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docs!: Protocol 3.0 cutover — the 3.0 documentation set #73

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link/INTEGRATION.md
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@@ -488,7 +488,7 @@ Full character sheet: stats, all trained skills, worn equipment with flattened i
Field notes:
- `skills[].base` is trained value, `value` includes item/temp bonuses, `cap` is the cap. **Do not assume `base <= cap`** — GM characters can exceed it.
- `equipment[].mods` is a flattened map of every non-zero AOS attribute on the item (weapon or armor). Empty `{}` for plain items.
- Item names are usually **clilocs**, not strings: use `name` when present, otherwise resolve `cliloc` against a UO cliloc table on the site.
- Item names are usually **clilocs**, not strings: use `name` when present, otherwise resolve `cliloc` against a UO cliloc table on the site. **Do not expect the shard to resolve them for you** — on any modern client ServUO's own `Ultima.StringList` cannot read the client's compressed cliloc files, so `VendorSearch.GetItemName` returns `item.Name` and the in-game Vendor Search gump has the same gap. Building that table is a consumer-side job; the website's is described in [`website/CLILOCS.md`](../website/CLILOCS.md).
- `titles` (Protocol 2.0): `selected` is the index into `reward` currently displayed (`-1` if none). `fameKarma`/`skill` are computed display titles, omitted when the character has none. `reward` entries may be a **cliloc number as a string** or a literal string — resolve numeric ones against your cliloc table, same as item names.
- Errors: unknown account → **404** `{"kind":"bridge.error","reason":"unknown account"}`; bad slot → **404**/**400** similarly.

97
link/v3.md
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@@ -15,9 +15,14 @@ Each part is marked off here as it lands on `edge`. §9 carries the same state p
| 2 | **B/1** — `world.ruleset` (§5) | ✅ **Done** | servuo-plugins [#3](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/servuo-plugins/pulls/3), link [#17](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/link/pulls/17), website [#111](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/111), docs [#66](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/66) |
| 3 | **C** — spawn atlas (§6) | ✅ **Done** | website [#112](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/112) (parsers + CLI + tables) + [#113](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/113) (API + pages + admin panel), docs [#67](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/67) + [#68](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/68) |
| 4 | **B/2** — `points.board` (§7) | ✅ **Done** | servuo-plugins [#4](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/servuo-plugins/pulls/4), link [#18](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/link/pulls/18), website [#114](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/114), docs [#69](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/69) |
| 5 | **B/3** — `vendor.listing` (§8) | ⬜ Not started | — |
| 5a | **B/3 dependency** — cliloc table (§8.6) | 🟨 In review | website [#115](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/115), docs [#70](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/70) |
| 5b | **B/3** — `vendor.listing` (§8) | ⬜ Not started | — |
| 6 | **Cutover** — `PROTOCOL_VERSION` 2→3 (§4) | ⬜ Not started | — |
Order 5 split in two once §8.6's cliloc dependency turned out to be a client-format problem rather
than a parser (see §8.6). 5a is website-only and lands first so the marketplace ships with real item
names; 5b is the four-repo wire change.
---
## 1. Why 3.0
@@ -715,17 +720,86 @@ admin can turn the stream on. `uoLinkSocket` paginates `/market` on reconnect, b
`/market/vendors/:serial`, behind `requireFeature('market')`. **Rate-limit it** — this is the first
genuinely expensive public endpoint; `express-rate-limit` is already a dependency.
### 8.6 The open dependency — cliloc names
### 8.6 The open dependency — cliloc names ✅ Resolved (shipped ahead of §8)
`CharacterSheet.jsx:14-15` already documents the gap ("without a cliloc table on the site we can only
show literals") and renders equipment as `id {itemId}`. Search-by-name needs that table.
`CharacterSheet.jsx:14-15` documented the gap ("without a cliloc table on the site we can only
show literals") and rendered equipment as `id {itemId}`. Search-by-name needs that table.
- **Recommended:** `scripts/buildClilocs.js` reads the UO client's `Cliloc.enu` → committed
`db/data/clilocs.json`; ingest denormalizes into `shard_vendor_items.display_name`. Same
build-artifact pattern as §6, and it **also fixes the character sheet**.
- **Fallback:** ship with item-art + price + region filters, and name search only over renamed items.
