rdbms-playground/website/STYLE.md

Documentation style guide (living)

This is the living home for documentation authoring conventions for the RDBMS Playground website. It grows as we write.

• Binding rules come from ADR-website-001 §7; this guide must not contradict them. If a convention is significant, durable, or contested, it is decided in an ADR (new or amended), and this guide references it. Finer, settled conventions live here directly.
• Open decisions (not yet settled) are tracked at the bottom so we decide them deliberately rather than re-deciding per page. When one settles, move it up into the body (and to an ADR if it's significant).

Status tags used below: [DECIDED] (binding or settled) · [OPEN] (to be decided — see the log).

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Terminology & wording [DECIDED — ADR-website-001 §7]

• No "DSL". It is internal jargon. Use simple mode (the playground's keyword command language) and advanced mode (SQL).
• No engine name. Never name SQLite / STRICT / rusqlite / PRAGMA in user-facing copy. Say "the database" or "the engine". (Continues the user-facing posture of ADR-0002.)
• Preferred terms (extend as we go): "command", "project", "table", "column", "relationship" (the user-facing word for a declared foreign-key link), "constraint", "index".
• Add new banned/preferred terms here as they come up, with a one-line reason.

Voice & tone [DECIDED, refine as needed]

• Teaching-first. Pedagogy wins ties (CLAUDE.md). Explain the why, not just the how; the audience spans beginners through learners ready for raw SQL.
• Second person ("you"), present tense. Imperative mood for step instructions ("Create a table…").
• Prefer short sentences and concrete examples over abstract prose.

Structure [DECIDED]

Pragmatic, Diátaxis-influenced split (five top-level sidebar sections, autogenerated per directory under src/content/docs/):

• Getting started — install, first project, simple vs. advanced, the example database.
• Using the playground — the application you drive, kept distinct from the database-language Reference: command-line options, the assistive editor (completion / highlighting / [ERR]/[WRN] indicator / hints / in-line editing), the output pane (scrolling), projects (save/load/new/rebuild), undo & history, export & import, clipboard, getting help. (ADR-0003's "app-level commands" + ADR-0022/0027 typing assistance + the CLI.)
• Guides — task-oriented how-tos. These are the most important didactic content and will be iterated for teaching quality before publication.
• Reference — the exhaustive command/SQL/type surface. Page granularity: one page per topic / command-family (Tables, Columns, Relationships, Indexes, Constraints, Inserting & editing data, Querying, Types, …), each covering the simple-mode and advanced-mode forms where both apply. Hand-written now (the command surface is settled bar H1a output); small post-release adjustments are expected and fine.
• Concepts — the "why": projects & storage, undo & history, etc.

Ground every reference page in source — parse.usage.* and help.* in src/friendly/strings/en-US.yaml, src/dsl/command.rs, src/dsl/types.rs — never paraphrase grammar from memory.

"Planned / not yet available" callouts [DECIDED — ADR-website-001 §7]

Any capability that is not yet fully implemented is omitted or carries a clear callout — never presented as shipped. Standard form: a Starlight aside

:::caution[Planned]
This is planned and not yet available.
:::

Examples & code [DECIDED]

• Shared example database: a small library — authors, books, members, loans (see the canonical schema below). Reuse it across all pages so readers build familiarity; it models 1:n (an author has many books) and m:n (books ↔ members, through loans).
• Where both modes apply, show the simple-mode form and its advanced-mode (SQL) equivalent — the in-app teaching echo already pairs these, so docs mirror it.
• Prefer worked examples (a real command on the library schema) over abstract prose, and always cross-link the related reference/guide pages (use stubs so links resolve before a page is written).
• Code blocks for exact input/output; reserve casts for motion/flow.

Code-block fences

• Simple-mode commands → ```rdbms — custom highlight grammar in src/grammars/rdbms.mjs, registered with Expressive Code in astro.config.mjs (keywords + types coloured).
• Advanced-mode SQL → ```sql; shell / install → ```sh.
• A decorative > prompt is prepended to rdbms lines via CSS (src/styles/global.css) — do not type > in the fence. It is copy-safe (Expressive Code's copy button uses data-code) and user-select:none.
• One command per line in an rdbms block; a multi-line single statement (e.g. advanced CREATE TABLE) belongs in a ```sql block, where no prompt is added.
• Command output → a plain unlabelled ``` fence placed immediately after the command block (no language, so no > prompt and no highlighting). Output must be captured from the real app, never hand-drawn — box-drawing diagrams, query-plan trees, and data tables are copied verbatim (trailing padding spaces trimmed). The capture method: a throwaway in-crate test that builds the canonical library schema and prints the rendered output (render_structure_with_diagrams, render_relationship_diagram, render_data_table, render_explain_plan, show_list), removed once the output is pasted. Colour is lost in a static block (the structure still reads); the coloured/animated rendering is earmarked for casts.

