes each segment separately, never the slashes, so a real filename with spaces or brackets, a seller's own WhatsApp export for example, still resolves correctly), returns null for anything not under `data/purchase_docs/`. The Service history column now builds its photo list from `r.service_history_photos` concatenated with `(r.document_paths || []).map(localDocUrl).filter(Boolean)`, so both platforms show real clickable thumbnails in the same shared gallery modal. The V5 column, which had been a plain page count specifically because a local path was thought not to be loadable inline (see the 2026-08-24 build entry above), got the identical treatment now that it is known to be, real thumbnails instead of just a count.
    - A second, real, separate data problem surfaced while verifying this: 13 of the 23 real Carwow purchases had `document_paths` (meant to hold only `service_record_` files) ALSO carrying `v5c_logbook_` files, one (OY19KHD) holding nothing but V5 pages mislabelled as service history. This predates the split logic (`purchases_run.py`'s current code correctly filters `service_docs`/`v5_docs` by filename prefix into their own separate fields, and was already correct going forward), a leftover from an earlier version of the capture before that split existed, locked in for good by the fill once never overwrite convention (`db._PURCHASE_OWN_FIELDS`) once first set. Cleaned directly in the database (kept only `service_record_` prefixed entries in `document_paths` for every affected row, same targeted, explicit correction pattern as the retail_estimate fix earlier this session, not a blanket wipe), verified afterward that every affected reg's `document_paths` now holds only real service records and its `v5_local_paths` already correctly held the V5 pages separately.
    - Verified live end to end against the real running server: GU68XPP's own real API response now shows 4 real service records cleanly separated from 3 real V5 pages (was 7 mixed together); the rendered page shows 4 real, fully loaded thumbnails (`naturalWidth > 0` checked directly, not just present in the DOM) in the Service history column and 3 in the V5 column; clicking one opens the same shared gallery modal correctly showing "1 / 4" with the real image loaded. 398 tests pass (render only; `render_purchases()` and the purchases table's own document fields have never had unit test coverage, verified live only, matching this project's own established pattern for anything requiring a real captured document).
  - CARWOW PUSHED TO DEALERKIT THE SAME WAY AS MOTORWAY, BUILD STARTED, 2026-08-24, same day (Mark: "now we have all our carwow data, i want you to add any missing vehicles to dealerkit the same way i showed you like motorway (purchase price, delivery fee, auction fee, retail price, add 3 photos & add service history and v5), then go back through all the carwow purchase entries in bidbrain and make sure all the (purchase price, delivery fee, auction fee, & add service history and v5) [is complete], on this is complete add a button to the row to show its all been synced to DK, this button can also act as a manual push for that vehicle only to be pushed when pressed, the sync now button should also open a modal to allow for full syncing of motorway or carwow together or indivually, this will allow for later auctions to be done the same way"). Four asks bundled together, shipped in stages as the DealerKit dependent parts need a live session (see below):
    - THE UI HALF, SHIPPED as v2.7.8: `push_purchase()` (`bidbrain/dealerkit_write.py`) was already fully platform agnostic (Purchase Price from `winning_bid`/`price`, photos from `photo_urls`, documents from url based fields concatenated with local path based ones), built during the earlier Carwow work the same day, so no code change was needed there for a single vehicle push to already work identically for Carwow. What was missing was reachability: a per row push button and a way to sync just one platform.
      - New serve.py `POST /api/push-dealerkit` (`_push_dealerkit_one`), a per reg trigger running `python3 purchases_run.py --push-dealerkit REG` as its own subprocess, sharing `_dealerkit_purchases_proc` (and so the same busy flag and shared browser profile lock) with the existing bulk "Push purchases to DealerKit" button, since both ultimately drive the one DealerKit window.
      - `POST /api/run-purchases` gained an optional `platforms` list (`["motorway"]`/`["carwow"]`/both), passed straight through as `purchases_run.py`'s own pre existing `--motorway`/`--carwow` flags (already supported, just never exposed over the API); missing or both means the same full sync as before, unchanged.
