DS-05 — Search Experience Redesign Notes

DS-05 — Search Experience Redesign Notes

Status: Review — implementation and validation complete; merge pending
Branch: agent/ds-05-search-redesign
Pull request: #13 — DS-05 Redesign Search experience

Implemented

  • Replaced the inherited generic page layout with the shared collection-page archetype.
  • Added a compact editorial Search hero with a direct path back to the Posts archive.
  • Added a bordered search-tools panel with visible labels for the query, category, and tag controls.
  • Replaced generated inline result styling with semantic result-card markup and shared classes.
  • Added result dates, categories, tags, series labels, subtitles, and excerpts where available.
  • Added loading, guidance, short-query, no-results, and index-error states.
  • Added URL query and filter restoration through q, category, and tag parameters.
  • Added filter-only browsing when no text query is entered.
  • Added URL synchronization, clear/reset behavior, and browser state restoration.
  • Preserved Lunr as the local search engine and expanded the index with series metadata and additional searchable content.
  • Separated Lunr prefix and fuzzy matching into compatible query strategies and merged duplicate-free ranked results.
  • Added responsive and dark-mode styling in _sass/search-interface.scss.
  • Preserved safe result construction by using DOM APIs and text content rather than injecting document values as HTML.
  • Consolidated the duplicate search.md and search.html sources into one canonical search.md page.
  • Added the generated search.json index to the compact validation artifact.

Validation completed

  • Protected Jekyll and Sass production build
  • JavaScript syntax validation
  • Generated Search JSON validity
  • Canonical /search/ output after duplicate-source removal
  • Default guidance state
  • URL-loaded query state
  • URL-loaded category and tag state
  • Filter-only browsing
  • Query and filter combinations
  • Short-query guidance
  • No-results state
  • Index-error state
  • Clear/reset behavior
  • Result links and metadata output
  • Search, filter, and action keyboard targets
  • Shared visible-focus treatment
  • Desktop visual review
  • Tablet responsive review
  • Mobile visual and runtime review
  • Light-mode review
  • Dark-mode review
  • Official Lunr query-path compatibility review

Evidence

  • GitHub Actions: Jekyll build run 23 completed successfully on the final runtime implementation commit.
  • Generated index: 120 published reflections parsed as valid JSON.
  • Runtime suite: default, URL query, filter-only, combined query/filter, short-query, no-result, clear/reset, index-error, mobile, and dark-mode states passed with no page errors.
  • URL behavior: q, category, and tag states populate on load and remain shareable as controls change.
  • Responsive behavior: result cards use two columns at desktop widths and one column on mobile.
  • Accessibility review: visible labels, search landmark, live status text, semantic ordered results, safe result text construction, and focusable controls were verified.
  • Visual review: desktop and mobile Search compositions were inspected in light and dark modes.
  • Compatibility review: official Lunr 2.3.9 source confirmed prefix wildcards and fuzzy edit-distance matching should be expressed as separate clauses rather than combined in one clause.

Deferred

  • Replacing Lunr with a hosted search provider remains out of scope.
  • Search analytics remain out of scope.
  • Category archive pages remain out of scope.
  • Search-result images and reading-time calculations remain deferred unless a later usability review establishes a clear need.