Record why thumbnails are not queued

catalog.md §6 still described the design of 2026-08-09, where the grid
enqueued Thumbnail jobs at Interactive and a runner drained them. It was
never built that way: the grid asks a worker directly and the sweep's
work list is what the thumbnail store lacks. The one enqueue that did
exist fed a queue nobody claimed (#73).

§6.1 now states the decision and its evidence: the store is shared
between devices and is the only record that knows a thumbnail exists,
metadata is owed through metadata_state the same way, the retired rows
are dropped at open rather than by a migration so no older device loses
the synced catalog, and every_queued_kind_has_a_consumer holds the rule.
§6.3 notes that the priority ordering is had without the queue.

outstanding.md's FR-PLAT-AND-4 paragraph said the scan's thumbnail jobs
were the one reachable enqueue; it now says nothing enqueues, and that
feeding the runner means a handler and its enqueue in the same change.

Refs #73

docs/dev/catalog.md

@@ -420,6 +420,29 @@ pub enum JobKind {
 }
 ```
 
+**Thumbnails are not queued (decided 2026-09-26, #73).** `Thumbnail` is kept only so its number
+stays taken, and is listed in `JobKind::RETIRED`. Up to 0.16.0 every remote scan enqueued one per
+photograph, and nothing claimed the kind — no `JobHandler` was ever registered for it, on desktop or
+Android (the same `dr-ui`), and the catalog snapshot carries `jobs` but the merge never reads them
+(§8.2). The reference catalog held 23,582 such rows, about 1 MB with its indexes. Thumbnails are
+made another way, and by the right source of truth:
+
+- the grid asks a worker for the cells it is drawing, which serves them from the thumbnail store or
+  range-fetches the embedded preview (§7.2);
+- the thumbnail sweep's work list is *what the store does not hold* (`thumbnails_outstanding`).
+
+The store is shared between devices (§7.3), so it is the only thing that knows another device already
+made a thumbnail; a per-device queue row cannot. A queue row would be a second, staler record of the
+same debt. Metadata is owed the same way — `metadata_state < 2` is the sweep's work list — so the local
+walk no longer enqueues `ExtractMetadata` either.
+
+The rows already queued are dropped by `jobs::drop_retired`, from `runner::recover` at every catalog
+open, rather than by a migration: a schema bump would make a device still on an older build refuse the
+synced snapshot, and "every open" rather than "once" because an older build sharing the catalog
+queues them again on its next scan. With the rows gone it is one probe of the `(kind, subject_id)`
+index. `every_queued_kind_has_a_consumer` (dr-catalog) holds the rule: it reads the shipping sources
+and fails if any kind is enqueued that no handler or claim names.
+
 ### 6.2 Coalescing is the point
 
 `UNIQUE(kind, subject_id)` on `jobs` means enqueueing is idempotent: an image touched five times
@@ -443,7 +466,8 @@ priority governs the whole app:
 
 Visible-cell work is enqueued by the grid as it scrolls, at `Interactive`. The effect is that a
 freshly scanned library fills in *where the user is looking* first, and grinds through the rest
-behind them.
+behind them. (As built, thumbnails and metadata get this ordering without the queue — the grid
+requests its visible cells directly and the sweeps take what is left; see §6.1.)
 
 ### 6.4 Durability and failure
 

docs/dev/outstanding.md

@@ -258,11 +258,13 @@ the platform half — a foreground `Service`, `FOREGROUND_SERVICE` and `POST_NOT
 manifest, and a stated Doze behaviour. The build step that blocked it is no longer a blocker: the
 APK now compiles its own Java.
 
-Note also that **no handler is registered**, deliberately. The only enqueue site reachable in the
+Note also that **no handler is registered**, deliberately — and, since #73, nothing enqueues
-shipping app produces remote thumbnail jobs already served by the async grid worker, and
+either. The remote scan's per-photograph `Thumbnail` jobs, and `walk::scan_root`'s `Thumbnail` and
-`walk::scan_root` — which holds the other two enqueue sites — has no caller outside an example.
+`ExtractMetadata` jobs, duplicated debts the thumbnail store and `metadata_state` already record,
-Wiring the sweep to claim from the queue is the honest next step and is an async rewrite of
+and were never claimed; they were removed and `Thumbnail` retired ([catalog.md §6.1](catalog.md)).
-`library.rs`.
+Feeding FR-PLAT-AND-4's platform half is therefore a matter of choosing a kind whose work has no
+better source of truth, registering its handler, and enqueuing it in the same change —
+`every_queued_kind_has_a_consumer` refuses the enqueue without the handler.
 
 **FR-PLAT-AND-5 — built.** A tiered eviction registry drives GPU caches, then proxies, then
 thumbnails, from `MainEvent::LowMemory` and `MainEvent::Stop`.