The default locale stays at the root; every other language is the same key under
/{lang}/ (ADR-0009). /en/… is never live and redirects to the root form so the URL
space cannot fork. Lookup now takes a language and reports which one it served,
following requested → default → any rather than 404ing when a translation is
missing.
That is the second routing case, so the resolver is extracted to resolve.go and
the mux keeps one entry: URL shape is the resolver's business. A leading segment
counts as a language only when some bundle is written in it, so an unknown prefix
is a 404 rather than a stripped path — and a section may not be named after a
language in use, now recorded in content-model.md.
Because the served variant can differ from the URL requested, Page gained
.Canonical (the variant actually served) and .Alternates for hreflang. A theme
must never build a path, so both come from the engine.
Evidence: /bn/pages/about/ serves the Bengali body with lang="bn" and canonical
/bn/pages/about/; /bn/posts/hello-world/ falls back to English with canonical
/posts/hello-world/; /en/pages/about/ 301s to /pages/about/; /fr/… is 404.
99 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
99 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
# Theme contract
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What the engine promises a theme, and the only thing this repository is bound to (ADR-0023). A theme's
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markup, layout and styling are not the engine's business; a theme's *inputs* are.
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**STATUS: partly live.** The fields under *Live today* exist and are gated; everything else is the shape
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the contract takes when the feature arrives. All of it is engine obligation, not theme instruction — a
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theme may ignore any of it.
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## Live today
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A bundle page receives:
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| Field | Contents |
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| `.Title` | may be empty; a template falls back to `.Key` rather than failing |
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| `.Lang` | the locale of this variant, always set |
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| `.Key` | the bundle's identity, without language or extension |
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| `.HTML` | the rendered body, already escaped |
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| `.Extra` | every frontmatter key the parser does not name (ADR-0002) |
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| `.Style` | the reference theme's stylesheet, inlined so a bare site root needs no asset route |
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| `.Canonical` | the permalink of the variant actually served — not the URL requested, which differs when the fallback chain supplied another language |
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| `.Alternates` | every language this key exists in, as `.Lang` and `.URL`, for `hreflang` |
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Two named templates: `base` is executed for every page; `main` is the block a theme redefines to change
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the body while inheriting the document. Nothing else is promised yet.
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## The stability rule
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Fields and names are **added, never renamed or removed**. Absence is always legal: a template reading a
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field that does not exist gets the zero value and must not crash, and the engine must not make a missing
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field fatal at request time (ADR-0002, invariant 1). This is the View-layer freeze from
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`architecture.md`, arriving as soon as a theme exists rather than at Arc 2.
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Breaking the contract is not a feature — it is a new contract version, and it needs an ADR.
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## What the engine provides
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| Provides | Detail |
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| the page object | known fields plus an `Extra` bag carrying unknown frontmatter (ADR-0002) |
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| the resolved cascade | settings after site → section → bundle resolution (`ideas/deferred-decisions.md`) |
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| queries the page needs | its sequence neighbours, its taxonomy terms, its section's members |
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| named template lookup | per-type sets; a theme redefines a named block and inherits the rest (ADR-0019) |
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| URLs | every path the engine emits, so a theme never constructs one by hand |
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| per-page assets | the `styles` / `scripts` frontmatter lists, resolved relative to the bundle |
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| chrome strings | looked up by key and language, never hardcoded English in a template |
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| validity windows | a template that renders time-dependent output declares one |
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## Extras view
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For a request under a bundle's extras directory (`ideas/deferred-decisions.md`) the engine additionally provides:
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| Field | Contents |
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| `.Extras.Entries` | the tree: `Name`, `Path`, `URL`, `RawURL`, `Kind`, `Size`, `IsDir`, `ModTime` |
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| `.Extras.Selected` | nil on the bare listing; otherwise the chosen entry |
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| `.Extras.Selected.HTML` | rendered output for `markdown` and `text` kinds; empty otherwise |
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| `.Extras.Selected.RawURL` | always present — for `<img src>`, `<object data>`, or a download link |
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`.Bundle` is the parent, so a theme has its title, language and breadcrumb. Selecting an entry is an
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ordinary link and a full re-render, so a sidebar-plus-pane layout needs no JavaScript; swapping the pane
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client-side is a later enhancement over working markup, never a requirement.
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## What the engine does not provide
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Layout, class names, CSS, client-side behaviour, and any choice about how something *looks* — including
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how media is embedded, how a listing is arranged, and whether something appears in a sidebar. Those are
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theme decisions, and a request touching them is split: a contract extension here, a change there.
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The engine also does not provide a component library, a CSS build step, or a JavaScript runtime.
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`conventions.md` holds the output floor the engine itself meets — semantic HTML, zero-JS, every image
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carrying width, height and alt — and a theme is expected to stay inside it, but the engine does not
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enforce a theme's markup.
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## The reference theme
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The binary embeds a reference theme — templates plus one small stylesheet — so a bare site root renders
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(ADR-0026). It exists to make this document executable: it implements every field and block named here and
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nothing else, and a golden-file test through it catches contract regressions before a real theme does.
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It is not a design. Legibility only, no branding, no visual opinions, no JavaScript — `verify.sh` fails on
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a `<script` tag in it. If it starts accumulating taste, it has stopped being a reference.
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It demonstrates the contract; it is not the contract. Changing it does not change what a theme may rely on
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— which is why `verify.sh` also fails when it changes without this document changing, since in practice the
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two drift together.
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## Splitting a request
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When a feature spans engine and theme, this repo delivers:
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1. the contract extension — new fields, new named blocks, new queries, new URLs;
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2. a note stating what a theme must do to use it, precise enough to act on without this conversation;
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3. embedded defaults updated far enough to prove the extension works.
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It does not deliver the theme. Claiming otherwise is the same error as claiming to have migrated content
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in a site root this repo cannot see.
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