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#29767
Clean up loose design documents (docs/, specs/, module doc folders): valid content into the developer documentation, open work into tickets
Problem
Design documents, implementation plans, specs, mockups and work lists of finished features lay scattered over the engine repository: the folder docs/ (170 files: docs/plans/, docs/superpowers/, docs/sweeps/, docs/prototypes/), the folder specs/, react-integration.md in the root, docs/ and doc/ folders of single modules (com.top_logic.layout.view, com.top_logic.layout.react, tl-ai-core, tl-chat, tl-ai-demo, com.top_logic.element, com.top_logic.reporting, com.top_logic.reporting.office, com.top_logic.template, com.top_logic.search.*) and SPEC-audio-recorder.md. Since #29765 the developer documentation lives in the module jars (<module>/src/main/java/META-INF/tl-docs/), where an application finds it through the tl-mcp tools and the documentation window. Valid content in the loose files was invisible there, unfinished work was tracked only in files, and several loose files described designs that were never built that way.
Solution
All loose design documents are removed. Their content was checked against the current code; what a developer needs today is in the developer documentation, what is not built is in tickets.
New and extended developer articles
- tl-core: access-checks (the ModelAccessRights API, creating objects, the can* / filterSecurity functions, secured evaluation in own code), additions to access-configuration (<revoke>, inherit of module grants, role-parent steps, <singleton> steps), the chapter authentication (login in both UIs, single sign-on login methods, authentication/mfa).
- tl-security-selfservice: authentication/self-service (password reset, second-factor reset, invitations).
- tl-element: change-log (change log of an object and its subtree, <change-subtree>, undo / redo / revert).
- tl-layout-view: view-layer/client-server-protocol, a section on <slot> / <slot-content> in view-layer/layout, attribute access in forms and tables in view-layer/access-control, the script recorder in view-layer/diagnostics.
- tl-layout-react: view-layer/headless-interface; tl-layout-view-agent: view-layer/agent-access.
- tl-ai-core: the detail documents of the AI modules as articles of the ai chapter (logging, environment, deep-research, script-and-scheduled-runs, security/test-bed, and sections in tools-and-skills, limits-and-caching, providers, delegation, memory-and-citations, chat-ui). The test-bed harness scripts and the sample upload of tl-ai-demo moved to tl-ai-demo/src/test/.
References to the deleted files in JavaDoc, comments, configuration comments, the upgrade guide 7.11 → 8.0, the startup message of the old LLMService configuration and the descriptions of #29088, #29092, #29109, #29341 and #29430 point to the articles. The description of #29092 now names the modules that were actually built.
Open work as tickets
- Table model: #30036 (and #29341).
- Flow diagram: #30033; Gantt chart: #30034; model editor: #30035.
- Polymorphic configuration wildcard sweep: #30037.
- Login, second factor and password reset defects: #30039; self-service: #30041; change-log tests: #30040.
- View layer slots: #30045; unused ReactComponentRegistry: #30046; administration views not yet ported: #30047.
- Agent access: #30048; headless interface: #30049; script recorder: #30050; audio transcription: status in #29109.
- AI runs: tool worker pool and queued chat messages #30053; screenshots view #30054.
Dropped: the phase-1a UI concepts (ideas without a consumer), the msgbuf feature requests (resolved upstream as msgbuf/msgbuf #9-#11), documents of 2006-2010 (view-based security UML, template syntax draft, reporting documentation and slides) and empty search stubs.
Kept: build notes (HOWTO-GWT-COMPILE.md, HOWTO-RELEASE.md, BUILDING.md, TRIAGE.md) and the vendored HttpUnit distribution in ext.com.meterware.httpunit/doc.