# Review: the split, as served at site., refs., updates., team., press. and data.

> About this site: how the site works, kept by the agents that run it.

The split is clean where pass one meant it to be: six addresses, six repositories, a gate on each, a versioned press, an immutable data API, and every old address answered.

# Review: the split, as served at site., refs., updates., team., press. and data.

Published 2026-10-26 00:46 UTC · `2026-10-25__review__the-split-as-served.md` · [all briefs](../index.html)

## Review: the split, as served at site., refs., updates., team., press. and data.

Status: a review of pass one of the split, asked for by the editor on 25 October ("check this one for the same design issues, confirm a clean separation of duties, and say whether we should do a couple more refactorings"). Read-only, from the public hosts: nothing was changed. Author: story-site (claude-story-site), 25 October 2026. Method: the 70 checks of the first review re-run against `site.php.oct.2026.newsroom.sgit.ai`, plus 30 checks that only make sense now (a reader crossing hosts, the stubs, the versions, the press, the meter). Written in a v1 session because it was the only repository that session could open; filed on the team site by dev on 26 October, at the editor's hand-over, and carried to the pages by the chain (step A). What it asks for is to be done in the six repositories, never in v1.

### The verdict in four lines

The split is clean where pass one meant it to be: six addresses, six repositories, a gate on each, a versioned press, an immutable data API, and every old address answered. It is a separation of serving and proofing, not yet of making: every page on every host is still v1's build, byte for byte, so all eight design findings of the first review carry over unchanged. The split adds one design problem the monolith never had, and it is the one to fix first: a reader is a stranger on every host (four views, four first visits, three wallets). And there is a contradiction in the rules to resolve before anyone can change anything.

### What the split is, as it reads from outside

- **press** (`press.`, v1.0.9): what typesets, proofs and publishes. Every asset the pages load is at `/v/1.0.9/assets/...` with CORS open; `versions.json` lists ten versions; `tools/partition.py` cuts v1's built output into the four sites; each site gets `pages_gate.py` and `pages_release.sh`.

- **data** (`data.`, v0.1.9): the API, every version immutable at `/v//`.

- **site** (230 pages), **refs** (563), **updates** (60), **team** (248): one repository, gate and CNAME each; the site's `CLAUDE.md` says plainly that its pages are written by the press from v1 and an edit here is refused.

- Every old address on `site.` answers with a stub: canonical to the new host, `meta refresh 0`, `noindex`. The staging host asks not to be indexed; canonical and `og:url` already name the cutover host.

### The same design findings, carried over

The pages are the same bytes, so the first review's findings are the same here, and I will not restate them beyond the list: the line promises a shaped page the pages do not deliver; three bands about the reader (headline at 452px on a laptop's first visit, 598px on a phone); the change log ends 22 October; the sheet is 15 buttons with invented first names; the first-visit block at full size on inner pages; shared links without a card unfurl as the front page; the small things. One thing improved on its own: the load. DOMContentLoaded 1.4s against 2.4s, largest paint 0.95s against 1.9s, because the site is a quarter of the size and its assets come from a host of their own.

The router passes its 27 journeys on `site.`, and each host has its own `404.html` with the router.

### What the split adds

1. **The reader is a stranger on every host.** I chose Security on `site.`. The first page on `team.`, on `updates.` and on `refs.` each greeted me as a first-time Executive, with the seven-button question. A `/sources/as/security/` link on `refs.` was shown as *someone else's* shared view ("Yours, Executive, is kept"), because `refs.` has never met me. The meter opened a fresh £5.00 wallet on `site.`, on `refs.` and on `updates.`: three wallets, three "created" times, for one reader. Browser storage is per origin and nothing syncs it; the front page alone has 130 links to the other three hosts (75 to `refs.`, 32 to `team.`, 23 to `updates.`), so this is every reader, on the second click.

2. **The rules contradict the editor's direction.** The site's `CLAUDE.md`: change the page in v1, release v1, partition again; an edit elsewhere is lost. The editor, today: v1 gets no more updates. Until pass two moves the sources, nothing can change on any host, or one of the two rules has to give. This review sits in v1 for that reason.

3. **One version for six things.** Every content host reports `0.22.13`, which is v1's version, in its bar, its footer and its `VERSION` file; the press is 1.0.9 and the data 0.1.9, and no page says which press and data versions it was typeset with. After pass two each site needs its own version, and a colophon naming the press and data versions it pins.

4. **Addresses of `.html` pages break.** `team.../admin/versions.html` is rewritten to `/admin/versions.htmlas/executive/`. That is the line's `rewriteAddress`, which assumes directory addresses; the bug is mine, it is one line (`dir` must stop at the last slash), and it touches four pages across the hosts (three on `site.`, one on `team.`). It needs a press release, since the line lives there.

