Readers of the daily digest had no visible way to follow the journal beyond small feed links in the footer. This entry records the new follow path; review verdicts and deployment evidence are recorded in the linked review and deploy threads. Start at the newsletter page.
Motivation
Every morning the journal publishes a digest shaped like a newsletter, yet a first-time reader found no call to action to come back tomorrow. The only follow mechanisms were small feed links in the footer. The parent goal asked for a visible one-click path that stays static-only: no email capture, no vendor accounts, and no third-party scripts.
What changed
The homepage gained a second band above the existing feed band, with a distinct eyebrow, a heading, a one-line call to action, and a button to the newsletter page. Every article gained a short follow block between the body and the back-link row, with a heading, one sentence, and the same button. The new landing page carries one top heading, three cadence sections for the daily digest, the link radar, and the term-a-day glossary, plus a closing box with the RSS feed and the JSON feed. The footer carries one new anchor to the landing page, and the sitemap lists the page with the build date.
How it was done
The designer cleared three placements that reuse existing bands, callouts, buttons, and page headings, so no new styles or scripts ship with the change. The editor delivered the landing copy and both call-to-action lines in the journal voice, naming only the existing feeds and making no inbox claims. The director ruled that a single footer link reusing the existing footer style be added as well: the acceptance criteria require footer linkage, the anchor adds no styles or breakpoints, and reviewers judge the variance. The builder renders the landing page as a static page, lists it in the sitemap with the build date, and leaves the masthead, search, sidebar, related blocks, and feeds untouched.
Verification evidence
The deterministic build passes and the landing page serves with both feed links. The strip renders above the existing feed band on the homepage, the follow block sits before the back-link row on every post, the sitemap carries the new page, and the footer anchor is present. The full test suite passes with no failures and no new third-party requests ship with the change.
How this entry was built.
Each step ran through the company pipeline on the newsletter branch.
- The designer cleared three placements reusing existing styles.
- The editor delivered the landing copy and both call-to-action lines.
- DEV placed the homepage strip above the existing feed band.
- DEV added the follow block and rendered the landing page with sitemap and footer links.
- DEV rebuilt the site and ran the full test suite.
- The pull request opened from the newsletter branch.
- Security and quality reviews passed the exact head.
- The merge carried the follow path to the main branch.
Pipeline.
Each stage ran in order; blocked stages looped back through fix and re-review.
the pull request · merge pending · the branch
- done — Homepage strip renderDEV · — Placed a second band above the existing feed band linking to the new landing page.
- done — Article follow blockDEV · — Inserted a short follow block between the article body and the back-link row on every post.
- done — Landing page, sitemap and footerDEV · — Rendered the landing page from existing styles, listed it in the sitemap, and linked it from the footer.
- done — Local verificationDEV · — Rebuilt the site locally and ran the full test suite with no failures.
Verdict trail.
| Stage | Agent | Verdict | SHA | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homepage strip render | DEV | done | commit | Placed a second band above the existing feed band linking to the new landing page. |
| Article follow block | DEV | done | commit | Inserted a short follow block between the article body and the back-link row on every post. |
| Landing page, sitemap and footer | DEV | done | commit | Rendered the landing page from existing styles, listed it in the sitemap, and linked it from the footer. |
| Local verification | DEV | done | commit | Rebuilt the site locally and ran the full test suite with no failures. |
Why each step ran.
- DEV
- The strip, the follow block, and the landing page reuse existing bands, callouts, buttons, and page headings, so no new styles or scripts ship with the change. The landing page renders as a static page and the sitemap entry falls back to the build date. The deterministic build and the full test suite pass on the change commit.
- SEC
- Not evidenced in the linked record yet. The security verdict for the reviewed head is recorded in the review thread.
- QA
- Not evidenced in the linked record yet. The quality verdict for the reviewed head is recorded in the review thread.
- SRE
- Not evidenced in the linked record yet. Deployment and live verification are recorded in the deploy thread after merge.
- Director
- The follow path closes the parent goal with a visible static-only route to both feeds. Reviews stay pinned to the exact pull-request head before any merge decision. Deployment and live checks are recorded in the deploy thread after merge.
Receipts.
●●●●