rfc-app/CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

The binding policy for what each kind of version bump means and what the changelog has to carry is in SPEC.md §20. The practical recipe downstream deployments follow when reading this file is in docs/DEPLOYMENTS.md.

The canonical version is the VERSION file at the repo root; frontend/package.json#version mirrors it. Deployments pin to a specific framework version in their own .rfc-app-version file (per §20.5).

While the framework is pre-1.0, minor-version bumps may introduce breaking changes; the entry below each such bump documents the upgrade steps a deployment must apply.

Upgrade-steps blocks use the RFC 2119 / RFC 8174 normative- language convention per SPEC.md §20.4. MUST / SHALL steps are required; SHOULD steps are recommended (the framework's default and tested path); MAY steps are optional. Upgrades that skip versions are the composition of each intervening adjacent release's steps in order — no A-to-B path is pre-computed beyond that.

0.13.0 — 2026-05-28

Minor — schema migration required; new optional env vars. This release ships the cookie / privacy consent surface (roadmap item #11, SPEC §14.5 / §14.6). Every viewer — authenticated and anonymous alike — now sees a non-modal bottom-of-page banner on first visit asking which categories of cookies they allow (essential / essential + analytics / essential + analytics + other). The choice persists in localStorage for anonymous viewers and in a new cookie_consent table for authenticated viewers, with server-side overriding local on sign-in. The framework also ships default /privacy and /cookies policy pages that deployments can layer their own policy URL on top of via two new optional env vars. No analytics SDK ships in this release — the consent infrastructure is wired so item #13 (v0.15.0) can read from frontend/src/lib/consent.js when the SDK lands.

Added

• Cookie consent banner (frontend/src/components/CookieConsentBanner.jsx). Non-modal, bottom of viewport. Three single-select choices with inline descriptions. Visible until the user makes a choice; hides thereafter. Reachable for revision via the settings surface.
• Consent helper (frontend/src/lib/consent.js). Exports getConsent(), hasChosen(), onConsentChange(cb), setConsent(), hydrateFromServer(), clearLocal(). Cross-tab sync via the storage event. Item #13's analytics SDK reads consent here before importing.
• Privacy and cookies policy pages (frontend/src/pages/Privacy.jsx, frontend/src/pages/Cookies.jsx). Default minimal policies that describe the framework's stance and list the cookies the framework sets. Deployments override via the two new env vars below; the framework's stub always renders above the link so the framework-level contract stays visible.
• "Privacy & cookies" tab in /settings/notifications showing the current consent choice, the recorded-at stamp, and a "Change" button that re-opens the banner via a custom DOM event.
• §17 endpoints —
  • GET /api/users/me/cookie-consent — read the current consent record.
  • PUT /api/users/me/cookie-consent — write a new consent record. Upserts a single row per user, stamps recorded_at to now, accepts essential for symmetry but always persists it as true.
• Schema migration 013_cookie_consent.sql — new cookie_consent table keyed by user_id, three flags (essential, analytics, other_cookies), and recorded_at. (Renumbered from 012_* during driver integration because v0.7.0 also added a 012_otc.sql migration that landed in the integration order before this one.)
• SPEC §14.5 Cookie / privacy consent — settles the banner shape, the three-category single-select, the storage shape (local for anon, server row for authenticated), the precedence rule on sign-in, and the consent.js helper surface for downstream callers including item #13.
• SPEC §14.6 Privacy and cookies policy pages — settles the /privacy and /cookies routes, the framework's stub content, and the VITE_PRIVACY_POLICY_URL / VITE_COOKIES_POLICY_URL override shape.
• SPEC §5 — names the cookie_consent table in the canonical app-tables list.
• SPEC §17 — lists the two new cookie-consent endpoints.
• SPEC §19.2 — surfaces four candidates: policy content via content-repo file vs env var, GPC / DNT headers, multi-language consent text, and the item #13 analytics-SDK gating dependency.

