feat(onboarding): start desktop setup with workspace sign-in

[Aayam Bansal (aayambansal)]

What does this PR do, and why?

Fresh desktop installs currently jump straight into project setup, leaving Synthetic Sciences sign-in and workspace selection buried in settings. Start onboarding with Sign in with Synthetic Sciences, using the existing browser approval flow at app.syntheticsciences.ai so users can choose a workspace they belong to. After successful login, automatically show Start with your research.

A small Skip action at the bottom right opens the same research setup without an account, including while browser approval is pending. Login failures stay retryable, keyboard focus follows the next step, and onboarding is only saved after project creation. Existing signed-in users and completed setups keep their expected entry points. Update the installation guide, quickstart, and changelog.

Linked issue

User-reported onboarding flow; no separate issue.

How did you verify it?

• 12 rendered onboarding tests over a real loopback HTTP fixture: first launch, successful login, duplicate submission, retry, skip, pending approval, saved completion, reset/cache race, and account-check failure.
• 2 backend browser-login tests covering workspace-scoped device approval and switching to another workspace.
• Monorepo typecheck, production workspace build, documentation checks/tests, and changed-file formatting passed.
• Inspected the production build at desktop and narrow widths; verified keyboard navigation to Skip and focus on the research-setup heading.
• Full frontend suite passed with bun test --timeout 30000 from frontend/workspace. The default-timeout run hit three existing cleanup-hook timeouts; the final rerun and GitHub Frontend unit tests are green.
• GitHub Typecheck, Format, Build (web), Test, Frontend unit tests, Gitleaks, and Vercel checks passed.

Checklist

• Workspace build succeeds.
• User-visible change has an Unreleased changelog entry.
• Matching documentation is updated.
• No package version bumps.

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated
openscience	Ready	Preview	Sep 7, 2026 9:01am UTC