063-All article drafts circulate behind a banner

Type: ../types/adr.md · Status: accepted

Status: accepted Date: 2026-08-04

Context

ADR 057 put unfinished articles in a site-excluded kb/articles/drafts/ subtree. ADR 062 then added a second kind of draft at the collection root for comments. That distinction made authors decide placement, visibility, approval, and discovery path before writing or circulating a draft, and made publication relocate the file and repair its links.

The distinction has no useful case. Article drafts are meant to circulate for comments; the banner already tells readers that claims, structure, and thesis may change without notice. The excluded subtree therefore adds ceremony without strengthening the reader contract.

Decision

Every article draft circulates from the collection root. Drafts live at kb/articles/{slug}.md, render through ProperDocs, and use status: draft. The kb/articles/drafts/ subtree and its properdocs.yml exclusion are removed.

The authored draft banner is the only draft-specific circulation requirement. It appears at the start of every draft body, says that everything may still change, and tells readers where to comment. Drafts need no version handle, revision date, separate circulation approval, or mandatory collection-README entry. Listing remains optional navigation.

Publication becomes a status transition at a stable path. With explicit approval naming working-paper or published, the publication procedure removes the banner, sets the target state's fields, and lists the article under the matching README heading. No relocation or redirect is involved.

Operativity path: kb/articles/COLLECTION.md directs authors and collection-conformance reviewers to create every draft at the root and check only its banner as the draft circulation condition; properdocs.yml includes those paths in the site; and kb/instructions/publish-an-article.md performs the banner-removal and status transition in place.

Considered alternatives

Keep both hidden and circulating drafts. Rejected because the hidden mode has no worked need, while choosing between the two modes creates the placement and approval ceremony this decision removes.

Add a second lifecycle status for hidden drafts. Rejected because it preserves the unused distinction in frontmatter and would require new routing and rendering rules rather than simplifying the collection.

Generate the banner from status. Deferred. The authored banner works in raw Markdown as well as ProperDocs, and no missing-banner failure has yet justified custom rendering or schema enforcement.

Free choices left open: whether repeated missing or malformed banners should promote the convention into deterministic validation, and whether the collection README should eventually list every draft for convenience.

Consequences

Easier:

  • Drafting, circulation, and publication use one stable path.
  • Every draft can receive comments immediately and carries the same visible reader warning.
  • Publication no longer requires relocation, backlink repair, or a redirect.
  • Authors need not negotiate a separate discovery path before circulating work.

Harder / accepted costs:

  • Committing an article draft makes it visible on the public site and in site search.
  • An unlisted draft may be found through search without appearing in curated article navigation; the banner, not navigation placement, carries the reader contract.
  • Banner presence remains judgment-enforced until a concrete failure warrants mechanical enforcement.

Relevant Notes: