The directory was filtering out the demo persona on the rationale
that "the demo bot is not a real user and should not appear in real
discovery." That's exactly backwards — the whole point of having a
demo persona is to give new users a follow target so the platform
doesn't feel empty when they arrive. Hiding the bot from the
discovery surface defeats its purpose.
Concretely on flagship: only one local user (ullrich) was visible
on /explore today, even though Bruno (the demo persona) is
public-by-default and posting public activities. After this change
both appear; Bruno carries a small "🐕 Demo account" badge next to
his display name so viewers know what they're following.
- apps/journal/app/lib/explore.server.ts — drop the
ne(users.username, persona.username) clause from exclusionFilters.
The demo persona is now treated like any other public user. Banned/
suspended scaffolding stays for forward-compat.
- apps/journal/app/routes/explore.tsx — loader computes isDemoUser
per row (cheap, just username comparison against
loadPersona().username). DirectoryRow renders the demo badge inline
with the display name, matching the existing pattern on
/users/:username.
- openspec/specs/explore/spec.md — updated the "Excluded users"
requirement to remove the demo persona, replaced the "demo
excluded" scenario with "demo appears with badge", and updated
the "Active recently" requirement + scenarios accordingly.
- apps/journal/app/lib/explore.integration.test.ts — flipped the
demo-persona test from "is excluded" to "is included".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Stream F implementation. Closes the gap between "I want to follow
someone on this instance" and "I have a username from outside the
app." Anonymous visitors and signed-in users both reach a paginated
directory of local public users; signed-in viewers also see Follow
buttons inline.
- apps/journal/app/lib/explore.server.ts — listDirectory (paginated,
ordered by MAX(public-activity created_at) DESC NULLS LAST,
tiebreaker users.id DESC), listActiveRecently (top 5 in last 30
days), countDirectory, batched countFollowersBatch and
getFollowStateBatch helpers so the page issues two extra queries
regardless of page size. Excludes private profiles and the demo
persona; banned/suspended scaffolding noted for forward-compat.
- apps/journal/app/routes/explore.tsx — loader fans out the four
queries in parallel; component renders an "Active recently" strip
(hidden when empty) above the main directory; FollowButton inlines
per row for signed-in viewers. Bio truncated to 120 chars.
- apps/journal/app/routes.ts — register /explore.
- apps/journal/app/root.tsx — add Explore navbar entry for signed-in
users.
- apps/journal/app/routes/home.tsx — visitor home gains a secondary
"Browse who's here →" link to /explore alongside the Planner
escape hatch.
- packages/i18n/src/locales/{en,de}.ts — explore.*, nav.explore,
home.exploreLink keys.
- apps/journal/app/lib/explore.integration.test.ts — opt-in
(EXPLORE_INTEGRATION=1) integration tests covering inclusion,
exclusion, ordering, NULLS LAST behavior, "Active recently"
30-day filter, count helpers.
- e2e/explore.test.ts — anonymous loads /explore (no auth needed);
private profile is excluded from the directory.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
