Phase 6: town-crier news (website -> game)

BridgeTownCrier handles inbound towncrier.add / towncrier.remove, pushing
website-published news into GlobalTownCrierEntryList so every town crier
announces it until it expires. Both run on the Core thread (required: AddEntry
mutates a shared list and the criers send packets). An id maps to the created
TownCrierEntry so a later remove can pull it, and re-adding an id replaces the
prior entry.

Caps are enforced before touching the shared list -- line count, line length,
active-entry count, duration -- as defense in depth on top of the loopback trust
boundary: a buggy or compromised sidecar still cannot flood the criers or pin a
message forever. Config: Bridge.TownCrierMax{Lines,LineLength,Active,DurationSec}.

Verified with a sending stub and a probe that logs the actual crier list. Replies
and game state agree: add n1 -> towncrier.ok and the entry appears with the exact
lines; add n2 (8 lines over the cap of 6) -> towncrier.error and never enters the
list; remove n1 -> towncrier.ok and the entry is gone; remove unknown ->
towncrier.error. Evidence in docs/PLAN.md §16.

Adds BridgeJson.GetStringList for JSON string arrays, tools/stub_sidecar_crier.ps1,
and tools/scaffolding/BridgeCrierProbe.cs. This closes the pure-plugin inbound
work; only the PlayerVendorSale core edit (Phase 7) remains on the ServUO side.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

tools/scaffolding/BridgeCrierProbe.cs

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+using System;
+using System.Text;
+
+using Server.Mobiles;
+
+namespace Server.Custom
+{
+    /// <summary>
+    ///     Logs the global town-crier entry list every few seconds so a towncrier.add / remove
+    ///     round-trip can be observed landing in the actual game state, not just acknowledged.
+    ///
+    ///     Test scaffolding. Never deployed. Read-only.
+    /// </summary>
+    public static class BridgeCrierProbe
+    {
+        public static void Initialize()
+        {
+            if (Config.Get("Bridge.CrierProbeOnStart", false))
+                EventSink.ServerStarted += () =>
+                    Timer.DelayCall(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3.0), TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3.0), Dump);
+        }
+
+        private static int _tick;
+
+        private static void Dump()
+        {
+            try
+            {
+                var list = GlobalTownCrierEntryList.Instance;
+                var entries = list == null ? null : list.Entries;
+                int count = entries == null ? 0 : entries.Count;
+
+                var sb = new StringBuilder();
+                sb.AppendFormat("[CrierProbe] tick {0}: {1} entries", ++_tick, count);
+
+                if (entries != null)
+                {
+                    for (int i = 0; i < entries.Count; i++)
+                    {
+                        var e = entries[i];
+                        if (e == null || e.Lines == null)
+                            continue;
+                        sb.AppendFormat(" | [{0}]", String.Join(" / ", e.Lines));
+                    }
+                }
+
+                Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
+
+                if (_tick >= 6)
+                    Timer.DelayCall(TimeSpan.Zero, () => { }); // no-op; probe stops being interesting
+            }
+            catch (Exception ex)
+            {
+                Console.WriteLine("[CrierProbe] FAILED: " + ex);
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}

tools/scaffolding/README.md

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ These two scripts produced the measured budget in `docs/PLAN.md` §1. They are k
 | `BridgeEventProbe.cs` | `Scripts/Custom/BridgeEventProbe.cs` | Fires gold/fame/karma/save events through their real code paths so the emit path can be verified without a game client. **Mutates the world and saves.** Flag: `EventProbeOnStart`. |
 | `BridgeSweepProbe.cs` | `Scripts/Custom/BridgeSweepProbe.cs` | Bumps one seeded house's decay stage after baseline so the decay sweep's transition detection can be observed without waiting a real IDOC stage. Flag: `SweepProbeOnStart`. Pair with short `*SweepSeconds` overrides. |
 | `BridgeLinkProbe.cs` | `Scripts/Custom/BridgeLinkProbe.cs` | Triggers `[link` for seed_001 without a client, then saves so the `WebsiteUserId` tag reaches `accounts.xml`. Flag: `LinkProbeOnStart`. Pair with a sidecar that reads the code and sends `link.confirm`. |
+| `BridgeCrierProbe.cs` | `Scripts/Custom/BridgeCrierProbe.cs` | Logs the global town-crier entry list every 3s so `towncrier.add` / `remove` can be seen landing in game state. Flag: `CrierProbeOnStart`. |
 
 ## Deploy overwrites Bridge.cfg
 

tools/stub_sidecar_crier.ps1

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+param(
+    [int] $Port = 7788,
+    [string] $Log = "$PSScriptRoot\sc_crier.log"
+)
+
+function Say($msg) {
+    for ($i = 0; $i -lt 5; $i++) {
+        try { "$msg" | Out-File -FilePath $Log -Append -Encoding utf8; return }
+        catch { Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 100 }
+    }
+}
+
+"" | Out-File -FilePath $Log -Encoding utf8
+Say "[crier-sc] starting on 127.0.0.1:$Port"
+
+$listener = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener([System.Net.IPAddress]::Loopback, $Port)
+$listener.Server.SetSocketOption('Socket', 'ReuseAddress', $true)
+$bound = $false
+for ($i = 0; $i -lt 30 -and -not $bound; $i++) {
+    try { $listener.Start(); $bound = $true } catch { Start-Sleep -Seconds 1 }
+}
+if (-not $bound) { Say "[crier-sc] could not bind"; exit 1 }
+Say "[crier-sc] listening"
+
+$client = $listener.AcceptTcpClient()
+Say "[crier-sc] === shard connected ==="
+$stream = $client.GetStream()
+$stream.ReadTimeout = 1500
+$reader = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader($stream)
+$writer = New-Object System.IO.StreamWriter($stream)
+$writer.AutoFlush = $true
+Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 500
+
+# Blocking read with a timeout, so StreamReader-buffered lines are not missed the way
+# checking $stream.DataAvailable does.
+function Drain($seconds) {
+    $deadline = (Get-Date).AddSeconds($seconds)
+    while ((Get-Date) -lt $deadline) {
+        try {
+            $l = $reader.ReadLine()
+            if ($null -ne $l) { Say "[crier-sc] <- $l" }
+        } catch { Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 50 }
+    }
+}
+
+function Send($obj) {
+    $writer.WriteLine($obj)
+    Say "[crier-sc] -> $obj"
+    Drain 1.5
+}
+
+# 1. valid add
+Send '{"kind":"towncrier.add","id":"n1","lines":["Hear ye, hear ye!","The market tax is now 5 percent."],"durationSec":3600}'
+# 2. add exceeding the line cap (default 6) -> error
+Send '{"kind":"towncrier.add","id":"n2","lines":["1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8"],"durationSec":60}'
+# 3. remove the valid one
+Send '{"kind":"towncrier.remove","id":"n1"}'
+# 4. remove an unknown id -> error
+Send '{"kind":"towncrier.remove","id":"does-not-exist"}'
+
+Drain 3
+
+Say "[crier-sc] done"
+$client.Close(); $listener.Stop()