Estimate waiting room wait as 1 minute per spot ahead

Decouples the user-facing wait estimate from the admission tick rate.
The estimate is now a rough one-minute-per-spot rule of thumb, which
reads more intuitively in the CLI than a tick-derived number that
shifts with deployment cadence.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: jahooma

docs/freebuff-waiting-room.md

@@ -246,16 +246,16 @@ This is a **trust-the-client** design: the server still admits requests during t
 
 ## Estimated Wait Time
 
-Computed in `session-view.ts` from the drip-admission rate:
+Computed in `session-view.ts` as a rough one-minute-per-spot-ahead estimate:
 
 ```
-waitMs = (position - 1) * admissionTickMs
+waitMs = (position - 1) * 60_000
 ```
 
 - Position 1 → 0 (next tick admits you)
-- Position 2 → one tick, and so on.
+- Position 2 → one minute, and so on.
 
-This estimate **ignores health-gated pauses**: during a Fireworks incident admission halts entirely, so the actual wait can be longer. We choose to under-report here because showing "unknown" / "indefinite" is worse UX for the common case where the deployment is healthy.
+This estimate is intentionally decoupled from the admission tick — it's a human-friendly rule-of-thumb for the UI, not a precise projection. Actual wait depends on admission-tick cadence and health-gated pauses (during a Fireworks incident admission halts entirely), so the real wait can be longer or shorter.
 
 ## CLI Integration (frontend-side contract)
 

web/src/app/api/v1/freebuff/session/__tests__/session.test.ts

@@ -33,7 +33,6 @@ function makeSessionDeps(overrides: Partial<SessionDeps> = {}): SessionDeps & {
   return {
     rows,
     isWaitingRoomEnabled: () => true,
-    admissionTickMs: 15_000,
     graceMs: 30 * 60 * 1000,
     now: () => now,
     getSessionRow: async (userId) => rows.get(userId) ?? null,

web/src/server/free-session/__tests__/public-api.test.ts

@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ import type { SessionDeps } from '../public-api'
 import type { InternalSessionRow } from '../types'
 
 const SESSION_LEN = 60 * 60 * 1000
-const TICK_MS = 15_000
 const GRACE_MS = 30 * 60 * 1000
 
 function makeDeps(overrides: Partial<SessionDeps> = {}): SessionDeps & {
@@ -36,7 +35,6 @@ function makeDeps(overrides: Partial<SessionDeps> = {}): SessionDeps & {
     },
     _now: () => currentNow,
     isWaitingRoomEnabled: () => true,
-    admissionTickMs: TICK_MS,
     graceMs: GRACE_MS,
     now: () => currentNow,
     getSessionRow: async (userId) => rows.get(userId) ?? null,

web/src/server/free-session/__tests__/session-view.test.ts

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import { estimateWaitMs, toSessionStateResponse } from '../session-view'
 
 import type { InternalSessionRow } from '../types'
 
-const TICK_MS = 15_000
+const WAIT_PER_SPOT_MS = 60_000
 const GRACE_MS = 30 * 60_000
 
 function row(overrides: Partial<InternalSessionRow> = {}): InternalSessionRow {
@@ -24,24 +24,22 @@ function row(overrides: Partial<InternalSessionRow> = {}): InternalSessionRow {
 
 describe('estimateWaitMs', () => {
   test('position 1 → 0 wait (next tick picks you up)', () => {
-    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 1, admissionTickMs: TICK_MS })).toBe(0)
+    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 1 })).toBe(0)
   })
 