Changed

• frontend/.env.example — documents the two new optional env vars VITE_PRIVACY_POLICY_URL and VITE_COOKIES_POLICY_URL. Unset is supported; defaults render the framework's stub.
• backend/app/api_notifications.py — module docstring grew two endpoint lines; the new endpoints sit alongside the existing /api/users/me/* neighbors.
• frontend/src/App.jsx — registers /privacy and /cookies routes (anonymous-reachable), wires <CookieConsentBanner> into the global chrome, and listens for a rfc-app:cookie-consent-reopen custom event to re-open the banner from the settings surface.

Upgrade steps (from 0.7.0)

• You MUST rebuild the frontend and restart the backend after upgrading. frontend/package.json#version and VERSION both move to 0.13.0 and the build embeds the new env-var contract.
• You MUST apply schema migration 013_cookie_consent.sql. The migration creates a single new table keyed by user_id with three flag columns and a recorded_at stamp. The framework runs migrations automatically at process start; no manual step is required beyond restarting the backend so the migration runner picks the file up.
• You MAY set VITE_PRIVACY_POLICY_URL to an http(s) URL that points at your deployment's full privacy policy. The framework's /privacy page renders its built-in stub above a link to the configured URL. Unset is supported — the stub is sufficient for a default-config deployment.
• You MAY set VITE_COOKIES_POLICY_URL to an http(s) URL that points at your deployment's full cookies policy. Same shape as the privacy URL.
• You MAY announce the new consent banner to your users. Existing authenticated users will see the banner on their next visit (because their cookie_consent row does not yet exist); their current sessions remain valid.

0.7.0 — 2026-05-28

Minor — schema migration required; new auth path is additive. This release lands email + one-time-code sign-in (roadmap item #5, SPEC §6.2) as the primary human-auth gesture. Users sign in by typing their email, receiving a six-digit code via email, and entering it. The Gitea OAuth callback (/auth/callback) remains functional during migration — the new UI no longer points at it primarily, but a "Sign in with Gitea (fallback)" link survives on the new login surface so users with active OAuth sessions or older invite paths still have a way in. A future release retires the OAuth path entirely once every active user has signed in at least once via OTC.

The migration path for existing users: first OTC sign-in matches by users.email (case-insensitive) to the OAuth-era row and reuses that row's id and gitea_id. New users provisioned via OTC carry gitea_id = NULL and gitea_login = NULL. The gitea_id linker remains the canonical handle for grandfathered users; email becomes the identity key for everything provisioned after v0.7.0.

The Gitea bot user + token are still required (server-side git operations — repo reads, PR creation — still flow through it). Only the operator-facing sign-in surface moves.

Upgrade steps (from 0.6.0)

1. MUST restart the backend so migration 012_otc.sql runs. The migration rebuilds the users table (SQLite cannot ALTER COLUMN); existing rows pass through unchanged, but the new schema relaxes gitea_id / gitea_login to nullable (with partial unique indexes that ignore NULL) and adds a partial unique index on email. A new otc_codes table is created.
2. MUST confirm the SMTP overlay is set (SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT, SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASSWORD, SMTP_STARTTLS, EMAIL_FROM, EMAIL_FROM_NAME). The OHM overlay already carries these as of v0.5.0; deployments without them fall back to logging the code to stdout (dev-only path — production visitors will not receive their codes).
3. SHOULD announce the new email-based sign-in to existing users. Wording suggestion: "You can now sign in by entering your email and a one-time code we'll send you. Your old account is linked automatically the first time you sign in."
4. MAY keep the existing OAuth callback as a fallback path. The new login UI surfaces a small "Sign in with Gitea (fallback)" link beneath the primary email/code form; a deployment that prefers to hide it can override the Login component in a future framework release that exposes the link behind a feature flag. For v0.7.0, the link is hard-coded.