**Resolved as its own website-only change, landed BEFORE the market so `/site/market` ships with real
item names.** Full design and operator guide: [`docs/website/CLILOCS.md`](../website/CLILOCS.md).
Ingest denormalizes the resolved name into `shard_vendor_items.display_name` as planned.
This decision is the reason §8 is sequenced last.
Two things in the original recommendation above turned out to be wrong, and both are worth recording
because the reasoning generalises.
**1. The committed `db/data/clilocs.json` artifact was dropped.** It predates the two Part C
corrections (§6.1) and violates both: no committed snapshot of derived content, and nothing
EA-derived ever shipped. UO's strings are EA's, exactly as the creature sprites are. Replaced with
the §6 pattern instead — parse on every boot from an operator-configured path, hash-gated, output
gitignored, `PARSER_VERSION` counted as drift.
**2. `scripts/buildClilocs.js reads the UO client's Cliloc.enu` is not possible, and the reason
matters.** **Every current client ships its cliloc files COMPRESSED** — all eight `Cliloc.*` files
open with a DWORD whose high byte is `0x8E`, the "Mythic" container. The plain layout (`02 00 00 00
01 00`, then `{int32 number, byte flag, uint16 length, UTF-8}`) is what those files looked like
*before* that change. Parsing a compressed file as plain does not fail cleanly: it yields ~19k
"records" with negative ids, 1,722 distinct keys out of 19,508, one 62 KB "string", and a truncation
somewhere in the middle.
Decompressing means porting an inverse-BWT coder with a 1 KB frequency header — a few hundred lines
whose failure mode is plausible-looking garbage rather than an error. Two facts closed off the
alternatives:
- **ServUO cannot read it either.** Its bundled `Ultima.StringList` implements only the plain layout,
so on a modern client `VendorSearch.StringList` is null and `VendorSearch.GetItemName` returns
`item.Name`. **The in-game Vendor Search gump has the same gap** — which also means §8.2's warning
never to call `GetItemName` in the sweep costs us nothing we could otherwise have had.
- The shard therefore cannot supply names on our behalf, so this could not be pushed to the plugin.
⇒ **the operator converts once, from their own client, and the site reads the result.** Accepted
shapes are the plain binary layout and a `number<TAB|,|;>text` export; the site sniffs which.
`server/tools/cliloc-export/` drives UOFiddler's `Ultima.dll` (the decompressor that already exists)
and writes the plain form. A shard that never converts is fully supported — names render as ids,
exactly as before.
**Shards edit items and add new ones**, and those carry ids no stock client table has — so this reads
a **set** of sources, not one file, hash-gated together and re-read on every boot exactly as §6 reads
the ServUO tree: a base (the converted client table) plus every overlay under `custom/`, later
winning. Adding one custom item therefore never means re-exporting a 5 MB client file. Measured on
the live shard for scale: its script tree references **16,434** cliloc ids and only **37** are absent
from stock — tens against a 67k base, which is why an overlay and not a second table. `custom/` is the
one convention here that is ours rather than the shard's, because **ServUO has no server-side notion
of a custom cliloc**: they live in the patched client a shard distributes, and nothing in the tree
declares them.
That set also brings back a hazard a single file did not have, and §8.6 answers it the way §6 does. A
corrupt source fails the parse loudly, but a source that has **vanished** parses perfectly and imports
a table quietly missing everything it contributed — an unmounted volume is indistinguishable from a
deliberate deletion. So it is **staged, not applied** (`status: 'needsReview'`), reported by both the
import and `status()`, and accepted with `{approve:true}`. It is a flag rather than §6's
approve/reject pair because the atlas stores a pending decision *so that approving re-parses*; here
nothing is stored, so re-reading at approval time is automatic.
Five traps found by building it, all recorded in `CLILOCS.md`:
- **`StringList.SaveStringList` RE-COMPRESSES on save.** It looks exactly like the export path and is
not; its output is byte-identical to its compressed input, because its purpose is round-tripping a
file back into the client.
- **Trimming a text line before splitting silently drops half the table.** Roughly half of a real
cliloc table is empty strings (ids the client reserves), exported as `1005008<TAB>`. Trimming eats
the trailing separator, leaving a bare number that then looks like a header row — 55,994 of 123,490
entries vanished, and the import still looked successful.
