docs(site): the Asset Bridge — protocol 8, a screen for client files, and pictures in the screenshots (Phase 9c)

The last leg of the Asset Bridge (docs/link/v8.md §16, phase 9c). The cutover put
protocol 8 on `main` in every declaration site, which turned this repo red by
construction: `checkFacts.mjs` reads the protocol from `link`'s `main`.

Two checks were failing, and only one of them was expected.

**checkFacts (10)** — protocol 7 → 8 in all three reads (sidecar, overlay, bundle),
the bundle triple to 2026.09.15 / sidecar v2.3.0 / overlay v1.3.0, and the releases
to link v2.3.0, installer v0.2.0, Module-uo v1.3.0. `moduleApi` and the capability
list did not move: core's whole share of eight phases was a deletion.

**checkReference (9)** — nobody had planned for this one. `Bridge.cfg` grew nine keys
across phases 5, 6 and 7 and the reference page had gone on not mentioning them,
which is the failure mode that check exists for. They are listed as two new groups,
`Client assets` and `Spawn files`, because they are two separate consents.

## The prose the bridge changed

- **New page, Administration → Client files.** `Admin → Client files` is a screen an
  operator has to press a button on and the site had no page for it. It carries the
  rule nothing else states: **nothing here happens on a restart**, so a patched client
  keeps serving the old artwork until somebody says so.
- **Protocol versions** said the most recent bump touched five repositories and named
  `website`. Protocol 8 touched four and did not reach core — its absence is the
  interesting half, and the page now says why. The store-migration paragraph gains 8,
  which changed no line of the sidecar's store despite moving megabytes.
- **The bridge** said "two ways in". There are three: bulk reads go over the
  request/reply path in pages, one in flight at a time, and the reason they must not
  ride the event stream is structural rather than about speed.
- **Requirements** gains `libgdiplus` for Linux shard hosts, and the note that no game
  client has to be installed for any of this — a ServUO shard cannot boot without one.
- **Troubleshooting** gains the failure mode that did not exist before: a bestiary with
  no pictures, or items reading as numbers.
- **Maintenance** gains the button to press after patching a client, and **Verify the
  whole stack** the `doctor` check that landed with it.
- The spawn atlas and the marketplace both carry artwork now, so both capability
  descriptions say so, and `canonicalDocs` points at `link/v8.md`.

## Screenshots, retaken against the real thing

The atlas and marketplace shots predate the asset plane, so both were retaken on the
demo deployment against a real shard and a real sidecar, plus the new admin screen:
1,095 portraits imported in 2.1 s, 67,496 names in 1.4 s, 313 item pictures in 0.8 s.
Nothing here is a mock-up. The atlas shot moved 36px down its page because portraits
made the rows taller.

## One defect found on the way

`seedDemo.mjs` pinned the demo deployment at **protocol 4** with a comment explaining
a `module-uo` debt that has since been paid. Its default now comes from
`platform.json`, so the rig cannot drift two protocols behind the platform again.

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

src/data/capabilities.mjs

@@ -232,7 +232,8 @@ const gameIntelligence = {
       detail:
         'Every player vendor on the server and what is on it, searchable without logging ' +
         'in to the game. Item names arrive from the world as numeric ids and are resolved ' +
-        "against the game's own string table, so they read as names rather than numbers.",
+        "against the game's own string table, so they read as names rather than numbers — " +
+        "beside the item's own picture, in the colour it was dyed.",
     },
     {
       label: 'Houses and IDOC decay',
@@ -249,7 +250,8 @@ const gameIntelligence = {
       detail:
         "A bestiary and spawn map built by reading your shard's own spawn tables, so it " +
         "describes your server rather than someone else's idea of the game. Regions, " +
-        'landmarks and champion altars come with it.',
+        'landmarks and champion altars come with it, and each creature is shown as the ' +
+        'artwork your own client draws it with.',
     },
     {
       label: 'Champion boards',

src/data/platform.json

@@ -12,23 +12,23 @@
     "wrong protocol number in the first place."
   ],
 
-  "verifiedOn": "2026-09-09",
+  "verifiedOn": "2026-09-15",
 
-  "protocol": 7,
+  "protocol": 8,
 
   "moduleApi": "1.10.0",
 
   "bundle": {
-    "tag": "2026.09.10",
-    "sidecar": "v2.2.0",
-    "overlay": "v1.2.0",
+    "tag": "2026.09.15",
+    "sidecar": "v2.3.0",
+    "overlay": "v1.3.0",
     "servuoMin": "57.4"
   },
 
