feat(template): a module that builds and loads — Phase 5 slice 1
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The kit's `template/`: a complete, minimal Runic Gateway module a reader copies,
renames, and runs before reading a chapter. Slice 0 landed the workflow that runs
it; this is the tree that workflow was written against, so the `template` job
arms itself with no edit to the guard.

Installed into a real core it adds one public page at `/examplegame/status`, a nav
row pointing at it, one API route described in an OpenAPI fragment core merges,
one table created by an idempotent schema fragment and dropped by a purge file,
and both lifecycle hooks. That is deliberately less than a real module does; what
it is complete about is the shape — every seam used once, with the reasoning next
to it.

Four decisions, settled with the org lead:

1. **Public tier only, plus the lifecycle hooks.** §2.11.1 d1's "one public route",
   plus enough to show the whole vertical seam once. Admin and player tiers become
   worked examples quoted from module-uo in chapter 2 rather than two thirds of a
   tree the reader deletes on day one.
2. **The release workflow ships as a file, in BOTH flavours** — `.gitea/` and
   `.github/`. Neither runs where it sits (a workflow is only read from a
   repository root) and each arms itself when the reader's copy is its own repo.
   Packaging is the part of a module that cannot be guessed at, and the kit's
   audience is outside this org, so assuming Gitea would have been assuming our
   own deployment. Core installs from a URL and does not care where the release
   lives — only that the host is on the operator's `MODULE_SOURCE_HOSTS`.
3. **A rename checklist that CI verifies**, not a rename script. `template/README.md`
   carries the table; `scripts/checkRenameSites.js` holds it against the tree in
   both directions — an unlisted file that still carries the placeholder fails, and
   so does a listed file that no longer does. The second half is the one usually
   left out and the more valuable: a row that has stopped matching reads as
   instructions to edit something that is not there. Same rule core's identifier
   check follows about its own exemptions. It has its own ten-test suite, run by
   CI as `node --test`, because a check that has never been shown to fail is a
   check nobody knows the state of.
4. **A neutral invented game.** One deviation from the literal answer, forced by
   decision 3: the id is `examplegame`, not `example`. The checklist check is a
   text search, and `example` occurs in ordinary English ("for example") all over
   prose that is not a rename site — a placeholder that cannot occur by accident is
   what makes the check answerable instead of a source of false alarms someone
   learns to ignore.

**The pin moves to the 1.4.0 bump** (website `edge` 1b692bf), which is what
`template/module.json` declares as `coreApi`. Slice 0 pinned its parent, before
1.4.0 existed, so `checkCoreApi.js` arms for the first time here — it asserts
EQUALITY, and its failing on the next contract bump is the system working.

Also in CI: the client tests now run AFTER the build (two of them read the built
chunk and skip without one — run first, the job reports green while asking nothing
about the artifact that ships), and `check:swagger` verifies the committed
fragment is current.

## The finding: an UPDATE that changes nothing does not touch ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

Every suite passed, both guards passed, the chunk built, the module loaded into a
real core and the page rendered correctly. Two hours later the same page said the
world was offline, and it was wrong.

`updated_at` was declared `ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP`, and MariaDB fires that
only when an UPDATE actually CHANGES a value. The boot refresh writes the same
numbers every thirty seconds — which is exactly what a quiet game looks like — so
the timestamp froze at the first write, the row crossed the freshness window, and
the model correctly reported a stale row as offline. Verified against the live
database: two hours of refreshes, `updated_at` still the boot timestamp.

No test in this repo could see it. The model takes its clock as an argument, and
nothing in a suite runs the same UPDATE twice against a real database. It is only
visible as a page that was right when you looked at it and wrong an hour later.

The writer now sets `updated_at = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP` explicitly and the column
drops the clause that was not doing what it looked like it was doing; both carry
the reasoning. Re-verified end to end: the timestamp advances every interval and
the API reports fresh.

Falling out of the fix, the schema fragment gained the rule the reader hits next:
**changing a table is an ALTER, never an edit to its CREATE** — `CREATE TABLE IF
NOT EXISTS` does nothing when the table exists, so an edited column definition
takes effect on a fresh install and on no existing one, which is the worst
possible split because your development database is usually the fresh one.