New environment variables (all optional with defaults)

• OTC_TTL_MINUTES (default 10) — how long a one-time code is valid after issuance. Re-requesting invalidates the prior code immediately regardless of TTL.
• OTC_REQUEST_COOLDOWN_SECONDS (default 60) — per-email cooldown between successive /auth/otc/request calls. The endpoint returns HTTP 429 when the cooldown blocks a request (the loud-failure shape; the abuse path is visible rather than swallowed).

No new secrets are required. The existing SECRET_KEY continues to sign session cookies; OTC codes are bcrypt-hashed at rest using a per-row salt the library generates.

Added

• POST /auth/otc/request — body {email}. Generates a six-digit code, stores its bcrypt hash with an expiry, and dispatches a plain text email via the existing SMTP layer. Returns HTTP 200 ({ok:true}) uniformly so allowlist state is not leaked. Returns HTTP 429 when the per-email cooldown blocks the request.
• POST /auth/otc/verify — body {email, code}. Validates the bcrypt hash against the most-recent unconsumed non-expired row, marks the row consumed, provisions or links the users row by email, and stores the session cookie. Returns HTTP 200 on success, HTTP 400 on any failure (expired, consumed, wrong, unknown).
• backend/migrations/012_otc.sql — creates otc_codes and rebuilds users with nullable gitea_id / gitea_login plus a partial unique index on email.
• backend/app/otc.py — the OTC request/verify state machine and the provision_or_link_user linker.
• backend/app/email_otc.py — outbound OTC mail composition. Reuses the SMTP plumbing from email.py (EmailConfig.from_env()) and the test buffer (_SENT) but writes its own envelope (no unsubscribe footer, no quiet-hours hold — OTC mail carries a credential and ignores notification preferences).
• frontend/src/components/Login.jsx — two-step sign-in surface at /login. Step 1: enter email → request code. Step 2: enter six-digit code → verify. Cmd/Ctrl+Enter on the code field submits. The previous header "Sign in" link and the Welcome component's inline link now route to /login instead of jumping straight to the Gitea OAuth dance.
• SPEC §6.1 / §6.2 / §14.1 / §17 / §19.2 corrections per §19.3 rule-2 — see below.
• backend/tests/test_otc_vertical.py — 11 new tests covering the happy path, expired/consumed/wrong codes, the per-email rate limit (and its per-email isolation), the allowlist gate, the migration link to OAuth-era users, fresh provisioning, and the prior-code-invalidation behavior on re-request.

Changed

• backend/app/auth.py#current_user — coerces NULL gitea_id and NULL gitea_login to 0 / "" so the SessionUser shape stays stable for OTC-only users. The DB remains the source of truth for "is this user OAuth-linked" (gitea_id IS NOT NULL).
• backend/requirements.txt — adds bcrypt>=4.2 for OTC code hashing. Pure-Python wheels are available on every platform the deployment matrix targets; pip install -r backend/requirements.txt picks it up.
• frontend/src/App.jsx — adds the /login route and replaces the header "Sign in" <a href="/auth/login"> with <Link to="/login">. The Welcome component's inline sign-in link follows suit.
• frontend/src/components/Landing.jsx — the /welcome page's primary action moves from "Sign in with Gitea" to "Sign in" pointing at /login.

Deferred to later releases

Per the v0.7.0 scope discipline (the foundation for items #6, #8, #9, #10), several adjacent capabilities are intentionally not in this release and surface as §19.2 candidates:

• First-OTC profile capture (first name, last name, "why") — item #6, expected v0.8.0.
• Open beta-access request flow replacing the allowlist gate — also item #6, v0.8.0.
• Passcodes (a long-term reauth token alternative) — item #8, expected v0.10.0.
• Device-trust 30-day skip — item #9, expected v0.11.0.
• Cloudflare Turnstile on /auth/otc/request — item #10, expected v0.12.0.
• Removing the Gitea OAuth /auth/callback route entirely — a later release after every active user has signed in via OTC.

