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>
Phase 5 slice 0 (MODULE_SYSTEM.md §2.11.1). The repo's governance, the front
page, the book's outline, and the CI that keeps the whole thing from rotting.
README.md
What the reader is building, all three parts, and the draft banner: the kit is
finished when someone outside this project builds a working module by
following it alone, and that has not happened. Says the sidecar rule plainly
(MODULE_API.md §2.7) rather than leaving it to chapter 3, because a reader who
skims the front page and starts coding should still get that one right.
book/README.md
The outline of four chapters, landed before the prose so the shape can be
argued with. Chapters are named but NOT linked — a link to a file that does
not exist is what the link check is for, and an outline should not be the
first thing to fail it.
CONTRIBUTING.md
The rule that governs every change here: the kit never re-specifies a
contract. Also the prose conventions, and why the pinned ref points at core's
`edge` rather than `main`.
SECURITY.md
Scoped for a repo that runs nothing: the two things that ARE reportable are a
template that teaches an insecure pattern (it is meant to be copied) and a
chapter that teaches something dangerous.
scripts/checkLinks.js
Relative links resolve; anchors match a real heading; no link pins a reader to
a commit snapshot of a moving document. Nothing is fetched — a self-hosted
Gitea would fail on a credential-less runner and teach us to ignore red.
Fences and code spans are stripped by a line walk, not a regexp.
Its first run found a real one: a PR template's relative links resolve from
the REPO ROOT, because that is where their text ends up when Gitea inlines
them into a pull request body. Encoded, with the reason.
scripts/checkCoreApi.js
The anti-rot check. Asserts template/module.json's `coreApi` EQUALS the pinned
core's MODULE_API_VERSION — equality, not "satisfies", because a range check
stays green across a contract bump and green would then mean "the template
still loads" instead of "someone has re-read the book". Both failure branches
and the pass were exercised against a real core checkout.
ci/core-ref.json
The pin, same convention as Module-uo's. Points at `edge`: core's `main` has
no server/src/modules/ until the cutover, and that pin is one of the things
the cutover has to revisit.
.gitea/workflows/pr-checks.yml
Two jobs. `links` always runs; `template` is conditional on
template/module.json existing, so the repo is gated now and the job arms
itself when slice 1 lands, with no edit to the workflow. Same guard Module-uo
used through its planning phase.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
The repo's first commit, pushed straight to `main` because an empty repo cannot
take a pull request. Everything after it goes through one, starting with the
scaffold.
Deliberately only the two files nobody needs to review: both are verbatim copies
of the versions already approved in the other Runic Gateway repos. The authored
scaffolding — README, CONTRIBUTING, SECURITY, the book's outline, the checks and
the CI — is a pull request, because in this repo the prose IS the product and
landing it unreviewed on `main` would skip the review that matters most.
Phase 5 of the module plan (docs: website/MODULE_SYSTEM.md §2.11, §2.11.1).
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