      - `render_purchases()`: the "Sync now" button now opens a modal (`#syncmodal-overlay`, reusing the cockpit's own `.runmodal` class names and shape verbatim even though the two pages share no stylesheet, so it reads as the same product) with an All plus per platform checkbox pair, `confirmSync()` sending `{platforms:[...]}` only when a genuine subset is chosen, the plain `{}` body otherwise, matching the existing full sync path exactly. Each row gained a `.dkbtn` (grey "Push to DK", green "Synced" once `dealerkit_pushed_at` is set), `pushDealerkit(btn)` posting to the new endpoint and reloading the whole table once done (so a fresh purchase price or photo count picked up by the push shows immediately, not just the sync flag); a synced row's own button still works, with a confirm dialog first since a click there is a deliberate re push, not the initial one.
      - Verified live in a real browser: the modal opens, unticking Motorway automatically unticks All and re ticking (via the platform checkboxes) automatically re ticks it back, `confirmSync()` with only Carwow checked posts the correct `{"platforms":["carwow"]}` body (checked by intercepting `fetch` rather than letting a real 15 minute platform read actually fire, this is a read only sync, not a write, but a live one still takes real minutes so was not run to completion just to prove the wiring). A real Carwow row's own DK button correctly shows grey "Push to DK" (none of the 23 real Carwow purchases have ever been pushed yet, `dealerkit_pushed_at` is null on all of them). The new column did not reopen the horizontal scroll just fixed in v2.7.6: still exactly 1863px at a real 1920px viewport, `hasScroll` false, confirmed the same way as that fix. 398 tests pass (render and serve.py routing only, no gate or pricing logic touched, no dedicated new tests, matching this file's own established pattern for anything needing a real DealerKit session to actually exercise).
    - THE DATA PART, BLOCKED ON A DEAD SESSION, not yet shipped. Before touching anything, checked whether any of the 23 real Carwow purchases are already in DealerKit and audited what is actually still missing on the ones that are, the same way the big Motorway audit was done on 2026-08-23. Found both of DealerKit's own saved logins on this Mac dead: the persistent automation profile (`browser.open_context`, what every write in this project actually uses) and the separately saved `dealerkit_state.json` (`browser.open_reader_context`, used by lighter read only passes) both returned the real sign in page rather than the stocklist API, confirmed directly (a plain authenticated `GET /api/stocklist` returned a login page's own HTML, not JSON, from both). Opened a fresh relogin window via the existing `POST /api/relogin` (site dealerkit, the same one click mechanism built 2026-08-24 earlier the same session) rather than guess a workaround; the window's own 300s wait expired unused (`login_running` back to false with nobody having said "logged in"), so this is now waiting on Mark to actually complete a real login before any of the remaining work can proceed.
    - PLANNED, once logged in: (1) a single live test push (one real Carwow purchase, chosen for having a genuinely complete breakdown already, most likely GU68XPP) through the now working `push_purchase()`, then inspect the resulting DealerKit expense record's own contact via the API, since unlike Motorway there is no live Carwow integration in DealerKit auto creating a "Carwow" attributed expense, so it is not yet known whether the due in creation leaves a contact free expense needing one assigned, or none at all requiring `add_missing_expense_items`'s own "+ EXPENSE" path instead of its current "edit an existing supplier's expense" one. (2) Extending `add_missing_expense_items` (or a Carwow specific sibling if the expense creation path turns out to be genuinely different, not just a different supplier string) to add Delivery Charge (`transport_fee`) and Buyers Premium (`motorway_fee`, Carwow's own buyer fee stored under the same generic column name Motorway's uses) as itemised lines, the exact same "Unit Net figure plus S - Standard VAT Tariff, DealerKit computes the gross itself" convention already proven correct and audited across 71 real Motorway expenses on 2026-08-23, no new VAT arithmetic needed, Carwow simply has no indemnity_fee equivalent (`protect_fee` is always None for this platform). (3) Running the real batch, one continuous DealerKit session for all 23 (the same "never a fresh session per car, it reads as a logout" lesson already learned for Glass's and DealerKit both), verifying via the API afterward the same way every other DealerKit write in this project has been, not trusted from the script's own printed summary alone.
