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).
101 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
101 lines
5.9 KiB
Markdown
# The Booth — roadmap
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Design: [`docs/design/information-architecture.md`](docs/design/information-architecture.md).
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Current version: `0.2.0` (U1 + U2 landed; extracted from eshpfi 2026-09-21).
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## v1 target
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What must be true to cut 1.0. Seven capabilities, each closing a **measured**
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defect — not a wish. The measurements are in the IA doc.
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| # | capability | closes | unit |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| 1 | ~~**One item record**~~ — **landed `ce598b3`** | captions never reach the zoom view (never sent, not lost) | U1 |
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| 2 | ~~**Marks**~~ — **landed `c7f9437`, released `v0.2.0`** | 5 mechanisms for 1 job; operator→session loop runs through chat | U2 |
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| 3 | **Declared embed seam** — `/_booth/embed.js`, chrome mounts via DOM | 6 regexes injected into arbitrary author HTML, load-bearing for asks | U3 |
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| 4 | **Derived lifetime** — open marks pin; viewing is activity | 54% of booths on the `.forever` escape hatch | U4 |
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| 5 | **Self-announcing booths** — `.booth.json`, provenance on the index | job 5 had no home, so it lived on the link board as 145 dead rows | U5 |
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| 6 | **Benches** — registry, identity, enforced rule, migration | 69% link-board rot; the same bench posted 5× | U6 |
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| 7 | **Navigation at 270 items** — sections, rail, filters, grid keyboard | one flat wall; subfolder structure discarded at render | U7 |
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Ordering is dependency-driven, not priority-driven: **U1 → U2 → {U3, U4, U5} →
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U7**, with **U6 independent** of all of them (different storage, different
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surface) and therefore the safest thing to land first or in parallel.
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**U1 and U2 are landed**, which unblocks U3, U4 and U5 — all three read marks.
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**U5 is next** (operator, 2026-09-21). U6 remains independent and unstarted.
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### Cross-cutting invariant — deterministic order, everywhere
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**Every ordered collection the Booth renders must have a stated, deterministic
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order.** Not "usually stable", not "whatever the filesystem yields" — a rule
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someone can name, that produces the same sequence on every render of the same
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state. The rule itself is free to be anything defensible: byte order over a
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path, creation time, an explicit number, even an arbitrary-but-recorded
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sequence. What is forbidden is *no rule*.
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This matters more here than in most services because the Booth's whole job is
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**comparison**. The operator is judging `pancake-v3-full` against
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`pancake-v4-full`, tile 47 against tile 47. If the order shifts between two page
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loads — or differs between the gallery, the zoom ring, the zip manifest and the
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`marks` read — then every positional reference the operator makes ("the third
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one from the left", "the one after the banded one") is silently wrong, and a
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flag or a note lands on the wrong artifact. Non-determinism does not present as
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a bug report; it presents as the operator's judgment being quietly misfiled.
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Where it already binds, and what the rule is in each case:
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| collection | rule |
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|---|---|
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| items in a booth | `sorted(rel)` — byte order over the booth-relative path (U1 INV-3) |
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| the zoom prev/next ring | the item order, filtered to images — same sequence, one source |
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| caption sidecar resolution | sorted scan, so two media files sharing a stem resolve the same way every time (a real non-determinism U1 removed) |
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| marks in a booth | `(created, id)` — time, with the id as tie-break so two marks written in the same second cannot swap |
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| legacy ask import | `(mtime, name)`, which is the order `list_asks` gave them |
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| link board rows | pinned first, then newest-first |
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Where it is still to be decided, and must be before the unit ships: **U7's
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section ordering and its compare pairing** (sections need a stated order among
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themselves, not just within; pairing by filename needs a rule for what happens
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to an unpaired file), and **U6's bench listing**.
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The test for any new ordered surface: *can you write the rule down in one line?*
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If not, it does not have one yet.
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### Explicitly NOT in v1
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- **Backward compatibility with the `ask` CLI verbs.** Pre-1.0, and `ask` /
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`asks` / `answer` become thin aliases over `marks` rather than a second code
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path. The 17 consuming handles get one althing note naming the change — the
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one case where telling peers is real coordination and not a broadcast.
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- **A migration that deletes anything.** `links.md` is archived verbatim and
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committed before the registry is seeded from it.
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## Parking lot
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Deferred with a home, per the anti-creep gate. Default is park; these were
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weighed against the v1 path and lost on purpose.
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| item | why parked |
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|---|---|
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| **Compare mode** — pair-by-name A/B across subfolders | The best idea in the set, and the only one that is a *new capability* rather than a fix for a measured defect. The four-booth `pancake-v3/v4` dance still works. First thing in v1.1. |
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| Virtualized / progressive grid loading | Speculative. 270 `<img loading="lazy">` may be fine. **Measure the real booth before optimising it** — if it renders inside a second, this is invented work. |
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| Bench uptime history + graphs | The v1 need is "is it dead", which one flag answers. A time series is a different product. |
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| Cross-booth search | No evidence of the need in the usage data. |
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| Per-viewer state (who has seen what) | The Booth has one viewer. Revisit if that stops being true. |
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| Auth | Standing non-goal. LAN/mesh-internal. Blur stays cosmetic and says so. |
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## Post-v1, already committed
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- **SVOS theme retrofit by `design-dev`.** Runs as a parallel track, not a v1
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gate: we own the information architecture (it is driven by the measurement
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above), design-dev owns the visual and interaction system. The handoff is a
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`/vor-ui` brief written against the landed v1 structure — the same shape
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`hamr-dev` and `pewpew-dev` used.
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## Gate
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A proposed feature is on the v1 path or it is parked. **Default: parked.** When
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both are defensible, park it — same asymmetry as the patch-default in SemVer.
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Applies regardless of who proposed it.
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