Canonical library schema (source of truth for examples)

Use these exact names/types in every example:

Table	Columns (playground types)
authors	author_id serial (pk) · name text (not null) · birth_year int
books	book_id serial (pk) · title text (not null) · author_id int (→ authors) · published int · isbn text (unique)
members	member_id serial (pk) · name text (not null) · joined date
loans	loan_id serial (pk) · book_id int (→ books) · member_id int (→ members) · loaned_on date · returned_on date

Relationships: books.author_id → authors.author_id (1:n); loans joins books and members (the m:n bridge). Show shortid on the Types page via a small standalone example, not by complicating this schema.

asciinema casts [DECIDED]

• Casts show flow/motion; static code blocks show exact input/output. Prefer a code block when a still example suffices.
• Pair a hero/landing cast with a text transcript or the equivalent docs snippet (accessibility + SEO).

Where to use a cast [DECIDED 2026-06-10]

Rule: a cast wherever the app does something. A cast at the top of a page gives the reader the shape of what the page describes — quickly and visually — with the detailed text below for when they need it. (This helps visual learners, but is valuable more broadly.) Concretely:

• Broadly on the pages about doing / interacting: the landing, Getting started (first project, modes), Using the playground (the assistive editor, output-pane scrolling, undo/redo, projects, copy, export/import), and Guides.
• Selectively on Reference — only where motion beats the still (e.g. the relationship diagram being drawn; a query plan appearing). Reference pages keep their captured static output regardless; a cast complements, never replaces it.
• Skip pure-lookup / conceptual pages with nothing to animate (e.g. the Types table, prose Concepts pages).
• A cast is selective: it shows a chosen, representative slice of what the page documents — it need not exercise every command on the page.
• Autoplay only the landing hero; elsewhere casts are click-to-play (a poster frame) so they don't all clamor at once. All casts re-record in one pnpm casts run, so breadth stays maintainable.
• Driver: autocast (ADR-website-001 §2; chosen by the 2026-06-10 spike). autocast's !Interactive feeds keys to the running TUI and captures the redraw — the correct model for a full-screen crossterm app. asciinema-automation was rejected: it assumes shell semantics (Enter as \n, and an expect() echo-check per keystroke), which a redrawing TUI breaks — it produced a garbled cast.
• Authoring workflow. Source command-lists live in casts-src/casts.mjs (human-readable steps: type / wait / key). pnpm casts runs casts-src/generate.mjs, which expands them to autocast YAML (one key per character; Enter = ^M) and records to public/casts/<name>.cast. The command-lists are the durable source; .cast files are regenerable — re-run pnpm casts to re-record as the app evolves (a final sweep is due once the app is locked). Needs a cargo build binary at ../target/debug.
• Embedding. Demo.astro (the WASM-swap seam, ADR-website-001 §3) wraps Cast.astro (asciinema-player island). Call sites use Demo.
• Conventions. Terminal geometry per cast (default 90×26); file name = cast name; player theme asciinema for now. [OPEN]: light/dark player theme sync with the Starlight theme toggle (player theme is currently fixed; refine in Phase B).

Formatting [DECIDED, refine]

• Starlight asides for notes/tips/cautions; tables for reference matrices (types, constraints, referential actions).
• Keyboard keys rendered consistently (e.g. Ctrl+Z).
• Cross-link related pages; never expose ADR numbers or internal jargon to the reader (ADRs are for us, not the docs audience).

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Open decisions log

Decide these as we write; record the outcome (and escalate to an ADR if significant).

Resolved (2026-06-10): 9. Cast scripting toolchain → autocast, proven by spike over asciinema-automation (which can't drive a full-screen TUI). Source command-lists in casts-src/, pnpm casts to record. See the asciinema casts section above. (Remaining sub-item: light/dark player theme sync — folded into #8 / Phase B.)

Resolved (2026-06-05):

1. Depth / organising spine → Pragmatic four-section split (see Structure above).
2. Page granularity → one page per topic / command-family, both modes per page (see Structure).
3. Standard example dataset → the library (schema above).
4. Simple-vs-advanced pairing → show both where both apply (see Examples).
5. "Planned" callout → standard :::caution[Planned] aside (see above).
6. Reference generation vs hand-writing → hand-write now (command surface is settled bar H1a output; small later adjustments expected).

Still open: 7. Versioning. Version selectors at/after v1, or single-version for launch? (Leaning single-version for launch.) 8. SEO/meta conventions. Title/description patterns, Open Graph — settle with Phase B (landing) and the site URL. Also: light/dark player-theme sync for embedded casts.