- **`Number('')` is `0`, not `NaN`.** A line starting with a separator imports as a bogus cliloc 0
unless the empty field is rejected explicitly.
- **Tidying punctuation unconditionally corrupts real names.** Stripping leftover brackets is right
after a placeholder is removed (`[~1_stuff~]` → nothing) and wrong otherwise: a shard's custom
`"Runic Gateway Sigil (v2)"` rendered as `"(v2"`. Same shape as the `%` rule. **Found only by
running a shard-style overlay through it** — every stock-table fixture passed.
- **Source labels must be forward-slashed and root-relative**, or the same directory fingerprints
differently on Windows and Linux and every boot looks like a change. The identical bug §6 records.
Blank entries are dropped at import (123,490 parsed → **67,496** stored), which also makes the binary
and text paths converge on identical content.
### 8.7 Client
@@ -743,7 +817,8 @@ inherently up to one full cycle old, and the UI must say so.
| 2 | **B/1** — `world.ruleset` (§5) | all four | new kind | ✅ Done |
| 3 | **C** — spawn atlas (§6) | website, docs | none | ✅ Done |
| 4 | **B/2** — `points.board` (§7) | all four | new kind + `char.profile` field | ✅ Done |
| 5 | **B/3** — `vendor.listing` (§8) | all four | new kinds | ⬜ |
| 5a | **B/3 dependency** — cliloc table (§8.6) | website, docs | none | 🟨 In review |
| 5b | **B/3** — `vendor.listing` (§8) | all four | new kinds | ⬜ |
| 6 | **Cutover** — `PROTOCOL_VERSION` 2→3, `edge` → `main` | all four | the bump | ⬜ |
---
@@ -761,7 +836,7 @@ inherently up to one full cycle old, and the UI must say so.
in the security section.
- NEW `website/SHARD_VISIBILITY.md` — admin-facing: what each feature exposes, what each rung means,
what cannot be loosened.
- NEW `website/SPAWN_ATLAS.md`, NEW `website/MARKETPLACE.md`.
- NEW `website/SPAWN_ATLAS.md`, NEW `website/CLILOCS.md`, NEW `website/MARKETPLACE.md`.
- `PROJECT_TREE.md` in each touched repo.
- `npm run swagger` **and** `npm run routes:manifest` on every route-touching PR — both are committed
artifacts, and `test/routeManifest.test.js` fails on drift.

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@@ -486,6 +486,64 @@ artwork: sprites live in the operator's own client `.mul`/`.uop` files and are t
redistribute. An operator supplies art via a gitignored map plus images under the (already
gitignored) `server/uploads/atlas/`. Text-only is the normal, supported state.
### shard_clilocs / shard_cliloc_meta — UO's localization table (Protocol 3.0)
Items on the wire carry a `LabelNumber`, not a name. The bridge has always sent it —
`char.profile.equipment.cliloc`, reward titles as a cliloc number in string form, and one per
marketplace listing — but with no table to resolve it against, the character sheet could only render
`id 1023721` where the game renders "quarter staff".
| Table | Shape |
|---|---|
| `shard_clilocs` | `number` INT PK, `flag`, `text` TEXT |
| `shard_cliloc_meta` | Singleton (`id = 1`), `payload` JSON (source file, sha256, count, `parserVersion`), `imported_at` |
Import-owned and all-or-nothing in one transaction, same contract as the atlas — including **`DELETE`,
not `TRUNCATE`**, for the same reason.
**Sourced from files the operator supplies**, at a path from the `cliloc_client_path` setting falling
back to `UO_CLIENT_PATH`. Nothing client-derived is committed: UO's strings are EA's, exactly as the
creature sprites are. A shard with nothing configured is fully supported — names render as ids. Full
design and operator guide: [`CLILOCS.md`](CLILOCS.md).
**It reads a SET of sources, not one file**, because shards edit items and add new ones and those
carry cliloc ids no stock client table has. A base (the converted client table) plus every overlay
under `custom/` are re-read on every boot and hash-gated **together**, exactly as the atlas re-reads
`Regions.xml` + `Locations/*.xml` + `Spawns/*.xml` + `ChampionSpawns.xml`. Later sources win, so an
overlay both adds ids and overrides stock ones, and adding one custom item never means re-exporting a
5 MB client file. Scale, measured on the live shard: its script tree references 16,434 cliloc ids and
only 37 are absent from stock — tens of entries against a 67k base, which is why this is an overlay
and not a second table.