## Verified

- 29 server tests, 18 client tests, 10 kit-script tests; `check:imports`,
  `check:externals`, `check:swagger` and `checkCoreApi` all green, run in CI's own
  order from a clean `npm ci`.
- Browser smoke (MODULE_API.md §7.7) against a real core built from the pinned
  ref: module `started`, published on `/api/v1/public/modules`, chunk served
  `no-cache` with the right MIME from the entry's directory while `module.json`
  and the server source 404, script tag injected after core's bundle, the page
  rendering inside core's own chrome, the nav row interleaved into the public
  header between Wiki and About, SPA navigation into it from another page, the
  module's path and schema and tag merged into `/api/docs.json`, and
  `[examplegame] registered against core API 1.4.0` in the console with no CSP
  report and no React error.

Refs: MODULE_SYSTEM.md §2.11.1 (slice 1), MODULE_API.md §2.x, §3.x, §5.1, §7.7.

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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// ── The lifecycle hooks ───────────────────────────────────────────────────
//
// `register()` may not touch the database (MODULE_API.md §2.2). This file is
// where everything it could not do goes.
//
// core schema → your schema fragment → onBoot(ctx) → the listener binds
//
// So by the time `onBoot` runs your tables exist, core's settings are seeded, and
// nothing is serving traffic yet. That last part is a guarantee you can rely on:
// a module that must warm a cache before its first request gets to.
//
// **`onBoot` has no timeout.** Shutdown races the process being killed; boot does
// not. A slow `onBoot` delays the listener, which is the promise above rather
// than a problem to be timed out.
//
// **If `onBoot` throws, the module is `startup_failed` and the site still comes
// up.** Your routes stay mounted but answer 503, because a module that failed to
// warm up serving half-initialised data is worse than one that says it is down.
// You then get NO `onShutdown` — you are part-way through a warm-up you never
// finished, and being handed a half-built world to tear down is worse than not
// closing cleanly.
//
// This is where a real module opens its sidecar connection. **The website process
// never opens a connection to a game server** — that is §2.7, contract as of
// MODULE_API 1.4.0, not advice. What you connect to here is your sidecar: a
// service you write, which owns the socket to the game, persists what the game
// says before forwarding it, and answers reads from that store. See the kit's
// chapter 3 for why that shape and not a shorter one.
const core = require('./core')
const worldStatusDb = require('./model/worldStatus/worldStatus.db')
const log = core.logger('boot')
// Whatever a real module would keep open — a sidecar WebSocket, a poll timer —
// is held here so `onShutdown` can close it. This template has one timer, purely
// so that there is something for the shutdown hook to actually do.
let refreshTimer = null
const REFRESH_MS = 30 * 1000
/**
* Ask the game (in a real module: your sidecar) how it is doing, and store it.
*
* Isolated from the hooks so it is the one place a failure is handled: an
* unreachable game is expected, is not this module's fault, and must not become
* an unhandled rejection in core's process.
*/
async function refresh() {
try {
// A real module calls its sidecar's REST API here. Two hardcoded values
// stand in, so that the page renders and the seam is visible.
await worldStatusDb.setStatus({ online: true, players: 0, worldName: 'Example World' })
} catch (err) {
log.warn('could not refresh world status', { error: err.message })
}
}
/**
* Runs once, after the schema and before the listener binds.
*
* Receives the same frozen `ctx` `register()` was given — not a second object
* built to look like it — so a module that only needs core at boot time can skip
* `core.init` entirely and use this argument.
*/
async function onBoot() {
await refresh()
refreshTimer = setInterval(refresh, REFRESH_MS)
// Node keeps the process alive for a pending timer. Core's own intervals are
// unref'd for exactly this reason: a module that forgets turns `Ctrl-C` into a
// thirty-second wait, and on a host it turns a `systemctl stop` into a SIGKILL.
if (typeof refreshTimer.unref === 'function') refreshTimer.unref()
log.info('booted', { refreshMs: REFRESH_MS })
}
/**
* Runs on SIGINT/SIGTERM, before core closes anything of its own.
*
* The database pool, the push dispatcher and the SSE fan-out are all still open,
* because flushing through them is the only thing this hook is for. There is a
* five-second budget per module, after which the hook is abandoned — abandoned
* rather than cancelled, since nothing can stop a promise that is still running.
* Close what you opened, flush what is buffered, and return.
*/
async function onShutdown() {
if (refreshTimer) clearInterval(refreshTimer)
refreshTimer = null
log.info('shut down')
}
module.exports = { onBoot, onShutdown, refresh, REFRESH_MS }