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QDB Numeric Permalinks — Step 2: Feature Description

Feature plan: Step 1 · Step 2 · Step 3 · Step 4

Problem

On the qdb site, a quote's card caption #3 links to its full internal post ID (/threads/thread-<timestamp>-qdb-3) instead of a short /3, and no bare /3 URL exists that reaches that same quote.

User stories

  • As a visitor browsing a qdb quote list, I want to click a quote's #3 and land on a short /3 URL, so I can share or bookmark it the way classic qdb.us quotes worked.

  • As a visitor who already knows a quote's number, I want to type /3 directly in the address bar and reach that quote, without needing to know its internal ID.

Core requirements

  • Visiting /N for a quote number that exists on the qdb site reaches the same page that quote's #N link already reaches today.

  • Every quote card's #N link (quote_card.php, shared by /latest, /top, /search, /random, and the board) points its href at /N instead of the full internal post ID.

  • /N for a number with no matching quote 404s, same as any other unmatched path today.

  • The destination page's rendering is unchanged — same page, shorter URL only.

  • Non-qdb site profiles, and any bare path that isn't purely numeric, keep their current behavior unchanged.

Completion boundary

  • Normal entry: clicking a quote's #N link on any page that renders quote_card.php, or typing /N directly.

  • End-to-end outcome: the visitor lands on the quote's existing permalink page, reached via the short /N URL.

  • Recovery: /N with no matching quote falls through to the existing bare-path handling and 404s, exactly as an unmatched path does today.

  • Release condition: shippable alone; does not depend on the separately scoped "permalink quote-card parity" slice discussed and deferred during Step 1.

Risks

  • Risk: the numeric lookup fires somewhere other than strictly last-resort, shadowing a real route or an exact-ID bare path. Impact: a quote number could resolve to the wrong page, or break an existing route. Earliest validation: a Step 3 test confirming the numeric fallback only runs after every real route and the exact-ID lookup have missed. Mitigation: add the check inside the existing last-resort bare-path block, not before it.

  • Risk: changing quote_card.php's href affects every page that reuses that partial (/latest, /top, /search, /random, the board), not just /latest. Impact: could look like an unintended side effect if some of those pages weren't meant to change. Earliest validation: Step 4 smoke-checks each consumer page. Mitigation: this is intentional — the card is one shared partial, so all of its consumers are meant to pick up the shorter link consistently; called out here so it isn't mistaken for scope creep.

  • Risk: a quote without an assigned display number (if any exist outside the numbering feature's coverage) would break if its link switched to /N with no real N. Impact: a broken or misleading link for that quote. Earliest validation: an explicit Step 3/4 test case for a thread with no -qdb- suffix. Mitigation: only switch a card's href to /N when a display number was actually parsed; otherwise keep today's full-ID href unchanged.

Shared component inventory

  • templates/partials/quote_card.php — reused; one conditional href change, not forked.

  • Application::handle()'s existing last-resort bare-path block (the "Numeric-style permalinks" item already shipped in qdb_classic_urls_checklist.md) — extended with a numeric-quote-number fallback, not duplicated into a new route.

  • ThreadRepository — extended with a new lookup-by-quote-number method alongside its existing byId(), reusing the same repository.

  • No new template, route pattern, or schema change.

Simple user flow

  1. Visitor views quote cards on /latest (or /top, /search, /random, the board).

  2. Visitor clicks a quote's #3 link, now pointing at /3.

  3. The server resolves 3 to the quote's full ID and 302-redirects to /threads/<full-id>.

  4. Visitor sees the unchanged permalink page, reached via /3.

  5. Typing /3 directly produces the same result.

Success criteria

  • Clicking #N from any quote-card-rendering page on qdb reaches the quote's existing permalink page via /N.

  • Typing /N directly for an existing quote reaches the same page.

  • /N for a non-existent number 404s, same as before this feature.

  • The permalink page itself is visually unchanged.

  • Non-qdb site profiles are unaffected.