fix(core): navigate to loginUrl before isLoggedIn when browser is at about:blank

On fresh daemon launch every browser starts at about:blank. Adapters that
use URL or DOM selectors for auth checking would always return false at the
500ms startup banner check, showing a spurious "not logged in" warning.

Fix: getStatus() and isSessionValid() now navigate to adapter.loginUrl
before calling isLoggedIn() when the page is at about:blank. Every adapter
gets correct startup auth detection without needing adapter-level workarounds.

Also updates the create-adapter scaffold template with:
- Selector stability hierarchy (ARIA > test-id > semantic > class names)
- page.evaluate() + walk-up-from-aria-button extraction pattern
- Comment that framework handles about:blank so isLoggedIn() is reliable

Made-with: Cursor

Author: jonzarecki

.context/progress.md

@@ -8,7 +8,30 @@
 - Archived original brainstorm MHTML to `docs/reference/`
 - Scaffolded full AI-native project structure (CLAUDE.md, .context/, .claude/, .cursor/)
 
-## Session 4 — Google Discover adapter + core improvements (2026-03-23)
+## Session 5 — LinkedIn adapter: live testing & bug fixes (2026-03-24)
+
+### LinkedIn adapter bugs fixed
+
+- **`isLoggedIn` false negative on startup**: Browser starts at `about:blank`; URL wasn't an authenticated path so `isLoggedIn` always returned `false`. Fix: navigate to `linkedin.com/feed/` first if on `about:blank` — cookies load and auth check succeeds. LinkedIn now shows `logged in` in the daemon startup banner.
+- **`get_feed` selector failure**: `div[data-id^="urn:li:activity"]` stopped matching LinkedIn's current DOM. Rewrote feed extraction using `page.evaluate()` to find post cards by walking up from social action buttons (`aria-label` containing "like"/"comment"/"repost"/"send") — resilient to React component version changes and class-name churn.
+- **Updated `selectors.ts`**: Expanded `feedPost` to a multi-selector comma list as fallback; updated `feedPostAuthorName`, `feedPostText`, `feedPostReactions` with modern class alternatives.
+
+### Verified working tools (all 7)
+
+- `get_feed` — returns real feed posts with author, text, context blocks
+- `get_person_profile` — works (Bill Gates test: returns `main_profile`, `experience`, etc.)
+- `search_people` — works (`keywords` param; returns paginated LinkedIn search results)
+- `search_jobs` — works (returns job listings with title, company, location)
+- `get_company_profile`, `get_company_posts`, `get_job_details` — not yet live-tested but share same `extractPage`/`extractOverlay` path
+
+### Daemon status at end of session
+
+All 3 adapters logged in and serving tools:
+- `hackernews` → port 52741 ✓
+- `google-discover` → port 52743 ✓
+- `linkedin` → port 52744 ✓
+
+
 
 ### Core framework additions
 

packages/core/src/adapter-server.ts

@@ -542,6 +542,11 @@ export async function createAdapterServer(
       let loggedIn = false;
       try {
         const page = await sessionManager.getPage(sessionConfig);
+        // On fresh launch the page is at about:blank — navigate to the site
+        // first so URL-based isLoggedIn checks work correctly.
+        if (page.url() === "about:blank" && adapter.loginUrl) {
+          await page.goto(adapter.loginUrl, { waitUntil: "domcontentloaded", timeout: 20_000 }).catch(() => {});
+        }
         loggedIn = await adapter.isLoggedIn(page);
       } catch { loggedIn = false; }
       return {

packages/core/src/create-adapter.ts

@@ -133,15 +133,25 @@ function selectorsTs(name: string): string {
   return `/**
  * DOM selectors for ${name}.
  *
- * Primary strategy: getByRole / getByTestId (resilient to DOM changes).
- * CSS selectors as fallback only.
+ * Selector stability hierarchy (most → least stable):
+ *   1. ARIA attributes: [aria-label="..."], [role="..."]  ← prefer these
+ *   2. Test IDs: [data-testid="..."], [data-test-id="..."]
+ *   3. Semantic HTML: button, nav, article, main
+ *   4. CSS class names / data-* attributes             ← avoid, rotate frequently
  *
- * Validate with: browserkit test-selectors ${name}
- * Update fixtures with: browserkit test-selectors ${name} --snapshot
+ * For feed/list pages on JS-heavy apps (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) prefer
+ * walking up from stable ARIA-labelled action buttons rather than targeting
+ * the card container directly by class name:
+ *
+ *   const cards = Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('button[aria-label*="like"]'))
+ *     .map(btn => { let el = btn; while (el.offsetHeight < 150) el = el.parentElement; return el; })
+ *
+ * Validate selectors against a live page with: browserkit test-selectors ${name}
  */
 
 export const SELECTORS = {
-  // Auth detection
+  // Auth detection — pick an element that is ONLY visible when logged in
+  // Prefer ARIA/role selectors: e.g. 'nav[aria-label="Main"]', '[data-test-id="nav-top"]'
   loggedInIndicator: "TODO: selector for element that only appears when logged in",
   loginForm: "TODO: selector for login form",
 
@@ -165,6 +175,8 @@ export default defineAdapter({
   rateLimit: { minDelayMs: 2000 },
 
   async isLoggedIn(page: Page): Promise<boolean> {
+    // The framework navigates to loginUrl before calling this if the
+    // browser is at about:blank, so page.url() is reliable here.
     try {
       return await page.locator(SELECTORS.loggedInIndicator).isVisible({ timeout: 3000 });
     } catch {
@@ -188,7 +200,19 @@ export default defineAdapter({
           timeout: 30_000,
         });
 
-        // TODO: implement extraction logic
+        // Prefer page.evaluate() + innerText over CSS class selectors.
+        // CSS classes rotate on JS-heavy apps; innerText and ARIA labels are stable.
+        // Example: get items from a list by walking up from action buttons:
+        //
+        //   const items = await page.evaluate((max) => {
+        //     return Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('button[aria-label*="save"]'))
+        //       .slice(0, max)
+        //       .map(btn => {
+        //         let el = btn as HTMLElement;
+        //         while (el.parentElement && el.offsetHeight < 100) el = el.parentElement;
+        //         return el.innerText.trim().slice(0, 500);
+        //       });
+        //   }, count);
         const results: unknown[] = [];
 
         return {

packages/core/src/session-manager.ts

@@ -40,6 +40,11 @@ export class SessionManager {
   async isSessionValid(config: SessionConfig, adapter: SiteAdapter): Promise<boolean> {
     try {
       const page = await this.getPage(config);
+      // Navigate to the site if the browser hasn't loaded any page yet,
+      // otherwise URL-based isLoggedIn checks always return false.
+      if (page.url() === "about:blank" && adapter.loginUrl) {
+        await page.goto(adapter.loginUrl, { waitUntil: "domcontentloaded", timeout: 20_000 }).catch(() => {});
+      }
       return await adapter.isLoggedIn(page);
     } catch {
       return false;