docs: ADR-0042 — public website + documentation site plan

Planning artifacts for the first public website, recorded before any
code is written.

- ADR-0042: the decisions — Astro 5 + Starlight + Tailwind v4 (over
  SvelteKit); asciinema .cast demos reusable in docs (scripted-input
  driver, not history.log replay); in-page WASM playground deferred
  behind a stable demo seam, with the portable-core vs native-edge
  boundary recorded for a future ADR; portable static hosting (Vercel
  target); monorepo (website/); website is the canonical docs home;
  full-feature-set docs with "planned" callouts; user-facing copy uses
  no engine name and no "DSL"; install via prebuilt binaries + package
  managers.
- docs/plans/20260604-adr-0042-website.md: implementation plan with the
  grounded documentation inventory and phases A–E.
- website/STYLE.md: living documentation style guide + open-decisions log.
- docs/adr/README.md: index updated for ADR-0042 (numerical order).
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# ADR-0042: Public website and documentation site
## Status
Accepted (2026-06-04). Implementation plan:
[`docs/plans/20260604-adr-0042-website.md`](../plans/20260604-adr-0042-website.md).
## Context
RDBMS Playground is nearing its first public release and needs a public
website that does two jobs: **attract** — a landing page that shows the
playground in action — and **document** — a thorough, canonical reference
for everything the playground can do.
The documentation-heavy surface is already implemented and verified (full
simple- and advanced-mode command set, the ten-type vocabulary,
relationships, constraints, indexes, EXPLAIN, undo/history/replay, projects,
export/import, the teaching echo, clipboard, friendly errors, tab completion
and syntax highlighting; 2151 tests passing at the time of writing). The
site is therefore largely a presentation-and-writing effort, not a
wait-for-features one. A grounded inventory of what is shippable now lives
in the implementation plan.
Several choices here had no canonical default; they were settled during a
planning + `/runda` pass with the user and are recorded below.
## Decision
1. **Stack — Astro 5 + Starlight + Tailwind v4.** Astro's content-first,
zero-JS-by-default model with the Starlight docs theme fits a
marketing-landing-plus-heavy-docs site better than the alternative
considered, SvelteKit + Tailwind (the usual go-to here). Interactive
pieces are added as Astro islands (Svelte or vanilla), so Svelte is still
available where it earns its place. Tailwind v4 is wired via the official
`@tailwindcss/vite` plugin; the `@astrojs/starlight-tailwind` plugin
bridges Tailwind with Starlight's theming.
2. **Demo medium — asciinema.** Showcase sequences are recorded as
asciinema `.cast` files (text-based, small, faithful to the full
alternate-screen render) and embedded with `asciinema-player`. The same
casts are reused inline in the docs — one recording format serves both
the landing page and documentation enrichment. Recordings are produced by
a **scripted-input driver** that types commands into a real PTY with
viewer-friendly pacing; the app's own `history.log` **replay** (ADR-0034)
re-executes commands without typing animation or pacing and is therefore
suitable only for state-deterministic docs snippets, not the hero demo.
3. **In-page WASM playground — deferred** (OOS: **deferred**, not rejected).
A live, type-it-yourself playground compiled from the Rust app to
WebAssembly is desirable but is a multi-week sub-project, so it does not
block the site. The demo section is designed with a stable seam (a single
`Demo` component contract) so a WASM playground island can replace the
asciinema player later with no change to call sites. Recorded boundary
for that future work:
- **Portable core (runs on `wasm32-unknown-unknown` largely as-is):**
`src/dsl/*` (parser, types, grammar, walker), the pure `App::update()`,
`ui.rs`, `theme.rs`, `friendly/*`, output rendering; an in-memory DB
path already exists (`Connection::open_in_memory()`). `rusqlite`
compiles to the browser target via its `ffi-sqlite-wasm-rs` feature.
- **Native edge needing `cfg`-gated browser replacements:** the
multi-thread Tokio runtime + the dedicated DB **worker thread**
(ADR-0010) → current-thread/in-line async; `crossterm` terminal +
event-stream → a browser backend (e.g. Ratzilla's DOM/Canvas) + DOM
events; `arboard`, `zip`, file persistence (ADR-0015), file logging;
and the rusqlite **backup-API** undo (ADR-0006) → a SQL dump/restore.
When taken up, this becomes its own ADR + iteration plan.
4. **Hosting — portable static build; Vercel is the likely target.** Astro 5
builds to static HTML/CSS with no adapter, so the output deploys equally
to Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, or GitHub Pages. We avoid coupling
to any one host. **No CI yet** — the site is tested locally (`pnpm dev` /
`pnpm build`) until the repo reaches its public home.
5. **Repo topology — monorepo.** The site lives under `website/` in the
playground repo; the crate stays at the repo root. The repo as a whole
moves to its public home later; site and crate travel together.
6. **Canonical docs home — the website.** User-facing documentation lives on
the site. In-repo `docs/` keeps ADRs, handoffs, and development notes;
`docs/simple-mode-limitations.md` (requirement DOC1) was a development aid
and now *feeds* the site's content rather than competing with it. The
sharing recipes promised by requirement E2 become a docs page.
7. **Documentation scope and conventions.** Document the **full supported
feature set**. Any capability not yet fully implemented (a small minority
— e.g. multi-line input, query cancellation, `seed`, `m:n` convenience,
ER-diagram export, the `show tables`/`relationships`/`indexes` family) is
either omitted or carries a clear **"planned / not yet available"**
callout — never presented as shipped. Two wording rules bind all
user-facing copy:
- **No engine name** (SQLite/STRICT/rusqlite/PRAGMA) — continues the
user-facing posture of ADR-0002; copy says "the database"/"the engine".
- **No "DSL"** — it is internal jargon. The two input modes are **simple
mode** (the playground's keyword command language) and **advanced
mode** (SQL).
8. **Install documentation — two mechanisms.** The install page documents
**prebuilt release binaries** (self-hosted download — not GitHub
Releases, since the repo will move) and **package managers**. Both can be
written now against the planned mechanisms; concrete download URLs slot in
at release. (Distribution items D1D3 in `requirements.md` remain the
tracking home for the release tooling itself.)
## Consequences
- The site can ship on the strength of already-implemented features; it is
gated on writing and recording, not on finishing the app.
- One recording format (asciinema `.cast`) serves both marketing and docs,
and is reusable as the app evolves (re-run the script, re-record).
- The WASM playground is preserved as a real future option without holding
up launch; the demo seam keeps the upgrade cheap.
- A single canonical docs home removes the divergence risk of maintaining
user docs in two places.
- Website build choices (Decisions 1, 2, 4, 5) are recorded here for
traceability but do not, by themselves, warrant further ADRs; only
app-architecture decisions (notably the future WASM port) will.
## Out of scope
- **In-page WASM playground** — *deferred* (see Decision 3); revisit as its
own ADR + iteration plan.
- **Hosted/SaaS playground or a server-backed doc CMS** — *rejected*: a
static site fully satisfies the need, consistent with ADR-0007's
no-hosted-publishing stance. Revisit only if real demand emerges.