The conversion step is not avoidable: **every current client ships its cliloc files compressed**
(first DWORD's high byte `0x8E`), and ServUO's own bundled `Ultima.StringList` cannot read that
either — so the shard cannot supply names on our behalf. The plain layout and a delimited text export
are both accepted, sniffed by header rather than extension.
Three decisions worth stating:
- **`text` is TEXT, not VARCHAR.** Long property descriptions reach 12 KB. The index that matters for
marketplace search is the denormalized `shard_vendor_items.display_name`, not this table.
- **Blank entries are dropped at import** — 123,490 parsed → **67,496** stored. Roughly half a cliloc
table is empty strings for ids the client reserves and never uses; a row that resolves to no name is
indistinguishable from no row at all, and dropping them makes the binary and text imports converge
on identical content.
- **Two refusals, one of them the atlas's.** A corrupt source fails the parse on a truncated record,
so it is caught outright and leaves the previous table serving. But a source that has **vanished**
parses perfectly and imports a table quietly missing everything it contributed — an unmounted volume
and a deliberate deletion are indistinguishable from here, which is precisely the ambiguity the
atlas stages a facet removal for. So it is escalated: `status: 'needsReview'`, nothing applied,
`missingSources` reported by both the import and `status()`, and an admin accepts it with
`{approve:true}`. That is a flag rather than the atlas's approve/reject pair because the atlas
stores a pending decision so that approving **re-parses** the tree; here nothing is stored, so
re-reading at approval time is automatic.
**Resolution is server-side and there is no public route.** The table is never served *as* a table:
67k rows would dwarf any page using them, and the Android client consumes the same already-resolved
JSON. `resolveMany()` returns only ids that resolved to something displayable — placeholders like
`~1_val~` are stripped, since the bridge sends the id and never the property packet that carries the
arguments — and it never throws, because a cliloc lookup is decoration on a character sheet.
---
## 4. API contract
@@ -741,6 +799,9 @@ file a route sits in — that is the property the route manifest freezes.
| POST | `/shard/atlas/import` | re-import without restarting; `{force}` ignores the hash gate. **An unreadable tree answers 200 with `status:"unavailable"`, not 500** — `refresh()` reports outcomes rather than throwing (the boot path must never be blocked by a bad tree) and that contract is preserved at the API. |
| POST | `/shard/atlas/approve` · `/shard/atlas/reject` | answer a refresh staged because it would REMOVE a facet. Approving **re-parses** the tree, so what lands matches it at approval time; rejecting is remembered against those source hashes so it does not re-prompt every restart. 404 when nothing is staged. |
| PUT | `/shard/atlas/path` | point the atlas at a different tree (persisted as `spawn_atlas_servuo_path`, which wins over `SERVUO_PATH`). Blank clears it. Deliberately **does not import** — moving the mount and reloading the world are separate decisions — and returns fresh status so the panel can offer the import next. |
| GET | `/shard/clilocs` | cliloc-table status (`adminOnly`): every source found now (base first, then `custom/` overlays in merge order), what each contributed at the last import, readability, drift across the set, the entry count, and `missingSources`. `configured:false` is a supported state — item names then render as ids. No public counterpart: the table is never served *as* a table. |
| POST | `/shard/clilocs/import` | reload after a client patch or an overlay edit; `{force}` ignores the hash gate, `{approve}` accepts a **vanished** source (refused by default — see the table notes above). **A missing path — or the likely mistake of pointing at the client's own COMPRESSED `Cliloc.enu` — answers 200 with `status:"unavailable"` and a `code`, not 500.** `COMPRESSED` is called out by name: a 500 would say only "something broke", and the operator needs to be told which file to convert. |
| PUT | `/shard/clilocs/path` | point the site at a different cliloc base file or directory (persisted as `cliloc_client_path`, which wins over `UO_CLIENT_PATH`). Overlays are read from `custom/` beside it either way. Blank clears it. Deliberately **does not import**, same reasoning as the atlas path. |
Every admin write logs to `activity_log`.

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@@ -0,0 +1,296 @@
# Cliloc table (item and title names)
**Status:** Complete on `edge` — website [#115](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website/pulls/115), docs [#70](https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/docs/pulls/70).