   "releases": {
-    "link": "v2.2.0",
-    "installer": "v0.1.1",
-    "Module-uo": "v1.2.2",
+    "link": "v2.3.0",
+    "installer": "v0.2.0",
+    "Module-uo": "v1.3.0",
     "Android-app": "v0.5.0"
   },
 

src/data/reference.mjs

@@ -201,6 +201,33 @@ export const bridgeCfg = {
     AccountNameMaxLength: 'Account name cap',
     AccountPasswordMaxLength: 'Account password cap',
   },
+  'Client assets': {
+    AssetsEnabled:
+      'Whether the website may read the UO client files on this host \u2014 art, animations, ' +
+      'the string table \u2014 over the link at all. Its own switch, because it is its own consent',
+    AssetBatchBytes:
+      'Byte budget for one reply page, inside the 1 MiB line cap the sidecar accepts',
+    AssetBodyBatch:
+      'Bodies one catalogue request may name. Counted in items rather than bytes, because ' +
+      'what it bounds is building and deleting that many real mobiles on the core thread. ' +
+      'A larger request is refused, never truncated',
+    AssetFetchKeys:
+      'How many keys one fetch may name. The byte budget above still decides where a page is cut',
+    AssetScanMs: 'How long a catalogue scan may run before the page it has is returned',
+    AssetPlayerDirection:
+      'Which of the five directions a player body renders as. 0 is head-on, facing the viewer',
+    AssetCreatureDirection:
+      'The same for everything else. 1 is the front three-quarter \u2014 a wolf seen head-on ' +
+      'is a dark blob',
+  },
+  'Spawn files': {
+    TreeEnabled:
+      'Whether the shard configuration itself \u2014 spawn files, regions, locations, champion ' +
+      'spawns, decoration \u2014 may cross the bridge. A third switch for a third consent: ' +
+      'this is the work of the operator rather than the game client. Off means the spawn ' +
+      'atlas needs a shared filesystem again',
+    TreeChunkBytes: 'How large a slice of one file may be before it is compressed and sent',
+  },
 };
 
 /**
@@ -224,7 +251,8 @@ export const canonicalDocs = {
   'website/TRUSTED_DEVICES_MFA.md': 'Trusted devices and the second factor',
   'link/PLAN.md': 'The sidecar design of record, the data catalog and the wire protocol',
   'link/INTEGRATION.md': 'Integrating with the sidecar',
-  'link/v7.md': 'The current protocol, and its cross-repository obligations',
+  'link/v8.md': 'The current protocol, and its cross-repository obligations',
+  'link/SHARD_PREREQS.md': 'What a shard host needs before any of this works',
   'link/ADMIN_CONTROLS.md': 'What the site may command the game to do',
   'installer/INSTALL.md': 'The operator guide for setting a shard up',
   'installer/PLAN.md': "The installer's design of record",

src/data/screens.mjs

@@ -34,7 +34,8 @@
  * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  * A demo deployment of this platform, wired to a real ServUO shard over a real sidecar
  * (D42): the marketplace rows are player vendors the game actually holds, the atlas is
- * parsed from the shard's own spawn files, the guild rosters came over the bridge. The
+ * parsed from the shard's own spawn files, the guild rosters came over the bridge, and
+ * since protocol 8 the artwork in both came off that host's own UO client. The
  * deployment is branded "Runic Gateway Demo" rather than a real community's name (D43) —
  * the screenshots show the platform, not somebody's private shard.
  *
@@ -81,19 +82,19 @@ export const screens = [
     route: '/uo/market',
     admin: false,
     scrollY: 470,
-    alt: 'The marketplace page, listing items for sale by player vendors with their prices, shop names and locations, above a search box and price filters.',
+    alt: 'The marketplace page, listing items for sale by player vendors — each row showing the item picture, its name, the shop, the seller, the location and the price — above a search box and price filters.',
     caption:
-      'Player vendors, searchable from the website — the same index the in-game vendor search reads, honouring the same per-vendor opt-out.',
+      'Player vendors, searchable from the website — the same index the in-game vendor search reads, honouring the same per-vendor opt-out. The names and the pictures both come out of the client on the shard host.',
     family: 'web',
   },
   {
     id: 'spawn-atlas',
     route: '/uo/atlas',
     admin: false,
-    scrollY: 430,
-    alt: 'The spawn atlas, listing creatures with how many of them spawn and on which facets, above a search box and facet filters.',
+    scrollY: 466,
+    alt: 'The spawn atlas, listing creatures — sea serpent, water elemental, orc, ettin, horse, goat, sheep — each with the artwork from the game client beside how many of them spawn and on which facets.',
     caption:
-      "The spawn atlas is parsed from the shard's own spawn files, so it stays accurate whether or not the server is up.",
+      "The spawn atlas is parsed from the shard's own spawn files, so it stays accurate whether or not the server is up. Every portrait was decoded on the shard host and came over the same bridge.",
     family: 'web',
   },
   {
@@ -151,6 +152,15 @@ export const screens = [
       'The shard connection, showing a live sidecar. The token is write-only: it is never sent back to any client, including this screen.',
     family: 'web',
   },
+  {
+    id: 'admin-client-files',
+    route: '/admin/uo/files',
+    admin: true,
+    alt: 'The client files screen, showing the creature portraits section: 1,095 pictures held of 1,095 catalogued, 746 of 800 creatures matched, the last import and the extractor version, above Update and Re-import everything buttons.',
+    caption:
+      'Client files, imported from the UO client on the shard host over the same bridge. Nothing here happens on a restart — these buttons are the only thing that imports.',
+    family: 'web',
+  },
   {
     id: 'admin-modules',
     route: '/admin/modules',