MOTIVATION

The renderer has been stripped of all reserved payload keys. _embed was removed in ticket 8d949ef3 and _links was removed in 6dafb799. Both removals were deliberate — the data model should describe what exists, and the UI layer should decide how to present what exists. Payload directives violated that principle and are gone.

The consequence of those removals: the world-UI pages at /w/:slug/... currently render without inline links (entity ids and turn refs are plain text) and without a breadcrumb navigation strip. Separately, the /dashboard page lists worlds but provides no clickable entry point into any specific world's session page — the slug and name cells are plain text, so discovery requires copying a slug and typing a URL.

This parent ticket bundles the work to restore all three capabilities, built on the clean metadata rather than on top of it. Every restoration derives its output from context passed explicitly from route handler to renderer, or from concrete fields on the world registry. Payloads stay pure data. No reserved keys reintroduced.

================================================================ THE PRINCIPLE

UI chrome — linking, navigation, discovery affordances — is derived from route context and registry data, not from payload directives. The renderer gets told what page it's rendering and where that page sits in the hierarchy. It produces chrome from that information plus static rules. Payloads describe the world, turn, or entity being displayed and contain no presentation instructions.

================================================================ SHARED DESIGN: PageContext

Both Child A and Child B consume a single context struct, constructed by the route handler in src/server.rs:

pub struct PageContext { pub page_type: PageType, // Session | Turn | Entity pub world_slug: String, // always present for /w/... routes pub turn: Option, // Some for Turn pages pub entity_id: Option, // Some for Entity pages pub chain_range: Option<(u64, u64)>, // min/max turn for prev/next gating }

pub enum PageType { Session, Turn, Entity }

One struct, two consumers. The handler builds it once per request and passes it to render::render_page alongside the payload. The renderer calls into linking (Child A) and nav (Child B) with the same context.

The context shape is established here as documentation. The struct itself lives in src/render.rs and is introduced by whichever child lands first; the second child imports it. No struct definition merges from this parent — the parent is documentation and ticketing only.

Child C does NOT need PageContext. It operates at the dashboard layer, which is outside the world-UI render flow.

================================================================ END-TO-END NAVIGATION AFTER ALL THREE CHILDREN LAND

• Landing → Dashboard (already works)
• Dashboard → Session (Child C: slug and name cells become clickable)
• Session → Turn (Child A: turn_NNNNNN refs in turn list become links)
• Session → Entity (Child A: entity ids in entities list become links)
• Turn → Entity (Child A: entity refs in events become links)
• Entity → Turn (Child A: turn refs in event history become links)
• Any world-UI page → Session (Child B breadcrumb)
• Any world-UI page → Dashboard (Child B breadcrumb)
• Turn → adjacent Turn (Child B breadcrumb prev/next arrows)

Every point-to-point navigation is covered once all three land.

================================================================ CHILDREN

Child A — Pattern rules for inline linking (PageContext). Adds src/linking.rs with a rules table, threads PageContext into the renderer, reuses replace_exact_skipping_tags (retained from 8d949ef3 for exactly this purpose). Entity ids and turn refs in rendered content become clickable anchors.

Child B — Breadcrumb navigation (PageContext). Adds a breadcrumb generator (in src/render.rs), per-page-type match arm, threads PageContext into the renderer, emits <nav> above the title. Dashboard link on every world page, session link on turn and entity pages, prev and next turn arrows on turn pages.

Child C — Dashboard entry points. Makes the dashboard a functional entry point: slug and name cells on each row link to /w/:slug; rows sort by last_activity newest-first. Operates on src/html.rs and src/server.rs, independent of the other two children.

================================================================ PARALLELIZATION

Same pattern as the 8894dd80 model-adjustments parent: shared principle, independent children, no sequence dependency. No depends_on edges between the three children.

File overlap analysis:

• Child A touches src/linking.rs (new), src/render.rs (adds linking call in render_page), and src/server.rs (constructs PageContext in handlers).
• Child B touches src/render.rs (adds breadcrumb generator and nav emission before title) and src/server.rs (constructs PageContext in handlers, same as Child A).
• Child C touches src/html.rs (dashboard row rendering) and src/server.rs (possibly adds last_activity to WorldRow construction).

A and B both modify src/render.rs in adjacent but distinct line ranges (linking as a post-pass, nav as a pre-title emission), and both modify src/server.rs to construct PageContext. Normal rebase hygiene handles this. C touches html.rs and a different part of server.rs; zero overlap risk.

================================================================ ACCEPTANCE

Parent accepts when all three children resolve. No cascade needed; children close themselves.