  - DEALERKIT SESSION MECHANISM FOUND BROKEN, FIXED, THEN THE FULL CARWOW PUSH COMPLETED, PLUS A REAL DUPLICATE VEHICLE BUG FOUND, FIXED AND CLEANED UP, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.9. Continuing the blocked work above: Mark completed a fresh DealerKit relogin twice (see the Integrations relogin entries earlier this file), and BOTH attempts left the automation's own persistent profile still logged out, confirmed directly (navigating to `/vehicles` still bounced to `/login`, `GET /api/stocklist` still returned the sign in page's HTML). Set up real diagnostics rather than guess a third time: a headed session with a `page.on("response", ...)` listener watching for the real login POST, run with Mark actually completing the login inside it. Found the real cause: `dealerkit_session`'s own cookie carries `expires=-1`, a genuine browser SESSION cookie (checked directly via `ctx.cookies()`), which Chrome never persists to the profile's own disk store across a restart, the same category `browser.state_path`'s own docstring already names for Carwow, DealerKit had simply never been treated the same way. Every DealerKit write in this project (`dealerkit_pass`, `dealerkit_purchases_pass`, and by extension every push done across the whole project's history) had been opening `browser.open_context` (the persistent profile) for it regardless, meaning an automated DealerKit pass only ever actually worked when some OTHER still open window happened to be carrying a live session, never reliably its own. Fixed two ways: (1) `browser.open_reader_context` gained an `extra_args` parameter (for a positioned headed window, `_login_win_args`), forwarded on both its branches, so it is now a full substitute for `open_context` everywhere DealerKit is used; (2) `daily_run.dealerkit_pass()` and `dealerkit_purchases_pass()` switched from `browser.open_context` to `browser.open_reader_context(p, "dealerkit", ...)`, which uses the saved `dealerkit_state.json` (now genuinely kept fresh by every login, `ctx.storage_state` was already being called, it just was not the context anything actually browsed with) rather than the profile. `lecapital_funding_pass()` was NOT touched, it drives DealerKit from within the SAME context as its own LE Capital session by design, a different, more tangled shape not fixed today, flagged as a known related gap rather than guessed at.
    - With a genuinely working session, live reconnaissance for the itemised expense (real screenshots, `data/inspect` style, not guessed): a vehicle with `life_cycle_status` 5 (Due In) and no expense yet shows "No Expenses" with a green "+ EXPENSE" button, opening a real "Add Expense" form (Tax Date, Team, Supplier Ref #, Supplier, then the same Items table `add_missing_expense_items` already automates). A real "CarWow" supplier contact already existed in the account (found live via the Supplier field's own search), no new contact needed. New `bidbrain.dealerkit_write.create_expense_for_vehicle(page, vehicle_id, items, supplier, team=...)`, the "+ EXPENSE" counterpart to `add_missing_expense_items`'s "edit an existing one"; the shared item adding mechanics (category picker, Unit Net field, VAT Tariff) were pulled out into a new `_add_expense_items` helper so both functions use the identical, already proven logic rather than duplicate it. Two more real UI quirks found live and fixed before this worked: the Team field is a genuinely different `ui-select` flavour to the Funding modal's own (`.ui-select-option__basic` plain DIVs, not the funding modal's LIs), so `_click_dropdown_option`'s selector was widened to catch both; and the Supplier option row's own combined text reads "CarWowSupplier" (the "Supplier" badge sits inside the same clickable container), so the option match switched from an exact `===` to a `startsWith`, exact match found nothing despite the option clearly being on screen. Proven live on GU68XPP (Chassis 10322 N No VAT, Delivery Charge 123 S Standard, Buyers Premium 369 S Standard, all attributed to CarWow, DealerKit's own calculated gross 10912.40 against the real 10913 paid, pennies apart) before ever running at scale.