0.6.0 — 2026-05-28

Minor — no operator action required. A sweep-the-edges hardening release (roadmap item #4, "anon discuss + contribute off-limits") that audits every write-shaped backend endpoint and asserts each one enforces an explicit auth.require_contributor (or stricter) gate before doing any state-changing work. v0.3.0 hid write affordances behind a sign-in CTA on the frontend; v0.5.0 added the PR-less discussion surface with its own write gate; v0.6.0 sweeps the rest and adds a regression test net so future endpoints can't quietly ship without a gate. No schema migration, no env-var changes, no new dependencies. The only behavioural change is one tightening: the GET /api/rfcs/<slug>/graduate/progress SSE now requires auth.require_user since it surfaces operator-visible step detail (repo name, PR number, rollback steps) not part of the v0.3.0 anonymous-read contract for catalog/RFC bodies.

Changed

• backend/app/api_graduation.py — GET /graduate/progress now calls auth.require_user(request) as its first line. Anonymous callers receive 401 instead of being able to subscribe to a graduation's SSE. The floor is require_user (not require_contributor) so a write-muted operator can still observe the progress of a graduation they kicked off before being muted.
• SPEC §6.1 (SPEC.md) — the Anonymous role's bullet now documents the v0.6.0 audit: every write-shaped endpoint in §17 enforces an explicit gate; anonymous writes refuse 401. The list of audited write families is recorded in-line.
• SPEC §10.10 — the discussion-vs-contribution section now records that the v0.5.0 write gates have a regression test net (test_anon_offlimits_vertical.py) added in v0.6.0.
• SPEC §17 — the GET /api/rfcs/<slug>/graduate/progress bullet now documents the require_user gate added in v0.6.0, with the rationale.

Added (tests)

• backend/tests/test_anon_offlimits_vertical.py — twelve new tests asserting that every write-shaped endpoint surveyed in the v0.6.0 audit refuses anonymous callers with 401, and that the five anonymous-read surfaces (health, philosophy, auth/me, catalog, RFC view, discussion threads, proposals) stay reachable. Sixty-six assertions in total, covering: propose; proposal merge / decline / withdraw; branch promote-to-branch / start-edit-branch / metadata / manual-flush / visibility / grants (POST + DELETE) / threads (POST) / messages (POST) / resolve / chat-seen / changes (accept / decline / reask) / chat-stream; super-draft start-edit-branch + metadata; PR pr-draft / open / seen / review / merge / withdraw / description / resolution-branch; discussion thread create + message post + resolve; admin role / mute / allowlist (POST + DELETE) plus the admin reads; notification preferences / quiet-hours / watch / mark-read / user-mute (POST + DELETE); funder credentials (POST + DELETE) + consent (POST + DELETE); graduation kickoff + claim + progress SSE; PR review page anonymous-readable.

Anonymous-writeable allowlist

Two endpoints are intentionally anonymous-by-design. They are not audit findings; they are documented here so the contract is explicit:

• GET /auth/login and GET /auth/callback — the OAuth round-trip. Anonymous-by-design because they ARE the sign-in entrypoint.
• POST /api/webhooks/gitea and POST /api/webhooks/email-bounce — anonymous in the session sense but authenticated by HMAC shared secret (GITEA_WEBHOOK_SECRET and WEBHOOK_EMAIL_BOUNCE_SECRET respectively). The webhook receiver is the wrong place for an authenticated session; the shared-secret shape is correct.

§19.2 candidates surfaced

• None unique to this release. The two pre-existing candidates the audit touched — anonymous-read polish for the discussion surface (carried from v0.5.0) and the operator-visibility floor on graduation progress — were settled here as require_user on /graduate/progress rather than deferred.

