EI-5.4 — Contextual Linking

Status: COMPLETE
Date: 2026-08-08

Objective

Connect retained writing through deliberate editorial relationships rather than relying on legacy categories, chronology, or generic automated recommendations.

Implementation

The post layout now supports optional related front matter. When curated relationships are present, the layout renders those links with a short explanation of why the pieces belong together. Existing category-based related-reading behavior remains as a fallback for older material that still uses legacy categories.

The curated mechanism uses canonical subject metadata for its browse-more link and does not restore retired Blog/category architecture.

Relationships implemented

Learning to investigate systems

• Twenty-thirteen → A programmer, again
• A programmer, again → Twenty-thirteen

These pieces form a direct narrative from early curiosity about how a computer system works to later paid programming work.

Technology across time

• The Age of Marvels → The Intercom
• The Age of Marvels → Why IT support is hated
• Why IT support is hated → The Age of Marvels

These links connect scarce early-computing knowledge, the machines and networks of the 1980s, and a later troubleshooting story without forcing those relationships into the article prose.

1980s documentary context

• The Intercom → Random videos from the 1980s
• Random videos from the 1980s → The Intercom

The relationship joins remembered computing/media culture to surviving ordinary school-life footage from the same period.

Obsolete formats as history

• Narcopapa (2005) → The Age of Marvels

This link places the surviving record of a Flash-era artifact within the broader theme of once-current technology becoming historical evidence.

Editorial rules established

1. Contextual links are curated, not generated merely because two posts share a subject.
2. A relationship should explain something useful about why a reader might continue to the linked piece.
3. Contextual linking must not require rewriting otherwise-complete historical prose.
4. DELETE/privacy material is never eligible as a related item or contextual source.
5. PTIR and The Loudmouth remain governed by their own publication/collection structures rather than this authored-writing relationship layer.
6. The existing subject, History, Featured, Writing, and Archive surfaces remain the broader discovery mechanisms.

Result

EI-5.4 adds an editorial relationship layer to the retained corpus while preserving chronology, stable permalinks, historical provenance, and the canonical subject model.

No private material was restored or referenced. No historical dates or article prose were changed.

Next sprint: EI-5.5 — Featured Corpus Calibration.