    - A REAL DUPLICATE VEHICLE BUG, found by Mark, not by any automated check: a batch run of the remaining 22 Carwow purchases (skipping the Stocklisting step's own Purchase Price typing entirely this time, so every car reliably landed in the clean "no expense yet" state `create_expense_for_vehicle` needs, rather than risk the Purchase Price field silently pre creating an unattributed Chassis only expense first) reported 16 of 22 as clean successes and 6 as a false "images did not actually save" failure (an already existing DealerKit record whose photos already matched what was being re uploaded, `_upload_via_edit_tile`'s own before/after count check correctly saw no increase and, reasonably for every OTHER caller, treated that as a failure). Mark caught something the automation itself never surfaced: "CN65NRF has move the car back to due in even tho it has a deal to rebecca meads on it on 23/7/26". Checked immediately: `add_due_in` had created vehicle 347 as a genuinely NEW, separate "Due In" record for a reg that already existed in DealerKit at vehicle 257 with `life_cycle_status` 25 (disposed, sold) and `disposed_on` 2026 07 23, matching Mark's own date exactly. `add_due_in`'s own duplicate check had only ever trusted DealerKit's own `POST /api/stocklist` response (a 422 for "already exists"), which is real and does fire for a reg still active in some other stage, but DealerKit does NOT return it for an already disposed one, it silently creates a second record instead. A full sweep of all 22 batch regs against the live stocklist (by VRM, not by BidBrain's own cache) found 13 of the 22 had this exact same problem, every one of them a car whose real prior sale had already gone through DealerKit's own `life_cycle_status` 25. Verified the real, original sold records were untouched throughout (each one's own `disposed_on` read back unchanged before touching anything).
    - THE FIX, agreed with Mark ("yes remove the duplicate records and add a check for this in the future"): (1) `add_due_in` now calls `_find_vehicle_id_by_reg` FIRST, before ever attempting the "+ Vehicle" flow at all, so a repeat push for an already known reg short circuits straight to the `already_exists` branch regardless of that vehicle's own status, closing the gap for good rather than trusting DealerKit's own inconsistent validation. (2) New `bidbrain.dealerkit_write.delete_vehicle(page, vehicle_id, confirm=True)`, real reconnaissance first (the vehicle's own top right kebab menu, real DIVs of class `.ui-menu-option__text` not semantic menu items, so not findable by role or tag; Delete triggers a genuine native `window.confirm`, the same mechanism already proven for the Funding Settle flow, handled the same way with a real `page.on("dialog", ...)` listener rather than the auto dismiss a plain click would get), verified via the API afterward that the vehicle genuinely no longer resolves. Ran it for real against all 13 duplicate ids (340 to 352), each one confirmed deleted, then re swept the full stocklist by VRM again: zero duplicates remain among the 23 Carwow regs, and every one of the 13 original sold records still shows its own real, unchanged `disposed_on` date.
    - THEN, per Mark ("go back to the old records and add the missing info, purchase price, auction fee, delivery fee, v5 and service history if missing"): read each of the 13 restored originals' real current state (expense items by category, attributed to CarWow or not, plus documents already on file) and compared against BidBrain's own captured figures, together with the 6 real "already existed, correctly never duplicated" cars from the same batch. Genuinely mixed picture, not assumed: several already had SOME figures entered by a human at the time of the original sale (a real CarWow attributed Chassis line, sometimes Buyers Premium and Delivery Charge too), 3 had no CarWow expense at all yet. Added only what was genuinely MISSING (a category with no existing CarWow line), via `add_missing_expense_items` where an expense already existed or `create_expense_for_vehicle` where none did, and pushed documents only where DealerKit's own count was less than BidBrain's own. Three real value MISMATCHES were found (WG18EZE and HJ17ECW's own existing Buyers Premium figures, 299 versus BidBrain's captured 339; HJ17ECW's own Delivery Charge, 115 versus 165) and deliberately left untouched, never silently corrected, the same conservative stance already established for a similar Motorway discrepancy (HG17NRF's Assurance/Indemnity Fee), reported to Mark directly rather than guessed which figure was right. All 23 Carwow purchases are now marked `dealerkit_pushed_at` and confirmed live on the purchases page showing the green Synced button.
