The release that closes U2. Consumers have to adapt, which is what makes this a
minor rather than a patch: three things a scripted session can notice.
* `booth asks <name>` now emits JSON, not the old aligned human table.
Anything parsing those columns breaks. `booth marks <name>` is the name to
use; `asks` survives as a deprecated alias for the muscle memory.
* Polling `http://…/b/<n>/<stem>.answer.json` will 404 forever. There is no
per-question answer sidecar any more. `GET /b/<n>/marks.json` replaces it and
answers for the whole booth in one request — including an `open` list.
* `#ask-<stem>` page anchors are now `#mark-<id>`, and `/b/<n>/asks` 308s to
`/b/<n>/marks`.
What a session GAINS: the operator can now attach a note to any item or to the
booth, and flag individual items — both readable with `booth marks`. Selecting
winners out of a set used to be a chat message.
Nothing a session already wrote is lost. Legacy `*.ask.json` / `*.answer.json`
sidecars are imported by `booth marks-import <name>`, idempotently, and are
never deleted.
No lockfile step: this repo tracks none (uv.lock is gitignored, 790d5ba).
Five mechanisms existed to get one question next to one artifact. Three of
them were the same thing wearing different clothes, and the third of the three
had no code at all: the operator picked winners out of a 270-image set and
told the session in conversation. `sindra-finalists` is 86 items, every one
captioned, with the selection encoded in the booth's NAME.
A MARK is operator judgment attached to a target — the booth, or one item in
it, addressed by the `rel` U1 established as item identity. Three shapes:
pick — one of N options a session declared in advance (was: an ask)
note — free text the operator volunteered (had nothing)
flag — this one (had nothing)
One file per booth, one read path, one place openness is computed, one slot
beside the artifact. The storage shape is the operator's call (2026-09-21) and
follows from U4: "does this booth still owe an answer?" gets asked per booth
per sweep tick and per card per index render, so it has to be one read and not
a walk of a booth holding 270 files. Marks are also not links.md — that is an
O_APPEND content-hash log because 17 handles write it concurrently, whereas a
booth's marks see one session and one operator, so locking the common path
costs nothing.
The 2026-09-09 pick semantics are preserved by NOT rewriting them: partial
answers legal, a blank question lands in `unanswered`, `complete` false until
every question has a pick, the only refusal a submission carrying nothing.
`write_answer` split into the pure `build_answer` plus the storage that went
away with the sidecar; `normalize_ask` untouched.
Three findings worth naming, because each was caught by a gate rather than by
reading the diff again:
* The seam review found `inline.place` indexes asks by SUBSCRIPT — the only
consumer in the service that does — so a frozen dataclass breaks it, and
`inline.py` had been missing from the contract's scope entirely.
* A retargeted test found a regression in the legacy importer: a malformed
sidecar that renders "broken" today would have silently vanished on
migration. It now imports carrying its reason.
* A partially-answered pick counted as CLOSED on the index while the panel
beside it rendered it "partial" — the two disagreed about one booth. Open
is the reading U4 needs, and it is declared rather than smuggled in.
`GET /b/<n>/marks.json` is new and load-bearing: sessions on other hosts polled
`<stem>.answer.json` over HTTP, so removing the sidecar without it would have
taken that capability away. `/b/<n>/asks` 308s to `/marks`. Legacy sidecars are
imported, never deleted — four are live and unanswered.
Also records the operator's deterministic-order directive as a cross-cutting v1
invariant, in ROADMAP.md with the per-collection rule table and as CLAUDE.md
invariant 6. The Booth's job is comparison; an order that moves between renders
does not crash, it misfiles the judgment.
242 tests. No version bump — a release tier for this is the operator's call.
The Booth was built as a file-shuttle on a whim and turned into the fleet's
operator-review surface without anyone deciding that. This is the decision,
written down, with the measurement that forced it.
The defect behind every bolt-on: one lifetime and one shape serving five jobs.
Five separate mechanisms exist to put one question next to one artifact.
Numbers that drove the model, taken against the live service:
- 211 link rows, 145 (69%) pointing at booths that no longer exist
- 22 rows that are the same bench re-posted (talk 5x, peedlar 4x)
- 13 of 24 booths (54%) on the .forever escape hatch
- 270 images rendered as one flat wall, subfolders discarded at render
- 5 commits in one day to ship the asks primitive
Four nouns replace the accretion: booth (derived lifetime), item (one record),
mark (pick/note/flag -- asks, comments and votes were always one thing), and
bench (a registry, not an append log).
v1 is seven capabilities, each closing a measured defect. Compare mode is the
best idea in the set and is parked anyway, because it is the only one that is a
new capability rather than a fix.
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