-  test('position N → (N-1) ticks ahead', () => {
-    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 2, admissionTickMs: TICK_MS })).toBe(TICK_MS)
-    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 10, admissionTickMs: TICK_MS })).toBe(9 * TICK_MS)
+  test('position N → (N-1) minutes ahead', () => {
+    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 2 })).toBe(WAIT_PER_SPOT_MS)
+    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 10 })).toBe(9 * WAIT_PER_SPOT_MS)
   })
 
   test('degenerate inputs return 0', () => {
-    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 0, admissionTickMs: TICK_MS })).toBe(0)
-    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 5, admissionTickMs: 0 })).toBe(0)
+    expect(estimateWaitMs({ position: 0 })).toBe(0)
   })
 })
 
 describe('toSessionStateResponse', () => {
   const now = new Date('2026-04-17T12:00:00Z')
   const baseArgs = {
-    admissionTickMs: TICK_MS,
     graceMs: GRACE_MS,
   }
 
@@ -69,7 +67,7 @@ describe('toSessionStateResponse', () => {
       instanceId: 'inst-1',
       position: 3,
       queueDepth: 10,
-      estimatedWaitMs: 2 * TICK_MS,
+      estimatedWaitMs: 2 * WAIT_PER_SPOT_MS,
       queuedAt: now.toISOString(),
     })
   })

web/src/server/free-session/public-api.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import {
-  ADMISSION_TICK_MS,
   getSessionGraceMs,
   isWaitingRoomEnabled,
 } from './config'
@@ -25,7 +24,6 @@ export interface SessionDeps {
   /** Plain values, not getters: these never change at runtime. The deps
    *  interface uses values rather than thunks so tests can pass numbers
    *  inline without wrapping. */
-  admissionTickMs: number
   graceMs: number
   now?: () => Date
 }
@@ -37,7 +35,6 @@ const defaultDeps: SessionDeps = {
   queueDepth,
   queuePositionFor,
   isWaitingRoomEnabled,
-  admissionTickMs: ADMISSION_TICK_MS,
   get graceMs() {
     // Read-through getter so test overrides via env still work; the value
     // itself is materialized once per call. Cheaper than a thunk because
@@ -64,7 +61,6 @@ async function viewForRow(
     row,
     position,
     queueDepth: depth,
-    admissionTickMs: deps.admissionTickMs,
     graceMs: deps.graceMs,
     now: nowOf(deps),
   })

web/src/server/free-session/session-view.ts

@@ -13,11 +13,10 @@ export function toSessionStateResponse(params: {
   row: InternalSessionRow | null
   position: number
   queueDepth: number
-  admissionTickMs: number
   graceMs: number
   now: Date
 }): SessionStateResponse | null {
-  const { row, position, queueDepth, admissionTickMs, graceMs, now } = params
+  const { row, position, queueDepth, graceMs, now } = params
   if (!row) return null
 
   if (row.status === 'active' && row.expires_at) {
@@ -51,7 +50,7 @@ export function toSessionStateResponse(params: {
       instanceId: row.active_instance_id,
       position,
       queueDepth,
-      estimatedWaitMs: estimateWaitMs({ position, admissionTickMs }),
+      estimatedWaitMs: estimateWaitMs({ position }),
       queuedAt: row.queued_at.toISOString(),
     }
   }
@@ -60,18 +59,14 @@ export function toSessionStateResponse(params: {
   return null
 }
 
+const WAIT_MS_PER_SPOT_AHEAD = 60_000
+
 /**
- * Wait-time estimate under the drip-admission model: one user per
- * `admissionTickMs`, gated by Fireworks health. Ignoring health pauses, the
- * user at position P waits roughly `(P - 1) * admissionTickMs`.
- *
+ * Rough wait-time estimate shown to queued users: one minute per spot ahead.
  * Position 1 → 0ms (next tick picks you up).
  */
-export function estimateWaitMs(params: {
-  position: number
-  admissionTickMs: number
-}): number {
-  const { position, admissionTickMs } = params
-  if (position <= 1 || admissionTickMs <= 0) return 0
-  return (position - 1) * admissionTickMs
+export function estimateWaitMs(params: { position: number }): number {
+  const { position } = params
+  if (position <= 1) return 0
+  return (position - 1) * WAIT_MS_PER_SPOT_AHEAD
 }