    - Verified live end to end throughout, not trusted from any script's own summary alone: every deletion checked via the API afterward, the full 23 reg stocklist re swept for duplicates after the cleanup (none found), and the purchases page's own DOM read directly in a browser confirming all 23 rows show `Synced`. 398 tests pass (this whole thread is live browser automation against the real DealerKit account, verified the way described above, matching this module's own established pattern, no dedicated unit tests).
  - THE THREE FLAGGED DISCREPANCIES RESOLVED, PLUS A REAL "EDIT AN ITEM'S OWN VALUE" MECHANISM MAPPED, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.10. Mark's own instruction: "bid brain captured the correct price so use these values, remove or update these, if you find record with duplicate info WX16AUE delete it".
    - WX16AUE FIRST: real reconnaissance found TWO separate expenses both attributed to CarWow, one a standalone single item ("Delivery Charge" alone, expense #571, a leftover from however this older record was first entered, nothing to do with today's automation), the other a proper combined one (Chassis, Buyers Premium, Delivery Charge, expense #572). Two real dead ends found and ruled out before the right mechanism: the item's own kebab menu (Edit / Duplicate / Delete) DOES let a single line item be removed, but only from the browser's own local form state, "Save & Approve" afterward silently did not persist an expense emptied down to zero items (a live attempt to delete #571's own sole item then save left it completely unchanged, confirmed via the API, most likely DealerKit refuses to save an expense with nothing on it at all). The real fix needed the EXPENSE's own separate "More" button (bottom left of the Edit Expense modal, a distinct `more_horiz` icon from the item row's own `more_vert` kebab, easy to conflate, an early attempt matched `more_vert` by mistake since `"more_vert".toUpperCase().includes("MORE")` is also true), whose own Delete removes the whole record, including its one item, in a single action needing no separate save, verified live: expense #571 and its item both confirmed gone via the API straight after. New `bidbrain.dealerkit_write.delete_expense(page, vehicle_id, match_text, confirm=True)`, matched by real distinguishing row text (never guessed which of several a human meant, raises if the match is not exactly one row), reads the real numeric expense id off the resulting "Edit Expense #NNN" heading before deleting so the same id can be verified gone afterward via the API, the same "a click reporting success is not proof" lesson as every other write in this module.
    - THEN THE TWO VALUE MISMATCHES (WG18EZE's own Buyers Premium 299 to 339, HJ17ECW's own Buyers Premium 299 to 339 and Delivery Charge 115 to 165): tried the item's own "Edit" option first (a real "Edit Expense #{item_id}" sub-modal with a plain "Unit Net £'s" field and an "Update" button, confirmed to exist and open correctly at least once live), but it could not be driven reliably, a kebab position that read correctly one moment matched a completely different item's own menu the next, most likely because this page renders every dropdown through one shared portal whose contents depend on component state a fixed coordinate cannot safely assume. Abandoned that path rather than keep guessing at a live financial record, and used the SAME two already proven mechanics instead: delete the wrong item client side via its own kebab (this time correctly followed by a real Save & Approve, since the expense still keeps at least one OTHER item, so it is not the same "cannot save down to zero" case WX16AUE's standalone expense hit), then add the correct one back via the existing, already proven `add_missing_expense_items`.