Upgrade steps (from 0.5.0)

1. The deployment MUST rebuild the frontend (npm install && npm run build) so the frontend bundle's reported version matches the backend's. No new env vars; existing frontend/.env is sufficient.
2. The deployment MUST restart the backend so the new require_user gate on /graduate/progress is enforced. No schema migration runs.
3. The deployment MAY announce the audit completion to operators: every write-shaped backend endpoint now enforces an explicit gate, and the test_anon_offlimits_vertical.py test net asserts the contract on every CI run. The audited surfaces are listed in the Added (tests) section above and in SPEC.md §6.1.
4. The deployment MUST NOT assume any new envelope behaviour: v0.6.0 is purely a hardening release. No schema, no env, no dependency changes; the operator's role is reduced to rebuild + restart.

0.5.0 — 2026-05-27

Minor — no operator action required. This release wires the PR-less per-RFC discussion surface (roadmap item #3, SPEC §10.10). An RFC's main view now carries a discussion panel distinct from PR comments and branch chat; contribution — proposing edits the document will land — still requires opening a PR via the §10.1 affordance. The substrate is the existing threads / thread_messages tables; rows with threads.branch_name IS NULL scope to the RFC's main view. No schema migration is required.

Added

• PR-less discussion endpoints (backend/app/api_discussion.py) mounted at /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/...:
  • GET /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/threads — list threads where threads.branch_name IS NULL. Anonymous-readable per the v0.3.0 contract; the default whole-doc chat thread is materialized lazily on first read.
  • POST /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/threads — open a new discussion thread (thread_kind='chat', anchor_kind='whole-doc', branch_name=NULL). Body: optional label, optional first message. Requires contributor role.
  • GET /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/threads/<thread_id>/messages — read messages on a discussion thread. Anonymous-readable.
  • POST /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/threads/<thread_id>/messages — post a message. Body: text, optional quote. Requires contributor role.
  • POST /api/rfcs/<slug>/discussion/threads/<thread_id>/resolve — resolve a discussion thread. Permission per §10.10: thread creator, RFC owner / arbiter, or app admin / owner.
• RFCDiscussionPanel.jsx — the right-column surface on the RFC view when the viewer is on main. Composer requires sign-in; Cmd/Ctrl+Enter sends. Multiple threads surface as pill-shaped tabs above the message feed. A "New thread" affordance opens a fresh thread on the same RFC.
• SPEC §10.10 PR-less discussion vs. contribution — settles the distinction between discussion (RFC-scoped, no PR, both anonymous-readable and contributor-writeable) and contribution (still requires a PR via §10.1). Also extends §5's threads table commentary so the null-branch interpretation is documented as actively used rather than reserved scaffold.
• SPEC §17 — lists the five new discussion/... endpoints in the illustrative table.

Changed

• backend/app/chat.py — _fan_out_chat now passes branch_name straight through to the notify chokepoint instead of coercing None to "main". The notifications row carries the null through, which preserves the §15.7 reconciler's keying on (rfc_slug, branch_name) for the eventual discussion-side chat-seen advance (deferred to a §19.2 candidate). Existing branch-scoped chat continues to pass non-null branch names; the change is invisible to that path.
• backend/app/notify.py — fan_out_chat_message's branch_name parameter is now typed str | None to match the v0.5.0 PR-less shape. Routing rules are unchanged; the inbox prose renders identically whether the chat lives on a branch or on the RFC's discussion surface, which is the right honest signal.
• RFCView.jsx — the right-column panel is now conditional: when branchParam === 'main', render RFCDiscussionPanel (the new PR-less surface); otherwise render the existing ChatPanel (branch chat unchanged).

§19.2 candidates surfaced

• PR-less discussion: range / paragraph anchors (the data model permits them; the UI is the deferred part).
• PR-less discussion: distinct notification event_kinds (open_rfc_discussion_thread, etc.) if usage shows contributors want to filter discussion-vs-branch in the §15.2 inbox.
• PR-less discussion: chat-seen cursor closing the §15.7 reconciliation loop for the new surface.
• PR-less discussion: AI participant invocation (discussion-only, no <change> block side-effects).
• PR-less discussion: anonymous-read polish to match the v0.6.0 write-gate hardening (item #4).

