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List documents in reading order, and link each README to its own Pages site - #22

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CSchank wants to merge 2 commits into
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CSchank:logical-order-clean
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CSchank wants to merge 2 commits into
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CSchank:logical-order-clean

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@CSchank

@CSchank CSchank commented Sep 15, 2026

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Follows up on your second comment in #21, plus a related fix to the README
link. Two separable changes, happy to split them if you would rather take one
without the other.

1. The documents are listed in reading order

The index page listed documents alphabetically by folder, which put the
checklists first and the problem statement in the middle. The order now comes
from the Final Documentation (Revision 1) list in the course outline:

Problem Statement → Development Plan → Requirements → Hazard Analysis →
Design → V&V Plan → V&V Report → User Guide → Custom Documents →
Reflection and Traceability → Project Management → Checklists

As you noted, this is deliberately not the order the documents are written
in. The V&V plan is written in week 8 and the design in week 10, but the
design is read first.

Within a section the order is explicit wherever alphabetical was wrong: the
requirements document before its FAQ, the module guide before the module
interface specification, and the productivity reports chronologically rather
than alphabetically. The checklists mirror the deliverables, so they follow
the same order as the sections.

Sections now carry readable titles, so projMngmnt and CDs read as Project
Management and Custom Documents. That seemed to fit your point about the
documentation being useful to people outside the course, but it is a one-line
change to go back to the folder names if you prefer them, as on the SynthEddy
page.

I also added a sentence at the top of the page explaining that the order is
the reading order rather than the writing order. Happy to drop it or reword
it — you will have much better words for this than I do.

A folder not named in the ordering is listed after the known ones,
alphabetically, so adding a new document folder cannot make it disappear from
the page.

You can see the result at https://cschank.github.io/capTemplate/

2. The README links to each repository's own page

The README links to the template's Pages site with a comment asking teams to
update it, which is easy to miss, so most repositories made from the template
will keep linking here rather than to their own documentation.

Since the build already commits to the repository, it now corrects the link
too, deriving the address from the repository it runs in. Any Markdown link in
the README whose target is a github.io address is treated as the project's
Pages link; a README with no such link is left alone, since a team may
reasonably reword or remove it. The URL in this PR is unchanged, because this
repository's own page really is the one currently linked.

One limitation: the address is derived from the repository name, so a
repository using a Pages custom domain would get its github.io address rather
than the custom one.

One fix that the first change needed

site/ was not in the workflow's path filters, so a change to the page
template did not trigger a run and was never published. It is added here, and
ignored when deciding what to rebuild, since it changes the page rather than
any PDF.

Still hardcoded, deliberately left alone

docs/ProblemStatementAndGoals/ProblemStatement.tex links to
https://smiths.github.io/capTemplate/Checklists/ProbState-Checklist.pdf, so
every team's problem statement points at the checklist here rather than at
their own build. I suspect that is what you want, since this copy is the
canonical one, but the same substitution would work on the .tex files if you
would rather it pointed at each team's own page.

On your question in #21

The Pages site does not link to the pdfs/ folder — it serves its own copy,
uploaded as the Pages artifact, so every PDF is published twice. Linking to
the folder in the repository instead would avoid that, and I am happy to try
it, though the current arrangement does mean the site keeps working even if
the committed copies are ever removed.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

CSchank and others added 2 commits September 15, 2026 11:15
The index page listed documents alphabetically by folder, which put the
checklists first and the problem statement in the middle. They are now
listed in waterfall order, taken from the Final Documentation (Revision 1)
list in the course outline.

That order is deliberately not the order the documents are written in:
the V&V plan is written in week 8 and the design in week 10, but the
design is read first. Listing them this way reinforces the rational
design process the documentation presents, and makes the set easier to
follow for a reader from outside the course.

Sections carry readable titles, so that projMngmnt and CDs read as
Project Management and Custom Documents. Within a section the order is
explicit where alphabetical was wrong: the requirements document before
its FAQ, architecture before detailed design, and the productivity
reports in chronological rather than alphabetical order. The checklists
mirror the deliverables, so they follow the same order as the sections.

A folder not named in the ordering is listed after the known ones,
alphabetically, so adding a document cannot make it disappear from the
page.

site/ is added to the workflow path filters, since a change to the page
template previously did not trigger a run and so was never published. It
is ignored when deciding what to rebuild, because it changes the page
rather than any PDF.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The README links to the template's own GitHub Pages site, with a comment
asking teams to update it. That is easy to miss, so every repository made
from the template is likely to keep linking to the template's
documentation rather than its own.

The build already commits to the repository, so it now corrects the link
as well, deriving the address from the repository it is running in. Any
Markdown link in the README whose target is a github.io address is
treated as the project's Pages link. A README with no such link is left
alone, since a team may reasonably reword or remove it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
@CSchank CSchank changed the title List the documents on the index page in reading order List documents in reading order, and link each README to its own Pages site Sep 15, 2026
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