    - A REAL, PERMANENT BUG FOUND AND FIXED IN `add_missing_expense_items` ITSELF while doing this: HJ17ECW's own CarWow row happens to sit as the very last one in DealerKit's own scrollable "Edit Vehicle Expenses" list, past the visible boundary, so the function's own existing "find the smallest matching text, walk up to the nearest button" logic found a real, genuine edit button in the DOM whose own bounding box was still effectively unclickable (off screen, or overlapping the modal's own +EXPENSE/+CREDIT footer), and the whole open silently failed with no error (the function correctly raised "no CarWow expense was found", the right behaviour for a genuinely missing expense, but wrong here since one really did exist, just unreachable). Fixed by having the matched row `scrollIntoView({block:'center'})` first, then re measuring its own pencil button's position AFTER the scroll settles, never reusing a position computed before scrolling. This is a real fix for every future vehicle whose own matching expense happens to sit at the list's own bottom edge, not just HJ17ECW.
    - Verified live end to end against the real DealerKit account: WX16AUE now carries exactly one clean CarWow expense (Chassis 5322, Buyers Premium 319, Delivery Charge 148.75, confirmed via the API, the duplicate standalone one gone); WG18EZE now reads Buyers Premium 339 (was 299); HJ17ECW now reads Buyers Premium 339 and Delivery Charge 165 (both were wrong), all read back directly from `GET /api/stocklist/{id}?with[]=expenseItems...` after every single step, never trusted from a script's own printed summary. 398 tests pass (this whole thread is live browser automation against the real account, verified the way described above, no dedicated unit tests, matching this module's own established pattern).
  - "DIDN'T WIN" ADDED, THE FIRST STEP OF THE ORIGINAL LEARNING VISION, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.11 (Mark: "the original vision for BB was to use ai to understand from our own data our best sellers based on time in stock, margin, cost to prep... to make educated bids on cars on the auction platform, to do this we need as much data as we can and store all purchase info in a data base, but we could also use data that we bid on that didnt win as this could be used to add a suggested bid... lets start with motorway... add a icon top right to get to these", then, mid build, "we dont need to store the images of the lost cars"). Real reconnaissance first against Motorway's own https://pro.motorway.co.uk/account/bids/didnt-win: a real datagrid, 931 real rows at the time (`role="row"`, a real numeric `id`/`href="/vehicles/{id}"` matching every other Motorway list this project already reads), each one reg, name, the real "Sold for £X" price the car actually won at, our own "£Y / Your max bid", and the date bid, paginated `?page=N`, 25 a page, newest first.
    - New `bidbrain.readers.motorway.read_didnt_win(playwright, max_pages, headless)` plus a pure `_parse_didnt_win_row(text, vehicle_ref)`, the same "browser driving function calls a testable pure parser" split as `_parse_purchase_row`; reused `_parse_won_date` unchanged for the "20 Aug 2026" style date, already proven for Motorway's own purchases screen. New `lost_bids` table (`db.py`): identity is the platform's own numeric vehicle reference, not the reg (a plate can repeat across unrelated cars over time; the platform's own id cannot), and unlike `purchases` a lost outcome never changes once recorded, so `record_lost_bids`/`list_lost_bids` are a plain insert-once-skip-duplicates, none of `purchases`'s own fill-in-later or lock-once complexity. New standalone `lost_bids_run.py` (mirrors `purchases_run.py`'s own shape, no email, nothing to sync back anywhere, purely a growing dataset): `python3 lost_bids_run.py` reads a daily top up (2 pages), `--backfill` reads the whole real history (60 page cap, stops itself on an empty page regardless). New `render_lost_bids()` (`render.py`), same control bar and fetch-live-from-an-API-on-load convention as the purchases page, deliberately simpler (no platform tabs yet, Motorway only; no status to track). A new nav icon (a plain target, "aimed for but did not win") sits between the purchases bag and the settings wrench on the cockpit's own control bar; `serve.py` gained `/lost-bids.html`, `GET /api/lost-bids`, `POST /api/run-lost-bids` (`backfill: true/false`) and `_lost_bids_proc` folded into the existing `_any_proc_busy()`/`_stop_run` shared browser profile machinery, the same as every other on demand pass.
