docs(link): the guide an integrator reads stopped at protocol 6 (Phase 9a)

The Asset Bridge's docs pass, and the acceptance walk that shaped it (v8.md §16
row 9a, §17.13-14). Phase 9 is three legs now: this one, the edge->main cutover,
and the site.

## INTEGRATION.md had stopped at 6 and contradicted itself

Its §2 said "the current version is 6" above examples already carrying
`X-UOLink-Version: 8`, there was no protocol-7 paragraph, and `assets.` appeared
zero times in 1,306 lines. It is the only document an integrator outside this org
has, so it is carried the whole way: the version block corrected, v7 (the event
plane's command half) and v8 (the asset plane) written, a §5 section for the five
routes, 425/422 in the status table, and a caveat that the asset plane is a
working set rather than a stream.

Protocol 7's absence is the Events workstream's debt rather than this one's, but
it cannot be stepped over on the way to 8.

## The operator-facing half

`UPGRADE_NOTES.md` gains the entry an operator reads when this ships: what
changed, the one required action on a Linux host, and the thing that will not
announce itself -- nothing here happens on a restart, so a patched client keeps
serving the old pictures until somebody presses a button.

`installer/INSTALL.md` gains libgdiplus as a prerequisite row and the `doctor`
row that checks it. The index rows for SPAWN_ATLAS and CLILOCS described the
workflows this protocol deleted; v8.md now has an index row of its own, and v7 is
marked as the released protocol.

## The walk

Wiped every asset row and every imported sprite, then walked it as a new
operator: 1,095 portraits in 3.18 s, 67,496 names in 1.42 s, 313 item pictures in
1.38 s, the atlas over the bridge in ~2.0 s, an Update with no drift answered in
0.99 s. Bestiary portraits are the right animals by eye; the marketplace shows
hued item art with cliloc names.

It found two defects (§17.14) and one cutover hazard: module-uo's `edge` is
behind its `main`, missing #35, so the walk measured 0 of 6,455 spawners carrying
a UniqueId. 9b's row says to sync before merging or the cutover ships a
regression.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_016wDDVXWMDz82WqE1i969r4

website/UPGRADE_NOTES.md

@@ -13,6 +13,57 @@ action, whether it is required, and what happens if you do nothing.
 
 ---
 
+## The Asset Bridge: client artwork and names come off the shard now
+
+**Required on a Linux shard host; one action for everyone else.** Protocol 8, the Asset Bridge
+([`../link/v8.md`](../link/v8.md)). The shard reads its own UO client and serves what is in it, so
+three things that used to need a desktop, a converter or a shared filesystem no longer do.
+
+### What changed
+
+- **Creature portraits on the bestiary** come from the shard's client, not from files you draw or
+  place. Portraits you *have* drawn and named in `spawnAtlas.art.json` still win over an imported
+  one — nothing you made by hand is overwritten.
+- **Item and land pictures** appear beside marketplace listings and on character sheets. They arrive
+  one at a time, shortly after a page asks for one, and refresh themselves after a client patch.
+- **The cliloc table** (UO's id → name table, which is what makes an item read "a katana" rather
+  than "1023721") is decompressed **on the shard**. The old path — install UOFiddler, build a
+  converter against its `Ultima.dll`, copy a 5 MB file onto the web host — is gone, and so is
+  `server/tools/cliloc-export/` and `UOFIDDLER.md`.
+- **The spawn atlas no longer needs to read your ServUO tree.** It used to require a bind mount or a
+  shared volume so the *website* could read the shard's `Spawns/*.xml` — the one place the rule
+  "only the sidecar talks to the shard" was broken, by the internet-facing component. Those files
+  now cross the bridge like everything else. An existing mount keeps working and is still supported;
+  you no longer need one.
+
+### What you must do
+
+1. **On a Linux shard host, install `libgdiplus`** — `sudo apt-get install libgdiplus`, or see
+   [`../link/SHARD_PREREQS.md`](../link/SHARD_PREREQS.md). ServUO runs under Mono there, and Mono's
+   `System.Drawing` is a thin layer over that library, which sits in the **decode** path: without it
+   the shard cannot read a single sprite. It is not a crash — the panel reports `NO_IMAGING` with
+   the command to fix it — and names and spawn files are unaffected, because neither touches a
+   pixel. **Windows shard hosts need nothing.** `installer doctor` checks this for you.
+2. **Import once, from Admin → Client Files.** Creature portraits, item pictures and the cliloc
+   table are all on that page, with the same two buttons: *Update* transfers only what a client
+   patch actually changed, *Re-import everything* fetches the lot.
+
+### If you do nothing
+
+The site runs exactly as it did — every one of these is additive, and a shard with the asset plane
+switched off simply has no pictures. The bestiary shows names as text, item listings show numbers
+instead of names, and nothing errors.
+
+### The one thing that will not tell you about itself
+
+**Nothing here happens on a restart.** Boot deliberately never calls the shard for client files: a
+client patch is an event you know about and the website does not, and a site that re-read 343 MB of
+client files on every restart to discover nothing had changed would pay for the rare case forever.
+So after you patch your UO client, the site keeps serving the old pictures and the old names until
+somebody presses a button on that page. That is the whole reason the page exists.
+
+---
+
 ## Engagement: rules, an in-app inbox, and three things that arrive switched off
 
 **Required.** The engagement workstream, Phases 1–12. Three separate actions, and the two that matter