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Chronicle

Day Six (site): Access Model, Founding Essay, and Public Preview Surfaces

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CHRON-0008: Day Six (site) - Access Model, Founding Essay, and Public Preview Surfaces

What Happened

The site's shape changed on March 23, 2026, from a mostly open knowledge surface with improvised restrictions into a clearer editorial product with three tiers: public listening and preview surfaces, login-only research browsing, and paid tools. At the same time, the repo gained the first real "About" page: the revised What Happened Inside the Mysteries essay, rendered as a long-form reading experience with section navigation and a concept sidebar.

This work was distributed across agents. Claude Code revised the foundational paper and extracted its concepts into the KB. Cursor built the /about page, then expanded it with section imagery. Codex built the Clerk-first auth and gating layer, added billing scaffolding, opened selected surfaces back to the public, and tightened the site's navigation so the preview/public model reads more clearly in the UI.

The result is a more legible public experience: visitors can see what the project is, hear core episodes, read the project log, move through timeline, imagery, and a filtered graph preview, and encounter the founding essay without needing an account. Deeper KB browsing and tool use now sit behind authentication, and chat remains reserved for paid membership or admin bypass.

Site Impact

  • The site now has a proper /about page built around the founding essay rather than burying that document in the log feed
  • Clerk authentication now works locally and in configured environments, with admin bypass support for named accounts
  • The public/private boundary is clearer: episodes, search, log, timeline, imagery, and graph preview are public; concepts, figures, sources, and deeper KB use require login; chat is paid
  • The graph is no longer simply locked; signed-out visitors now get a real preview of concepts, figures, timelines, and episodes, but not source-book depth or KB search
  • The project log, timeline, and imagery are public again, which makes the site feel more like a cultural publication and less like a sealed research console
  • MCP is no longer casually open in production-by-default; if no MCP_PUBLIC_API_KEY is set, local development remains easy but production is treated as closed
  • The desktop navigation now reads more calmly, with public/free Library items moved to the top of the menu and a less tool-like header hierarchy

Files and Commits

Access and gating:

  • site/proxy.ts
  • site/app/layout.tsx
  • site/app/sign-in/[[...sign-in]]/page.tsx
  • site/app/sign-up/[[...sign-up]]/page.tsx
  • site/lib/auth-config.ts
  • site/lib/access.ts
  • site/lib/mcp-auth.ts
  • site/app/api/chat/route.ts
  • site/app/api/mcp/route.ts
  • site/app/api/mcp/[transport]/route.ts
  • site/app/api/kb/search/route.ts
  • site/app/search/page.tsx

Membership and billing scaffolding:

  • site/app/membership/page.tsx
  • site/lib/stripe.ts
  • site/lib/billing.ts
  • site/app/api/billing/checkout/route.ts
  • site/app/api/billing/portal/route.ts
  • site/app/api/webhooks/stripe/route.ts

Founding essay and about surface:

  • project-log/chronicle/what-happened-inside-the-mysteries-v2.md
  • site/app/about/page.tsx
  • site/app/about/EssayNav.tsx

Public preview and visibility changes:

  • site/app/log/page.tsx
  • site/app/log/[slug]/page.tsx
  • site/app/log/md/route.ts
  • site/app/timeline/page.tsx
  • site/app/imagery/page.tsx
  • site/app/imagery/[id]/page.tsx
  • site/app/explore/page.tsx
  • site/app/explore/ExploreClient.tsx
  • site/lib/graph-data.ts
  • site/app/llms.txt/route.ts

Navigation and presentation:

  • site/app/components/SiteNav.tsx
  • site/app/components/AuthControls.tsx

Relevant commits:

  • 211115d - auth foundation and gated-preview model
  • 3f18189 - auth, gating, and billing scaffolding pushed
  • 5dc603f - dynamic gated markdown route build fix
  • 23f0bc3 - Clerk production runtime safety fix
  • 183a3dc - public project log and tighter MCP auth
  • 611a9d2 - timeline opened to the public
  • 23a5442 - imagery opened and graph preview made public
  • 3cf539d - revised foundational synthesis document
  • 8c21a66 - paper concepts pushed into the KB
  • 58e59a7 - /about page with ToC and key concepts
  • ea301c8 - section imagery added to the essay page
  • 283d2ea - calmer top navigation hierarchy on development

Branch State

This was primarily a development-branch session. Some of the work had already been promoted earlier, but the strongest shift in site identity — auth model, public preview logic, and the founding essay as /about — now lives most fully on development. The production branch main is behind that preview state at the time of this entry.

Follow-Up

  • Promote the development branch state to main once the current preview behavior is approved
  • Wire real Stripe environment values and test membership end to end
  • Continue refining the homepage entry strip and favicon/brand surfaces so the new editorial identity matches the stronger information architecture
  • Keep documenting whether future changes affect the public site immediately or only the development preview
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