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QDB Site News — Step 3: Development Plan

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

Completion Contract

  • Normal entry: a visitor opens the QDB Welcome page.

  • End-to-end outcome: Site News shows at most three newest visible #news roots, regardless of quote ID, with title/date links and an /tags/news continuation when older items exist.

  • Required recovery: no #news roots gives a clear empty state; regular QDB quote collections and the established tag route keep their present behavior.

  • Deployment/external verification: no external service or deployment-configuration change; validate the dynamic page and applicable static artifact before release.

  • Release condition: focused regression coverage and the relevant suite pass, static output contains valid welcome/tag destinations where applicable, and the Step 4 summary records evidence.

Key Risks

  • High risk: stale quote-ID or last-activity selection could hide or reorder news. Early validation: mixed data containing a non-quote #news root and later reply activity. Mitigation: make one QDB news-selection rule based on root tag and authored date before presentation.

  • High risk: a fourth item or missing continuation makes older news unreachable. Early validation: four #news roots. Mitigation: assert a three-item cap and /tags/news link together.

  • Titleless news could render unclear navigation text. Early validation: titleless #news fixture. Mitigation: reuse the established thread-title fallback rather than introduce panel-specific text rules.

Stage 1

  • Goal: define the canonical QDB Welcome news collection.

  • Dependencies: approved Step 2; existing visible thread rows and hydrated board tags.

  • Expected changes: extend QdbBoardPolicy with a #news top-level selection ordered by root authored date; have QdbExperience supply the selected collection and whether additional items exist, without changing quote eligibility or schema.

  • Verification approach: focused policy coverage proves #news-only inclusion, non-quote eligibility, authored-date order despite reply activity, and the three-item boundary data.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • Impact: generic board or quote behavior could drift if its collection is reused incorrectly.

    • Early warning / validation: existing quote-policy tests plus a non-news/quote mixed fixture.

    • Mitigation: confine the new selector to the QDB Welcome path and retain existing quote methods unchanged.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: QdbBoardPolicy, QdbExperience, ThreadRepository row contract.

Stage 2

  • Goal: present the selected collection as an accessible Site News panel.

  • Dependencies: Stage 1 selected items and additional-item state.

  • Expected changes: update qdb_welcome.php to use the Site News heading, linked existing thread titles, authored dates, a no-news state, and a conditional /tags/news continuation; preserve the surrounding Welcome layout.

  • Verification approach: QDB Welcome integration coverage asserts exactly three newest rendered title/date links, exclusion of non-news/older fourth items, title fallback, empty state, and continuation presence only when applicable.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • Impact: presentation can show raw IDs, body previews, or an inaccessible date/link.

    • Early warning / validation: HTML assertions for heading, thread destinations, date markup, and absence of old Recent activity content.

    • Mitigation: reuse the established thread-title and timestamp presentation conventions.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: qdb_welcome.php, page-template helpers, QDB thread permalink contract.

Stage 3

  • Goal: validate the released QDB path and retained all-news destination.

  • Dependencies: Stages 1–2 complete.

  • Expected changes: add the focused QDB Welcome regression to the test runner if needed; no new route, API, schema, or static-route rule.

  • Verification approach: run the focused policy/page tests and relevant QDB suite, then build/check static artifacts under the QDB profile to confirm Welcome and /tags/news resolve with expected links.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • Impact: dynamic behavior passes while the deployed static page lacks its continuation destination.

    • Early warning / validation: inspect generated Welcome and tag artifacts after a four-news fixture build.

    • Mitigation: reuse the existing tag route and static artifact enumeration; do not add a parallel route.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: TagsPageController, /tags/news route contract, StaticArtifactBuilder, test runner.