brackt/plan.md

Plan: Commissioner Without a Team

Current State

At the database level, commissioners and teams are already independent:

• Commissioners are stored in the commissioners table (league-level, keyed by leagueId + userId)
• Teams are stored in the teams table (season-level, keyed by seasonId + ownerId)
• A commissioner does NOT need a team to access the league homepage or draft room — this already works

The actual problem is that there's no way to become a commissioner without also getting a team:

1. League creation (app/routes/leagues/new.tsx:198-201): The creator is always assigned the first team (ownerId: i === 0 ? userId : null)
2. No "Add Commissioner" UI: There's no way for a league creator to add additional commissioners at all
3. Invite link flow (app/routes/i.$inviteCode.tsx): Joining always assigns a team — there's no option to join as commissioner-only

Also, the league creation flow has no opt-out for team ownership — the creator always gets Team 1.

Changes

1. League creation: Add "Join as player" checkbox

File: app/routes/leagues/new.tsx

• Add a checkbox: "I want to play in this league" (checked by default)
• When unchecked, skip assigning the creator to the first team (all teams get ownerId: null)
• When checked, behavior stays the same (creator gets first team)

2. Add Commissioner Management UI to League Settings

File: app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.settings.tsx

• Add a new "Commissioner Management" card section
• Show current commissioners with a "Remove" button (cannot remove if they're the last commissioner)
• Add an "Add Commissioner" form with a user search/select dropdown
  • Only show users who are already members of the league (team owners) OR allow adding by searching all users
  • Since only the site admin can currently assign users to teams, let's keep it simple: commissioners can add any registered user as a commissioner
• Backend actions: add-commissioner and remove-commissioner intents

3. Model changes

File: app/models/commissioner.ts

• Already has createCommissioner, deleteCommissioner, removeCommissionerByLeagueAndUser — these are sufficient
• Add countCommissionersByLeagueId to prevent removing the last commissioner

4. Settings loader changes

File: app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.settings.tsx

• Load commissioners list and user data for display
• Load all users list for the "add commissioner" dropdown (reuse existing allUsers pattern but make it available to commissioners, not just admins)

5. League homepage: Show commissioner-only indicator

File: app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.tsx

• In the commissioners list, if a commissioner doesn't own a team in the current season, show a "(No team)" indicator next to their name
• This helps distinguish playing commissioners from non-playing commissioners

Files to modify

1. app/routes/leagues/new.tsx — Add "play in league" checkbox, conditionally assign first team
2. app/models/commissioner.ts — Add countCommissionersByLeagueId helper
3. app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.settings.tsx — Add commissioner management card (loader + action + UI)
4. app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.server.ts — Pass team ownership info for commissioners to the homepage
5. app/routes/leagues/$leagueId.tsx — Show "(No team)" indicator for commissioners without teams

Out of scope (not changing)

• The invite link flow — this is for players joining, not commissioners. Commissioners should be added through settings.
• The createdBy vs commissioners table inconsistency in draft control endpoints — that's a separate bug
• Adding a way for a commissioner to later claim/release a team mid-season — possible future work but not needed here