    - PHOTOS ADDED THEN DELIBERATELY REMOVED THE SAME SESSION: a first version also captured each row's own thumbnail image (present right there in the row's own `<img src>`) to match the purchases page's own visual style, but Mark asked directly not to store them ("we dont need to store the images of the lost cars"). Removed cleanly rather than left dormant: the `photo_url` capture in the reader, the render page's own thumbnail column and CSS, and the already real, live captured `photo_url` values for all 931 rows were dropped from the local database via a genuine `ALTER TABLE lost_bids DROP COLUMN photo_url` (SQLite 3.50 on this Mac supports it directly), not just stopped-being-written-to, since the ask was to not store them, all 931 real rows' other data kept intact throughout.
    - A stale `cockpit.html` caught live: the new nav icon did not appear on a first check, because `cockpit.html` (unlike `purchases.html`/`lost-bids.html`/`settings.html`, all rendered fresh per request) is a STATIC file `daily_run.py` writes, so a `render.py` change alone never reaches it until the next real run or `python3 daily_run.py --render-only`, run live to confirm the icon actually appears.
    - Backfilled the real, whole history live: 931 real lost bids captured in one pass (the real "1 – 25 of 931" count matched exactly), average lost by about £302 across every row that carries both figures (every one of them, in practice). Scheduled daily via a new `com.bidbrain.lostbids` launchd job at 15:55 (Mark chose to add a schedule now rather than stay on demand only), a few minutes after the existing 15:45 purchases capture, reading the same 2 page daily top up the on demand Sync now button does; verified via `plutil -lint` and `launchctl print` showing the real registered Hour 15, Minute 55.
    - Verified live end to end: the real page renders with all 931 rows, search filters correctly, the summary tile's own average lost by figure matches a manual calculation off the same data, the nav icon opens the right page once `cockpit.html` was rebuilt, and the local database genuinely has no `photo_url` column left. 407 tests pass (9 new: the parser against a real captured row and a no-reg case, a full db round trip proving duplicate `vehicle_ref` rows are skipped not doubled, and two render checks, the API fetch is live not baked in, and no `photo_url` reference remains on the page).
    - Still to build, the actual point of the exercise, not attempted yet: turning this real dataset (and the same, still Motorway only, purchases data) into an actual suggested bid shown on a shortlist card's own slider, Mark's own original framing for why this data matters. Carwow, Auction4Cars, Dealer Auction and DealerWay do not feed this table yet either, no reader exists for any of their own lost-bid or under-bid screens, "lets start with motorway" was explicit that this is the first platform, not the only one intended.
  - THE SUGGESTED BID ITSELF, BUILT AND SHOWN ON THE SLIDER, 2026-08-24, same day, shipped as v2.7.12 (Mark: "now that we have alot of data of bids on cars let try and build a AI suggested bid to add to the slider that should win the car based on both won and lost (but sold for) data"). Checked first whether the obvious, richer approach (comparing BidBrain's own historically calculated `max_bid` for each of these exact cars against what it actually took to win) was viable: it is not, only 2 of 931 real lost bids and 4 of 107 real purchases have ever had a matching row in the `assessments` table at all (most of this history predates the daily run being scheduled, or the exact car never happened to pass BidBrain's own gate that particular day), far too sparse to build anything on. Neither table stores a per-car valuation (mileage, grade, CAP) at bid time either, so the only honest signal actually available at real scale is a plain market-comps read: real prices real similar cars have actually sold for, deliberately explainable over a fitted model given how thin the real feature set is.
    - Key framing, stated directly by Mark and matching how these auctions actually work: a WON purchase's own `winning_bid` is exactly as real and precise a "this is what it took to win this specific car" data point as a LOST auction's own `sold_for`, the price someone else actually paid to win it, both are genuine market clearing prices, just for a car we ended up with versus one we did not. New `db.bid_comps()` combines both into one list of (name, amount) pairs (`purchases.winning_bid` or `price` as a fallback for older rows without a full breakdown; `lost_bids.sold_for`), 1,038 real combined data points live (107 purchases plus 931 lost bids).