**Design:** [`docs/link/v3.md` §8.6](../link/v3.md) — Protocol 3.0, the dependency Part B/3 was sequenced behind.
A "cliloc" is UO's localization table: an integer id mapped to a display string.
**Items on the wire carry a `LabelNumber`, not a name.** The bridge has always
sent that number — `char.profile.equipment` has a `cliloc` field, reward titles
arrive as a cliloc number in string form, and every marketplace listing carries
one — but the site had no table to look it up in, so a character sheet could only
render `id 1023721` where the game renders **"quarter staff"**.
The number was never the missing piece. The table was.
## Why the operator has to convert the file
This is the awkward part, and it is not avoidable:
**Every current UO client ships its cliloc files compressed.** All eight
`Cliloc.*` files in a modern client (`chs`, `cht`, `deu`, `enu`, `esp`, `fra`,
`jpn`, `kor`) begin with a DWORD whose high byte is `0x8E` — the "Mythic"
compressed container. The plain layout this site parses is what those files
looked like *before* that change.
Decompressing it means an inverse-BWT coder with a frequency header — a few
hundred lines of bit-level work whose failure mode is plausible-looking garbage
rather than an error. The site has no business carrying that at runtime.
Two facts make the alternatives worse, not better:
- **ServUO cannot read it either.** Its bundled `Ultima.StringList` implements
only the plain layout, so on a modern client `VendorSearch.StringList` is null
and `VendorSearch.GetItemName` returns `item.Name` — usually nothing. The
shard cannot supply names on our behalf; the in-game Vendor Search gump has the
same gap.
- **Nothing client-derived may be committed.** UO's strings are EA's. The repo
ships no string table for the same reason it ships no artwork and no map
snapshot — see [`SPAWN_ATLAS.md`](SPAWN_ATLAS.md).
So the conversion happens **once, on the operator's machine, against their own
client**, and the site reads the result from a path it is given. A shard that
never does this is in a fully supported state: names render as ids, exactly as
they did before the table existed.
## Converting
Either format below is accepted; the site sniffs which one it was handed.
| Format | Fidelity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| **Plain binary** (recommended) | Exact | 6-byte header, then `{int32 number, byte flag, uint16 length, UTF-8}` records |
| Delimited text | Loses leading/trailing whitespace | `number<TAB\|,\|;>text` per line; a header row, blank lines and `#` comments are ignored |
The whitespace caveat is real but cosmetic: ~1,300 of the 123,490 entries in a
stock `Cliloc.enu` are label prefixes like `"max = "` whose trailing space is
meaningful when the client concatenates a value onto them. Nothing on this site
concatenates, and every consumer passes through `displayText()`, which trims.
### Using the bundled tool
`server/tools/cliloc-export/` is a small .NET console app that drives
[UOFiddler](https://github.com/polserver/UOFiddler)'s `Ultima.dll` — the
decompressor that already exists and is already maintained — and writes the plain
format. It loads that DLL **reflectively** so it compiles against any SDK, and it
writes the records by hand because UOFiddler's own `SaveStringList` *re-compresses*
on save (its purpose is round-tripping a file back into the client, so its output
is byte-identical to its input — a trap worth knowing about).
```bash
cd website/server/tools/cliloc-export
dotnet build -c Release
# binary (recommended)
dotnet run -- "<UOFiddler>/Ultima.dll" "<UO client>/Cliloc.enu" /srv/uo-data/clilocs.plain
# or tab-delimited
dotnet run -- "<UOFiddler>/Ultima.dll" "<UO client>/Cliloc.enu" /srv/uo-data/clilocs.tsv --tsv
```
A UOFiddler GUI export works equally well — anything producing one of the two
shapes above is fine.
## Shard-added and shard-edited items
**Shards edit items and add new ones**, and those carry cliloc ids no stock
client table has. The table is therefore built from a **set** of sources, all
re-read on every boot and hash-gated together — the same shape as the spawn
atlas, which reads `Regions.xml` + `Locations/*.xml` + `Spawns/*.xml` +
`ChampionSpawns.xml` and merges them:
```
<cliloc path>/
clilocs.plain ← base: the converted client table
custom/
01-uomysticmoon.tsv ← overlays: shard additions and overrides
02-events.tsv
```
Overlays use the same delimited-text format, are read in **sorted order**, and
**later sources win** — so an overlay both *adds* ids the client never had and
*overrides* stock ones the shard has re-purposed. Any `.tsv`, `.csv`, `.txt`,
`.enu` or `.plain` file in `custom/` is picked up; anything else (a `README.md`,
say) is ignored.
