>> mcamner journal linking
The journal has no database. No CMS. No build step.
Every post is a plain HTML file and every route is a line in site.js.
The constraint is not accidental — it is the design.
The linking system has two parts. The first is navigation: a command bar
at the top of every page where you type routes like /note 019
or /journal. The second is cross-linking: each post ends with
a journal-box that connects it to the previous note,
the repository, and the index.
Creating a new post means three things: write the HTML, add the note entry
to journal.html, add two routes to site.js.
That is the whole system.
There is no automation unless you choose to build it.
The skill file for the journal describes every step explicitly —
not because the steps are complex, but because they must be done in order
every time.
The cross-links between posts form a chain. Each note points to the note before it. The journal index lists all notes. There is no recommendation engine, no tag cloud. If you want to find something, you scroll. That friction is intentional. Slow discovery over algorithmic sorting.
The SVG figure convention came from needing a visual signature without images. Each post gets a small geometric shape in the journal's color palette. The constraint forced a specific kind of drawing: pixel-art geometry that fits in 50×20 viewBox units. It scales without loss.
This is what makes the system legible over time.
Everything that connects to everything else is visible in the source.
A link is not a metadata field — it is an <a> tag
someone typed.
When a link exists, someone chose to put it there.
That is a different relationship to structure than a generated graph.