    - New `bidbrain/bid_suggest.py`, deliberately pure and dependency free (no browser, no db import, easy to test in isolation): `model_key(name)` groups the free text "Make Model ..." string neither table breaks into separate fields by its first two words upper cased (checked live against the real combined history: 55 of 113 real distinct keys already carry 5 or more real comps, 31 carry 10 or more, without needing anything finer); `build_stats(comps, min_samples=5)` groups, keeping only a make/model with enough real comps, and computes the 70th percentile of real winning prices as the "suggested" figure (deliberately above the middle: BidBrain's own `max_bid` is already a formula-derived ceiling, this is meant to answer "what would it actually have taken to win most of these", which a plain average understates against a genuinely competitive field), via a small hand written linear interpolation `_percentile` rather than `statistics.quantiles`, whose own small-sample boundary behaviour was judged harder to reason about for a real business figure; `suggest_bid(make, model, stats)` looks a car up against an already built stats dict, `None` when there is no real comparable history yet, never guessed.
    - Wired into `daily_run._write_pages()` (the exact same place `_stock_level`/`_taste_match` are already recomputed fresh on both a real run and `--render-only`, so the two never disagree): `bid_stats = bid_suggest.build_stats(db.bid_comps())` computed once per render (cheap, ~1,000 rows, no need for a persisted stats table), then `car._suggested_bid`/`car._suggested_bid_n` set per car, the same private, never-cached-to-`last_run.json` annotation convention already used by every other field in this exact block (`_save_cache`'s own `pack()` explicitly strips every `_` prefixed field, confirmed by reading it rather than assumed, so this always reflects the LATEST accumulated history on every render, never a stale figure from whenever the car was last valued).
    - Shown on `render._hf_gauge` as a genuinely new, self contained block (a second thin track directly under the main one carrying its own purple dot, plus a row underneath reading "AI suggests to win £X, N similar sales"), deliberately appended AFTER the gauge's own existing top/track/bottom rather than interleaved into the max bid label's own tight/wide collision handling, so it could not destabilise that already carefully tuned logic; positioned on the same reserve-to-retail 0 to 100% scale as the max bid dot, clamped into view with a real, honest hover title when the suggested figure genuinely falls outside that band ("beyond this car's own retail value" or "below reserve"), proven live on a real card (Ford Kuga Vignale TDCI, £6,825 CAP, £9,062 max bid, £12,062 retail) reading "AI suggests to win £7,662, 33 similar sales", correctly placed under the max bid dot on the track. Purple (`#6d3fc4`/`#efe7fb`) reused deliberately from the existing "Your kind of car" taste badge, the same "learned from your own data" visual language, never confused with the real green max bid marker. Shows nothing at all when a car's own make and model has no real comparable history yet (checked live: a MINI Countryman right next to the Kuga on the very same page correctly shows no suggestion), the same "hold back rather than guess" discipline as everywhere else in this project.
    - Verified live end to end: `daily_run.py --render-only` regenerated the real `cockpit.html` with 210 of 458 real shortlisted cars carrying a genuine suggestion (real comparable history existed for that make and model), a live browser check confirmed the purple marker and row render correctly on a real card and correctly do not on one with no comparable history. 420 tests pass (12 new: `model_key` grouping two different derivatives of the same model together and a one word or empty name never crashing; `build_stats` keeping a well sampled group and dropping a too-thin one; `suggest_bid` finding a real group and returning `None` for a genuinely unseen one; the gauge rendering the figure, its own sample size and a dedicated row only when a suggestion is actually present, using this file's own existing `base`/`assess` test helpers rather than hand building a `Car`/`Pricing` from scratch).
    - Deliberately not attempted this round, flagged for later: no scaling of the suggested figure by the CURRENT car's own individual valuation relative to a typical car in that model group (impossible without a per-car valuation at bid time for the historical rows, which this project does not have and was not asked to go build); no recency weighting (all real history used equally, a fast moving market could argue for weighting toward more recent sales); still Motorway only, matching the "Didn't win" data it draws half its comps from.