Adding, editing or removing any overlay counts as drift, so a new custom item
needs only a file edit and a restart — or the admin panel's Import button.
**Adding one item never means re-exporting a 5 MB client file.**
The import result reports what each source contributed, which is how you confirm
an overlay took effect — `overrode: 0` on a file meant to re-label stock items
says it did not:
```json
"sources": [
{ "label": "clilocs.plain", "kind": "base", "entries": 123490, "added": 123490, "overrode": 0 },
{ "label": "custom/uomysticmoon.tsv", "kind": "custom", "entries": 2, "added": 1, "overrode": 1 }
]
```
**Why a convention rather than discovery.** Everywhere else this pipeline follows
the shard's own files, but **ServUO has no server-side notion of a custom
cliloc** — they live in the patched client a shard distributes to its players,
and nothing in the tree declares them. There is nothing to discover, so `custom/`
is the one thing here that is our convention rather than the shard's. (An
operator who *does* patch their client cliloc needs no overlay at all: convert
the patched file and their edits are simply in the base.)
Measured on the live shard for scale: its script tree references **16,434** cliloc
ids and only **37** are absent from the stock client table — tens of entries
against a 67k base, which is what makes an overlay the right shape rather than a
second full table.
## Configuring the path
Two ways to point at the sources, the setting winning over the environment:
| Source | Notes |
|---|---|
| `cliloc_client_path` setting | Admin-editable (Admin → Shard); takes effect on the next refresh without a redeploy |
| `UO_CLIENT_PATH` env var | The deploy-time default, since the path usually describes a mount the deployment sets up |
The value may be **the base file itself or a directory to search**, because both
are natural answers to "where is it". Overlays are read from a `custom/`
directory beside the base **either way** — pointing at a file does not forfeit
them.
A directory is searched case-insensitively (the client writes `Cliloc.enu` on
Windows; the site usually runs on Linux) for, in order: `clilocs.tsv`,
`clilocs.csv`, `clilocs.plain`, `cliloc.plain`, `cliloc.plain.enu`,
`cliloc.enu.plain`, `clilocs.txt`, `cliloc.enu`.
That ordering puts explicitly-converted names first on purpose. Pointing the
setting straight at an unconverted client directory finds `cliloc.enu`, which is
compressed — and the site says so by name rather than failing obscurely:
```
status: unavailable
code: COMPRESSED
reason: This is a compressed (Mythic-format) cliloc file, which the site cannot
read. Convert it to the plain format first — see docs/website/CLILOCS.md.
```
## Refresh contract
Identical in shape to the spawn atlas, and for the same reasons:
- **It never blocks startup.** No path, an unreadable file, a wrong-format file,
a database error — all caught and logged. The site comes up either way.
- **Hash-gated.** The boot path hashes the file and skips the parse entirely when
it matches what is loaded, which is every restart that did not follow a client
patch. Measured on a stock table: **14 ms** for the no-op, **663 ms** for a full
parse and replace.
- **A `PARSER_VERSION` bump also counts as drift**, so a corrected parse reaches
an install whose client never patches.
### Two ways a refresh is refused
**A corrupt file** — the realistic failure for any single source — makes the
parser fail on a truncated record rather than yield a plausible-but-short table,
so it is caught outright. Verified: a file truncated to half its length reports
```
code: TRUNCATED
reason: Truncated record header at byte 2486759 (74909 entries read)
```
and the rows already loaded are untouched. A malformed overlay names the file it
came from (`custom/broken.tsv: No cliloc entries found…`), because "which of my
six overlay files is broken" is otherwise a guessing game.
**A source that has VANISHED** is the hazard a single file did not have. It
parses perfectly and imports a table quietly missing everything that file
contributed — and an unmounted volume looks exactly like a deliberate deletion
from here. This is the same ambiguity the atlas stages a facet removal for, so it
is escalated rather than applied:
```
status: needsReview
reason: 1 previously-loaded cliloc source(s) are missing;
the existing table is unchanged
missingSources: ["custom/uomysticmoon.tsv"]
```
`status()` reports `missingSources` too, so the panel can show it before anyone
clicks Import. An admin accepts it by re-running the import with
`{ "approve": true }`.