Post-parent live check against the deployed ant-verify world:

• From /dashboard, click on the ant-verify row → land on /w/ant-verify without typing the URL.
• On /w/ant-verify, see a breadcrumb with dashboard link.
• On /w/ant-verify, entity ids (ant, crumb, etc.) in the rendered content are <a> wrapped links.
• On /w/ant-verify, turn_NNNNNN refs in the turn list are <a> wrapped links.
• Click through to /w/ant-verify/turn/2, see breadcrumb with dashboard + session + ← turn 1 (no next, since 2 is the current max).
• On /w/ant-verify/turn/2, entity refs in events are clickable.
• Click through to /w/ant-verify/entity/ant, see breadcrumb with dashboard + session. Turn refs in the event history are clickable.
• ?format=json on every page returns pure data: no _links, no _embed, no new reserved top-level keys.

================================================================ EXPLICITLY OUT OF SCOPE

• Any other page type beyond the three existing world-UI pages and the dashboard. New page types are their own tickets.
• Any ticket-UI, OAuth, or code-nav integration. Those surfaces have their own chrome; this parent only covers the world simulator UI and its dashboard entry point.
• Cross-world links. A reference to another world's slug inside rendered content does not become a link.
• Reintroducing _embed or _links as escape hatches.
• External URL auto-linking in rendered content.
• Client-side JS. All navigation is server-rendered HTML anchors and plain URL clicks.
• Live updates / SSE on world pages. Refresh to see new turns.

All three model-adjustment children implemented, merged, deployed, and smoke-verified against the live ant-verify world.

Children summary

• 5db770f0 (Child A) — inline linking via pattern rules: 8eb05c1 → e82f125 merge. NEW src/linking.rs (~450 lines) with static RULES table + sort-by-needle-length-descending + replace_exact_skipping_tags consumer (the helper retained through the last three tickets now has a live user; dead_code warning is gone). 8 new unit tests.
• ba39e5d1 (Child B) — breadcrumb nav via PageContext: 799984f → merge 83def6f. render_breadcrumbs + render_page context threading + handler-side PageContext construction. 8 new unit tests.
• 06dab5e7 (Child C) — dashboard entry points: 93e6724 → 2fca0a2 merge. Dashboard rows clickable + last_activity-descending sort. 4 new unit tests. Open-knob decision documented (did NOT add last_activity as a visible column).

Cross-cutting

• Main HEAD: 83def6f (bundled merge of all three children atop the observability + heartbeat-fix work from the earlier notification-activation cycle).
• PageContext + PageType definitions from A and B were byte-identical by design; the merge kept one copy after dedup in the conflict resolve. Doc comments combined to cover both behaviors (breadcrumb + linking).
• Child C is fully independent; merged with zero file overlap.
• cargo build clean; dead_code warning on replace_exact_skipping_tags eliminated (Child A's linking module consumes it).
• cargo test --lib: 323 passed (303 baseline + 8 linking + 8 breadcrumb + 4 dashboard = 323).
• cargo test --test phase0: 14 passed.
• No new Cargo dependencies.

End-to-end acceptance chain (per the parent's spec)

All verified against live ant-verify world on pod chukwa-6db8f6888f-tfxbj:

• Landing → Dashboard: unchanged, works.
• Dashboard → Session: /dashboard HTML has 2 anchors to /w/ant-verify (Child C).
• Session → Turn: /w/ant-verify has 3 turn_NNNNNN anchors in the turn list (Child A regex rule).
• Session → Entity: /w/ant-verify has 3 ant entity anchors (Child A entities-map rule).
• Turn → Entity / Entity → Turn: same linking layer produces both directions in rendered event content.
• Any world-UI page → Session / Dashboard: breadcrumb <nav class="links"> above <h1> on all three page types (Child B).
• Turn → adjacent Turn: /w/ant-verify/turn/1 has prev link to /w/ant-verify/turn/0 and next link to /w/ant-verify/turn/2 (chain_range gating).

Pure-data invariant preserved

?format=json on every /w/... route returns a top-level object with NO reserved keys — no _links, no _embed, no new keys. The data model describes what exists; the UI layer decides how to present what exists. Achieved without payload directives as the parent's principle demanded.

Not-yet-filed follow-ups (both mentioned in the parent spec)

• replace_exact_skipping_tags now has its first real consumer (Child A). If future ticket wants to add more rules, the linking module is the natural home.
• The NavContext in the parent spec's design note is effectively implemented as PageContext; same struct, slightly different name in the parent doc. No separate work needed.

Per standing guidance I am not confirming this parent ticket — only proposing. The three children are also in proposed_resolution; accepting them resolves their individual contributions, and closing this parent afterward reflects the bundle is complete. Cascade not needed at acceptance time since children close independently.