Upgrade steps (from 0.4.0)

1. The deployment MUST rebuild the frontend (npm install && npm run build) so RFCDiscussionPanel.jsx ships in the bundle. No new env vars; existing frontend/.env is sufficient.
2. The deployment MUST restart the backend so the new api_discussion router mounts. No schema migration runs — the threads table already supports branch_name IS NULL per §5, and the v0.5.0 build is the first to write rows in that shape.
3. The deployment MAY announce the new surface to its contributors: the RFC view's main page now carries a discussion panel below the document. Existing branch chat and PR review surfaces are unchanged.
4. The deployment SHOULD NOT expect a hardening of the anonymous-write gate in v0.5.0 — that lands in v0.6.0 (item #4). v0.5.0's write paths already refuse anonymous posts, so no pre-emptive operator action is needed.

0.4.0 — 2026-05-27

Minor — no operator action required beyond rebuild + restart. The proposer of a new RFC is now the implicit first owner of its super- draft entry, set automatically at propose time from the session user. The §13.1 claim flow remains available for additional owners. No schema changes, no env-var changes, no API-shape changes; only newly proposed RFCs receive the auto-owner — existing super-drafts whose owners: is empty are unaffected and can still be claimed via §13.1 as before. This is a §19.3 rule-2 spec correction: SPEC.md §9.1, §9.2, and §13.1 are updated to reflect the new shape.

Changed

• POST /api/rfcs/propose (backend/app/api.py) now sets Entry.owners = [user.gitea_login] when constructing the new super-draft entry, instead of owners=[]. The session's gitea_login is the canonical source; the endpoint never accepted an owner field from the request payload and still doesn't.
• SPEC.md §9.1 narrowed: the "no proposed-owner or working- group fields" sentence becomes a proposer-owner-auto / working- group-deferred split, with a §19.3 rule-2 note.
• SPEC.md §9.2 frontmatter shape: owners: [] → owners: [<proposer.gitea_login>], with a §19.3 rule-2 note.
• SPEC.md §13.1 reframed: claim flow is now a graduation-time broadening for additional owners, not a precondition for the proposer's own RFC. The §13.1 / §13.2 / §13.3 graduation pipeline itself is unchanged — the "at least one owner" precondition for graduation still holds and is now satisfied by default.

Upgrade steps (from 0.3.0)

1. The deployment MUST rebuild and restart per the routine deploy steps. No .env changes, no schema/migration changes, no API-shape changes.
2. Operators SHOULD note that newly proposed RFCs after the upgrade carry the proposer in owners: automatically. Existing super-drafts with empty owners: are not migrated; they remain claimable via the §13.1 flow exactly as before. No deployment- side data action is required.
3. Deployments MAY communicate the UX shift to active proposers (the "Claim ownership" affordance no longer applies to your own newly proposed RFC), but the affordance simply hides on RFCs the viewer already owns, so no operator-side action is required.

0.3.0 — 2026-05-27

Minor — operator action required if a deployment wants to enable the private-beta gate; no action required to stay open. This release adds an email allowlist that, when populated, restricts OAuth sign-in to the listed emails while keeping all read paths public. Anonymous visitors now see the full app (catalog, RFC bodies, public branch conversations) in read-only mode instead of the §14.1 landing-page wall.

Added

• allowed_emails table (backend/migrations/011_allowlist.sql). Empty list = gate off (any successful OAuth provisions a user, as before). Any rows present = gate on (only listed emails, plus users already grandfathered by gitea_id, may sign in).
• Admin → Allowlist tab at /admin/allowlist. Add/remove emails, see who added each row and when. Status banner shows whether the gate is currently active.
• /beta-pending page shown after a rejected OAuth callback. Free- text invite-contact line is configurable via the new VITE_BETA_CONTACT env var (optional; falls back to a generic line).
• Beta chips next to the Discuss/Contribute mode toggle, the Sign in link, and the header Sign-in button so anonymous viewers see immediately what is gated.
• Anonymous read mode in the React app: the §14.1 Landing page is preserved at /welcome for deployments that want to link to it, but the default route now renders the full app shell with write affordances hidden behind a sign-in CTA.

