cnix

Project showcases

Two pages, two jobs

Every documented project has two deliberately different public views:

  • A project’s nix*.corbet.ch host is a concise, visual landing page. It leads with the problem, promise, demonstration, evidence, and a useful next action.
  • Its cnix.corbet.ch/projects/{project-id} page is the technical reference. It explains what the project is, how it works, how to configure it, and what has been verified.

The landing page markets the project; the cnix page documents it. They must not become duplicate pages competing for the same search intent or canonical URL.

One reviewed project concept

Both views are compiled from the same reviewed public project concept. The concept records the stable cnix_id, revision-addressed evidence, maturity, showcase hostname, tagline, intended audience, visual accent, and a small set of related project IDs.

The showcase generator may change presentation and emphasis. It must not invent capabilities, maturity, compatibility, evidence, or customer claims. Hand-maintained copies of those facts are not authoritative.

Generated showcase artifact

One deterministic build emits a separate artifact directory and host entry for each project. A host-aware publisher can serve the distinct nix*.corbet.ch domains without duplicating one deployment definition per repository.

Each artifact includes its own canonical metadata, structured software data, sitemap, robots policy, and llms.txt. Styles, scripts, fonts, and generated art must be packaged locally with the artifact; a different Corbet hostname is still an external runtime dependency.

Every showcase offers five clear paths:

  1. use the project through its installation or tutorial path;
  2. understand it through the cnix technical reference;
  3. inspect or improve it in its public source repository;
  4. explore a few related projects and the searchable full suite index; and
  5. discover the wider work at corbet.ch.

A hand-copied dropdown containing every project does not scale. Showcase pages link only a few relevant neighbours and delegate complete discovery to cnix.

Design and safety

Showcases share a recognisable family system while retaining individual colour, copy, and composition. This creates a coherent product cosmos without making the landing pages interchangeable.

The complete showcase artifact passes the same deterministic guardian and independent adversarial release review as the cnix site. Screenshots remain disabled until the safe screenshot pipeline is complete. Fixed, generated SVG motifs may be used when they contain no source or environment data.

Migration rule

Existing hand-authored nix*.corbet.ch sites are migration evidence, not the source of truth. Useful unique copy is reconciled against the current public repository before it enters a project concept. The generated landing page replaces the old root only after review; an old /docs page redirects to the cnix technical reference only after its useful content has been reconciled.

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