trails/openspec/changes/add-explore-page/proposal.md at 65f8313f2b1e5b14ab6f36556cf19f3f9a9dcba7

Ullrich Schäfer 83df9e3312 Propose /explore page: local user discovery directory

Stream F from docs/information-architecture.md. Closes the gap between
"I want to follow someone on this instance" and "I have a username
from outside the app."

This change is the OpenSpec proposal only — the four artifacts
(proposal.md, design.md, specs/, tasks.md) plus a new top-level spec
target at openspec/specs/explore/. Implementation lands in a follow-up
PR via /opsx:apply.

Key decisions captured in design.md:

- Anonymous access is allowed (the data shown is already public, and
  it's a stronger first-visit experience).
- Directory order: MAX(activities.created_at) DESC NULLS LAST,
  tiebreaker users.id DESC. Recency-of-activity is the simplest signal
  that meaningfully reflects "who's active here right now."
- "Active recently" sub-section: same query, sliced — top 5 users
  with a public activity in the last 30 days, hidden when empty.
- Privacy filter: profile_visibility = 'public' AND not the demo
  persona AND (forward-compat) not banned/suspended.
- No search in v1 — deferred until the user count makes it actually
  useful. /users/<username> already partially solves it.
- Offset pagination (?page=, ?perPage=, capped 100). Cursor
  pagination is the right answer at ~10K users; not now.
- Navbar gets an "Explore" entry for signed-in users; anonymous
  visitors reach /explore via a link on the visitor home.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-04-26 09:16:31 +02:00

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Why

A user who wants to follow someone on this instance has no in-app path to discover them — they need a username from outside the app, type it into /users/<username> directly, or stumble onto a profile via the public activity feed on logged-out /. With four prod users today this is just a friction; with federation in Phase 2 it becomes a real gap. Add /explore as the in-app discovery surface so finding people to follow is a first-class action, not a workaround.

What Changes

Add a new /explore route to the Journal app, reachable to both signed-in users and anonymous visitors.
Render a paginated directory of local users with profile_visibility = 'public', ordered by most-recent activity (MAX(activities.created_at) per user, descending; users with no activities sort to the end by users.created_at).
Within the directory page, surface a small "Active recently" section at the top — the top N (5 by default) public users who posted a public activity in the last 30 days. Same data set, just sliced and surfaced.
Exclude private (locked) profiles, banned/suspended users (when those statuses exist), and the demo persona from the directory — they have explicit opt-outs from public discovery.
Each directory row shows: display name, handle (@username), short bio (truncated), follower count (accepted only), and a Follow / Requested / Unfollow button (locked-account semantics from social-follows apply, so a public-target row shows Follow, etc.). The button only renders for signed-in viewers.
Add an "Explore" entry to the navbar for signed-in users (visible alongside Feed / Routes / Activities). Anonymous visitors reach /explore via a link on the visitor home page, not via the navbar.
No search in v1. With four prod users a paginated list is enough; search is deferred — typing /users/<username> already partially solves it for known handles.

Capabilities

New Capabilities

explore: discovery directory of local users for follow recommendations. Owns the /explore route, the directory query rules, the "Active recently" sub-list, the access model (anonymous + signed-in), and the navbar entry.

Modified Capabilities

social-follows: the directory needs a count of accepted followers per public user, which is already available via countFollowers. No new requirement; cross-reference only.
journal-landing: the navbar entries grow by one ("Explore" for signed-in users). The visitor home gains a link to /explore so anonymous visitors have an in-app path to the directory.

Impact

New code: apps/journal/app/routes/explore.tsx, apps/journal/app/lib/explore.server.ts (the directory query and "Active recently" slice), navbar entry in apps/journal/app/root.tsx, link from the visitor home in apps/journal/app/routes/home.tsx, i18n keys in packages/i18n/src/locales/{en,de}.ts.
Modified code: none — the existing helpers (countFollowers, getFollowState) cover the per-row data; the new query is additive in explore.server.ts.
No DB migrations: the directory query is a JOIN of existing tables (users, activities); no new columns or tables.
No new dependencies.
Privacy: the directory is public-by-default and respects the profile-visibility opt-out. No private profile leaks.
Federation: out of scope for v1. Remote-actor discovery is social-federation's problem when that lands.
OpenSpec index: openspec/CAPABILITIES.md gains an entry under the "Social" section.

3.4 KiB Raw Blame History

Why