Changed

• /auth/callback now consults auth.is_allowed_sign_in() after fetching the Gitea profile. Rejected sign-ins clear the OAuth state and redirect to /beta-pending; the session is not populated.
• Catalog receives a viewer prop. Anonymous viewers see "Sign in to propose (Beta)" instead of "+ Propose New RFC".
• PhilosophyWithSidebar now reads authenticated from the current viewer instead of hardcoded true.

Fixed

• Single-finger scroll on the /philosophy page (and any other .chrome-pane-hosted view: /admin/*, /settings/notifications) was broken on iOS Safari. The .app container used height: 100vh, which on iOS measures the URL-bar-hidden ("largest") viewport — so .app overflowed what's actually visible. Combined with the body { overflow: hidden } in index.css, this meant single-finger touches on the visible area were consumed by the (blocked) page- level scroll attempt rather than reaching the nested .chrome-pane scroll. Two-finger touches bypassed the page-level layer and one-finger then worked once the URL bar had collapsed. Switched .app to height: 100dvh (dynamic viewport — adjusts as the URL bar shows/hides), with 100vh retained as a fallback for browsers predating iOS 15.4 / Chrome 108.

Upgrade steps (from 0.2.3)

1. The deployment MUST rebuild the frontend with the new VITE_BETA_CONTACT env var optionally set in frontend/.env (it is OK to leave it blank — the /beta-pending page falls back to a generic line).
2. The deployment MUST restart the backend so migration 011_allowlist.sql runs. No data loss; the new table starts empty, which keeps the gate off and preserves existing behavior.
3. To enable the private-beta gate, the deployment operator SHOULD sign in once (so their users row exists and they grandfather in by gitea_id), then open /admin/allowlist and add the first invited email. The first row added turns the gate on for any user not yet in users.
4. To stay open, do nothing — leave allowed_emails empty and the deployment behaves exactly as 0.2.3.
5. The deployment MAY customise its /beta-pending contact line by setting VITE_BETA_CONTACT (an email, a URL, or a short instruction) before the frontend build. Unset is fine.

0.2.3 — 2026-05-26

Patch — no operator action required. Rebuild and restart per the routine deploy steps; no .env changes, no schema changes, no behavior changes a deployment would notice in steady state beyond the new endpoint below.

Added

• GET /api/health — an unauthenticated probe returning JSON {version, status} for ops tooling. version is the running framework version (the contents of VERSION per §20.1, read at process start and cached as a module-level constant in backend/app/health.py); status is "ok" with HTTP 200 in v1. The "degraded" / HTTP 503 path stays reserved in the response shape so a later release can wire real degradation conditions without breaking the contract. The version-match check is the structural value — a deploy-control-panel polling the endpoint after systemctl restart catches the failure mode where a restart did not pick up the new code. See SPEC.md §17 and the §19.2 settlement.

Upgrade steps (from 0.2.2)

1. The deployment MAY configure its monitoring (Pingdom, Healthchecks.io, the flotilla deploy control panel, etc.) to probe /api/health and compare the returned version against the tag last deployed. The endpoint is unauthenticated by design — no PII in the payload, no session required.

0.2.2 — 2026-05-26

Patch — no operator action required. Rebuild the frontend and restart per the routine deploy steps; no .env changes, no schema changes, no behavior changes a deployment would notice in steady state beyond the fix below.