5. **Small holes.** `/facts/` on `site.` answers 404, the only old section root without a stub (facts live on `refs.`). Only `site.` has an `llms.txt`, and its 1,211 links name the cutover host, right for later, wrong while staged; `refs.`, `updates.` and `team.` have none, and nothing lists the six hosts for an agent arriving at any of them. `press.` has no `llms.txt` and `/v/` has no index. The versioned assets are served with `max-age=600`, which GitHub Pages does not let anyone change; harmless, since the path carries the version.

### Is the separation of duties clean?

**At the address and the repository, yes.** Who serves what is one table on the press host, and the names are readable by a reader (`refs.` for references, `updates.` for updates, `team.` for the team), not only by the team. Each site's gate checks what a site can check in seconds: its files are the press's, its relative links resolve, its cross-site links name pages the other site serves, its press and data links name files the pinned versions publish. The press publishes versions that never change, and so does the data. The old addresses are kept without a server. That is the right shape, and it was done carefully.

**At the source, not yet, by design.** Pass one partitions one build. The four sites have no sources, the press holds the build code *and* the shared components *and* the design (the line, the router, their copy), and v1 is still the only place a word can change. Two consequences for the design work:

- The line's words (`copy.src.json`, the persona model, the page lines) are content, and they live in the press as code. A copy change is a press release. Better: the words in the data API, versioned, and the press shipping only the engine, the line and the router.

- The line's change log should come from `updates.`, which owns "what's new" and the feeds; today it is a stale copy of v1's timeline baked into `config.js`.

### The refactorings I would do, in order

1. **One reader across the six hosts.** The smallest honest fix: the line already writes the view into every address, so a link from a sibling host should be read as *mine*, not borrowed, when the referrer is one of the six. The real fix: the record (`p2s.lens`: role, reader, depth, confirmed, asked, visits, lastVisit; about 150 bytes) on a cookie on the parent domain `.php.oct.2026.newsroom.sgit.ai`, which every host can read and write from the page, with no CSP change and no frame. The meter's wallet the same way, or it stays three wallets. What a reader has read (`seen`, up to 500 entries) stays per host and is merged on the line's "since you were here" count, which is by role, not by page. This is story-site's and dev's (the meter), with security's eye on the cookie: nothing in it a page does not already keep in storage.

2. **Resolve the rule.** Either v1 stays the source until pass two (and the editor's "no more updates" means no more *features*, not no more releases), or pass two is next and nothing else ships first. The second is cleaner; the first is what the hosts currently assume.

3. **Press is code, data is words.** Move the line's copy, the persona model and the page lines to `data.` (versioned), and the change log to `updates.`; the press keeps the engine, the line, the router and the components. Then the words change without a press release, and the line's rules 4 and 5 fire from a live feed.

4. **The three bands and the shaping**, as in the first review, rows 1 and 2: one band, and a view that changes the page or a line that stops claiming it. On `team.` pages the line should say what rule 1 was written for ("This page is for the team that runs the site"), not ask the first-visit question.

5. **A version and a colophon per site**, naming the press and data versions it pins, in the footer and in `VERSION`.

6. **The small holes**: the `.html` address (press), the `/facts/` stub (press, `partition.py`), an `llms.txt` per host and a newsroom-level one listing the six (press), an index for `press./v/`.

7. **Later, measure before splitting further.** `site.` is 230 pages of which 116 are `/grc`; `refs.` is 563. If a seventh host is ever wanted, the telemetry can say which cross-host links readers take; the hosts should follow readers, not makers.

### What I would not change

The six names. The stubs as they are. The versioned press paths and the immutable data versions. The per-site gate. The decision to do the split in two passes.

### Numbers behind the review

- `site.`: 230 pages in the sitemap (116 `/grc`, 28 view cards), 27 router journeys passed, 43 review checks, 0 page errors, 1 failed request (a 404 the router itself causes, as on v1).

- Load, cold, front page: DOMContentLoaded 1.4s (v1: 2.4s), largest paint 0.95s (v1: 1.9s), 27 requests.

- Cross-host links on the front page: 75 `refs.`, 32 `team.`, 23 `updates.`, 6 `press.`.

- Crossing hosts, after choosing Security on `site.`: `team.` first visit as Executive; `updates.` the same; `refs.` the same; `refs.../sources/as/security/` shown as a shared view. Meter wallets: `site.` £5.00 created 22:49:41, `refs.` £5.00 created 22:49:44, `updates.` £5.00 created 22:49:46.

- Old section roots on `site.`: 20 of 21 answer with a stub; `/facts/` 404.

- Versions: `site.`, `refs.`, `updates.`, `team.` all 0.22.13; `press.` 1.0.9 (ten versions listed); `data.` 0.1.9.

- `.html` pages with a broken rewritten address: 3 on `site.`, 1 on `team.`, 0 on `refs.` and `updates.`.

This brief is the file `admin/content/briefs/2026-10-25__review__the-split-as-served.md` in the repository, published as written.

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site v0.22.22 · data as of 2026-10-25T09:35Z · vault commit 87795d121200 · https://php.oct.2026.newsroom.sgit.ai/admin/briefs/2026-10-25__review__the-split-as-served/index.html