Changelog
A public working journal for this site. The point is simple: make the work visible, keep the system maintained, and show what changed.
Site-wide copy edit
A signature phrase had spread to six near-identical places and stopped landing. It now appears once, in the homepage hero, and reads as a paraphrase everywhere else. The About page no longer bookends itself, the homepage Rocky Mount note points to the fuller record on About instead of duplicating it, and the BoringBuilder line describes what it does instead of restating that it exists.
Identity homepage launched; THC packet moved to /thc
The permanent homepage is now the identity-first brand page. The Tennessee Historical Commission application packet lives at /thc. Legacy /next and /work URLs permanently redirect home. The Index menu Work item opens /portfolio. Portfolio flagships now lead with Heritage OS and outcome-first copy.
Portfolio redesigned as a live plate-book
The portfolio moved from a narrow text column to a centered editorial layout: flagship systems alternate screenshot and story across the full page, smaller systems sit in a two-up grid, and every system now carries a real readout. The page's server pings each deployment when it renders and prints the round-trip beside the name.
Portfolio gains real screenshots
Every system on /portfolio now shows a framed screenshot taken from the live deployment, clicking through to the running software. The homepage preview gained the same proof: a screenshot strip and a live board that now health-checks all twelve public systems in two groups.
Next homepage preview published
A working preview of the identity-first homepage now lives at /next: a live systems board health-checked at render time, Rocky Mount open status, current weather at the site, and a ticking Eastern clock. Direct link only until it replaces the homepage.
Portfolio page added
A new /portfolio route presents seven live production systems, every one verified responding before publication, with a live link for each. Linked from the Work page.
Real Tennessee county map shipped
The homepage now uses true U.S. Census county borders as the primary map, shaded by National Register density across all 95 counties.
Homepage contact rebuilt
The final section now gives a clear conversation path: email, LinkedIn, GitHub, and the exact work categories where a conversation makes sense.
Duplicate map removed from the homepage
The older stylized 20 by 6 county grid stays in code and tests as a backup, but the public page now shows one map and one map story.
Scroll reveal made safer
The heritage page reveal effect no longer depends on opacity staying hidden before a scroll timeline advances, so content stays visible in older browsers and full-page renderers.
Public changelog added
This page now records visible site changes so reviewers can see the site is maintained as a working system, not a static artifact.
Video slot moved into its final position
The Cloudflare Stream video section is now positioned directly after the hero. It still renders nothing until a real recording is uploaded and VIDEO.ready is flipped.
Visual QA pass completed
Desktop and mobile Playwright review covered the homepage, map interaction, contact, writing, Common Ground, About, Work, and the private Ulteig routes.
Readable type scale increased
The heritage homepage now uses a larger baseline for an older, function-first audience, with no reading text below 16px.
A word to the Commission prepared
Cloudflare Stream CSP, click-to-play iframe mounting, transcript support, and accessibility structure are ready for the final recorded video.
Common Ground moved onto this site
The Rocky Mount America 250 account now lives at /common-ground so reviewers stay inside the same site while reading the full context.
Quiet SEO added
Person JSON-LD, BlogPosting JSON-LD, canonical URLs, a self-hosted social card, and the CB icon set were added without analytics, cookies, sitemap, RSS, or trackers.
Quality gates automated
The project now runs lint, typecheck, Vitest, dependency audit, production build, Playwright axe checks, and Lighthouse budgets in CI.