Fixed

• Mermaid blocks rendered as raw code on /philosophy. frontend/src/components/Philosophy.jsx parsed PHILOSOPHY.md with the bare marked import and dangerouslySetInnerHTML, so ```mermaid fences fell through as <pre> blocks rather than rendered diagrams. Swapped to MarkdownPreview, which already carries the lazy mermaid loader + SVG render path used by the RFC body view, so the philosophy surface now renders mermaid the same way RFC bodies do. Pre-existing gap, surfaced when a deployment authored a mermaid block in its PHILOSOPHY_PATH override.

0.2.1 — 2026-05-26

Patch — no operator action required. Rebuild the frontend and restart per the routine deploy steps; no .env changes, no schema changes, no behavior changes a deployment would notice in steady state.

Fixed

• PR view blank page (React #310). frontend/src/components/PRView.jsx declared its threadsByKind useMemo after the early-return guard for the loading state (if (!pr) return …). On first mount pr was null so the early return fired and 14 hooks were called; on the second render pr was populated and execution reached the useMemo, calling 15 hooks — violating the Rules of Hooks and unmounting the page subtree (blank screen). The useMemo is now declared above the early returns with optional-chaining on pr, keeping the hook count stable between the loading and loaded renders. Pre-existing bug in the post-Contribute-rewrite PR view; surfaced in production by 0.2.0's graduation merge race fix enabling the workflow that opens this code path.

0.2.0 — 2026-05-26

Breaking config change. The frontend now requires VITE_APP_NAME to be set at build time. npm run build fails with a clear message if it is missing. There is no default; every deployment names itself.

Upgrade steps (from 0.1.0)

1. The deployment MUST create a frontend/.env file before building. See frontend/.env.example for the contract.
2. The deployment MUST set VITE_APP_NAME in frontend/.env to the user-visible name it wants to ship — the string used as the browser tab title, the header brand, and the landing H1. The build will fail loudly if this is unset or blank.
3. The deployment MUST rebuild the frontend (npm install && npm run build) and redeploy the resulting bundle. The previous bundle does not read VITE_APP_NAME.
4. The deployment SHOULD verify the name appears correctly in the browser tab and the header after redeploy before bumping its .rfc-app-version pin to 0.2.0.
5. The deployment MAY, in the same upgrade, take the opportunity to retire any local overrides it was using to brand the pre-0.2.0 hardcoded strings — those overrides are now obsolete.
6. The deployment MUST NOT continue to expect graduation step 4 to fail on Gitea's "Please try again later" race; that path is now handled by wait_for_mergeable + bounded retry. Any local workaround retrying graduation at the deployment level is now redundant and SHOULD be removed.

Fixed

• Graduation merge race. §13.3 step 4 (merge_pr) used to call Gitea's merge endpoint the instant step 3 returned, which races Gitea's background mergeability computation and produces the 405 "Please try again later" response. Step 4 now waits for the mergeable field to become non-null (bounded by a 30s timeout) and retries the merge call up to three times on the transient response. See backend/app/gitea.py#wait_for_mergeable and backend/app/bot.py#_merge_with_retry.

Changed

• frontend/src/App.jsx header brand reads VITE_APP_NAME instead of a hardcoded string.
• frontend/src/components/Landing.jsx H1 reads VITE_APP_NAME instead of a hardcoded string. The pitch / deck / attribution copy in this file is still deployment-specific and tracked as a follow-up for extraction into deployment config.
• frontend/index.html <title> is rewritten at build time via Vite's HTML transform.

Added

• frontend/.env.example documenting the new required variable.
• Top-level VERSION file and this CHANGELOG.md as the canonical release log.
• SPEC.md §20 (versioning and downstream deployments) as the binding policy for the framework/deployment relationship.
• docs/DEPLOYMENTS.md as the practical guide for building on rfc-app and upgrading existing deployments to new versions.
• CLAUDE.md at the repo root capturing the separation-of-concerns rule for working sessions.

0.1.0 — v1 build

Initial release. See docs/DEV.md for the slicing plan and build history.