**Why that is a flag and not the atlas's approve/reject pair.** The atlas stores
a pending decision in its own table so that approving *re-parses the tree*, which
is what keeps a multi-megabyte blob out of the database and makes the applied
result match the tree at approval time. Here nothing is stored, so re-reading at
approval time is automatic — the decision is a single boolean on the import an
admin was already going to run.
## What gets stored
| | |
|---|---|
| Parsed from a stock `Cliloc.enu` | **123,490** entries |
| Of those, empty strings | **55,994** (ids the client reserves and never uses) |
| Stored in `shard_clilocs` | **67,496** |
Blank entries are dropped at import. A row resolving to no name is
indistinguishable from no row at all to every caller, and dropping them makes the
binary and text imports converge on **identical** content — the binary format
carries the blanks explicitly and a text export may or may not, depending on the
tool. Verified: both formats import to the same 67,496 rows with the same keys.
`text` is `TEXT`, not `VARCHAR`: the long property descriptions reach 12 KB, and
silently truncating them would be worse than storing them. The index that matters
for marketplace search is on the denormalized `shard_vendor_items.display_name`,
not here.
## How names are applied
**Resolution happens server-side.** The table is never served *as* a table and
there is no public route for it. Two reasons: 67k rows would dwarf any page that
used them, and the Android client consumes the same JSON and would otherwise need
its own copy.
`resolveMany()` takes a batch of ids and returns a `Map` holding only those that
resolved to something displayable, so "no such id" and "id with no usable name"
collapse into one branch at the call site. It never throws — a cliloc lookup is
decoration on someone's character sheet, and a database blip must not fail the
sheet. A capped in-process cache fronts it; measured cold **4.2 ms**, warm
**0.015 ms**.
### `displayText()`
Cliloc strings interpolate arguments the client pulls from an item's property
list — `~1_val~`, `~2_NAME~`. **We never have those**: the bridge sends the id,
not the packet. So a name carrying them is reduced to what is actually knowable.
| Raw | Displayed |
|---|---|
| `quarter staff` | `quarter staff` |
| `cold damage ~1_val~%` | `cold damage` |
| `[~1_stuff~]` | *(nothing — the whole string was the argument)* |
| `50%` | `50%` |
| `Runic Gateway Sigil (v2)` | `Runic Gateway Sigil (v2)` |
**Punctuation is only tidied when a placeholder was actually removed.** The
trailing `%` in row two is the unit belonging to the number we never had, and the
brackets in row three only ever wrapped the argument — but a string with no
placeholder has no such debris, and trimming it anyway corrupts real names. Rows
four and five are the ones that caught it: a shard's custom
`"Runic Gateway Sigil (v2)"` rendered as `"(v2"` while the bracket trim was
unconditional.
### Consumers
- **Character sheet equipment.** `enrichCharProfile` attaches `clilocName` to each
item. A player-given `name` always wins — "Bob's lucky axe" must not be
relabelled "hatchet" — and the client re-states that precedence.
- **Reward titles.** `titles.rewardResolved` is a parallel array with the numeric
entries turned into words (`null` where nothing resolved). The sheet used to
*skip* numeric reward titles entirely, having no way to render them.
- **Marketplace listings** (Protocol 3.0 §8) denormalize the resolved name into
`shard_vendor_items.display_name` so search can index it.
## Admin surface
All admin-only, alongside the atlas under Admin → Shard:
| Route | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `GET /api/v1/admin/shard/clilocs` | Sources found, what each contributed at the last import, readability, drift, entry count, `missingSources` |
| `POST /api/v1/admin/shard/clilocs/import` | Reload after a client patch or an overlay edit; `{ "force": true }` reimports an unchanged set, `{ "approve": true }` accepts a vanished source |
| `PUT /api/v1/admin/shard/clilocs/path` | Set the path; blank disables resolution |
A refresh **result is not an exception**: a missing file, or the likely mistake of
pointing at the client's own compressed `Cliloc.enu`, answers `200` with
`status: "unavailable"` and a reason. A `500` would say only "something broke";
the operator needs to be told which file to convert. Setting the path
deliberately does **not** import as a side effect — the response carries the
refreshed status so the panel can offer that as the next step.