Generated from cat-harness/processes/ui/staging-render-log.bpmn by gen-processes-viz.ts — do not edit here. All processes

Render log — the publish branch keeps its own history

Process_RenderLog · strict · 6 step(s)

Every change to the publish branch appends an entry to _render-log/<day>.jsonl. A removal is a NEW entry, never the erasure of the rendered one before it — the pair is the history. The lane is the build pipeline because every writer is a workflow job; no agent decides what goes in this log. A system lane runs a fixed program and exercises no judgement, which is exactly what an append-only log wants.

The question it exists to answer: what happened to STAGING/, and why. Bean `plj1` is why it is needed — a full-replace deploy silently deleted every open PR's preview, for months, and the publish branch kept no record of its own changes. The publish branch has several publishers and one of them replaces the whole branch, which is why a removed preview needs a record of its own.

How it connects

• Called by: no call activity names this process
• Calls: none
• Presented on: no docs page section shows this diagram

Lanes — who acts

lane	role	what it does here
CI/CD Pipeline	build-pipeline	Every branch of GW_What — deploy, takedown, full-replace — is logged by this same lane regardless of which is firing, and the ORDER matters as much as the fact: A_LogRemoved happens before A_Remove specifically so a job that dies mid-step leaves a record of intent rather than an artefact that vanished with nothing said about it.

Steps

Every one of the 6 step(s) is documented.

step	lane	skill / sub-process	what it does
Append rendered A_LogRendered	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	A re-deploy is a rendering, so it gets its own entry rather than overwriting the last. “When was this last built” is then answerable without diffing commits.
Preflight: is the preview live? A_Preflight	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	previewLiveness — a disjunction over open-pr, unmerged-branch and recent-commit, shared with the health sweep so the two cannot disagree. Bean w2g5: a preview whose pull request is closed is NOT an abandoned one.
Append retained with the reason A_LogRetained	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	THE ENTRY THAT MAKES THE LOG WORTH READING. A preview still standing because a signal fired leaves no trace otherwise, and the next person asking “why is this still up” has nothing to consult. A reason is REQUIRED — the tool refuses without one.
Append removed with the reason A_LogRemoved	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	BEFORE the removal, not after: a job that dies mid-step must leave a record of the intent rather than an artefact that vanished with no entry. A reason is REQUIRED — an entry saying an artefact went and not why is the ambiguity this log exists to prevent.
Remove the artefact A_Remove	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	rm -rf STAGING/<slug>. Cannot reach the log, which lives outside STAGING/ — structural rather than guarded, because a branch named to collide with a directory under STAGING/ slugifies to exactly that name and git permits the ref.
Append restored A_LogRestored	CI/CD Pipeline	render-logging	A full-replace deploy (docs-site.yml, the only publisher without keep_files) wipes the branch; restore-staging carries the previews AND this log back in. Its own event rather than a second rendered, because “somebody pushed this branch” and “an unrelated merge nearly deleted it” are different facts — and bean plj1 is what happens when the second is invisible.

Decisions

Every one of the 2 decision(s) is documented.

decision	what decides it	branches
What is happening? GW_What	What is about to happen to the publish branch? A deploy appends rendered; a takedown first preflights whether the preview is live; a full-replace deploy appends restored for the previews it put back.	deploy → Append rendered takedown → Preflight: is the preview live? full-replace deploy → Append restored
Any liveness signal fired? GW_Live	Answered by the preflight: did any liveness signal fire for this preview? yes — refuse keeps it and appends retained with the reason; no removes it and appends removed with the reason.	yes — refuse → Append retained with the reason no → Append removed with the reason